Collins Made 'Mogging' Its Word of the Year. The Dictionary Got Mogged by Teenagers
A word born on misogynist forums and adopted by Gen Z as a joke is Collins' 2026 pick. The runners-up include the end of civilization.
By the Heckle Desk · · 2 min read
Collins Dictionary announced Tuesday that its 2026 word of the year is 'mogging,' and a few hundred Americans immediately searched to find out what they'd been accused of. It means to outshine or upstage somebody, and Collins says young people use it playfully and ironically, which is how young people use everything, including their parents. Usage rose 210% this year, according to the dictionary, which is roughly the rate at which my knees are failing, so I understand the urgency.
The word has a pedigree you wouldn't bring to a dinner party. It started in what the papers call the manosphere, from the acronym 'AMOG,' alpha male of the group, and on misogynist forums in the 2010s to 'mog' a man was to outdo him in desirability. Then Gen Z and Gen Alpha got hold of it and turned it into teasing among friends. That's the whole history of language in a paragraph: a word starts as something ugly in a basement and ends up a joke at a sleepover, and the fellows in the basement are the last to learn they're being laughed at.
The rest of the list is where the dictionary shows its mood. 'Carspreading' is carmakers building vehicles ever longer, wider and heavier, so a man can now be car-mogged in a grocery store lot. 'Ghost jobs' are ads for jobs nobody plans to fill, which used to be called the economy. 'Fricy' is food that's fruity and spicy at once. And 'Manchesterism' is the political philosophy of Andy Burnham, whose use of it surged after he became Britain's prime minister, which proves a man can get into the dictionary just by being from somewhere.
Then there's 'p(doom),' the estimated probability that artificial intelligence collapses human civilization. Its usage rose too. That's the first time I can remember the end of the world losing a vocabulary contest to a playground insult, and I can't decide whether it's a sign of hope or the most damning thing anybody's said about us. The tech billionaires who built the doom have been mogged by children, and if the machines do take over, at least we'll have the right word for it.
Collins picked 'brat' in 2024, so the trend is plain: the dictionary now takes its orders from people too young to rent a car. There's no shame in that. English has always been made by the young and written down by the old, the way a river is made by the rain and measured by men in waders. Every generation gets the word it deserves, and ours, it turns out, is the one that means somebody else is winning.