Collins Dictionary chooses ‘mogging' as its 2026 word of the year

Collins Dictionary has named “mogging” — a slang word meaning to outshine someone or something — as its word of the year. Dictionary experts said Tuesday that the word, most often used by young people “in a playful and ironic way when someone is upstaged, has entered mainstream language and saw a 210% increase in usage in 2026. Other new and notable entries include “firewaves, defined as a series of urban wildfires in a short space of time, and “P(doom),” an estimation of the probability that artificial intelligence will bring about the collapse of human civilization. Alex Beecroft, Collins managing director, said that choosing “mogging” shows how “each generation leaves its mark on language.” “It’s a great example of how Gen Z and Gen Alpha have adopted a word and turned it into humorous slang, making the language their own and ‘mogging’ the rest of us, he said. The dictionary said that its experts monitor the 27-billion-word database, which draws from sources inclu