Over the past few months, Jennifer Lawrence, World Series fans and right-wing influencers have all confessed to it. And now, the people behind the Oxford English Dictionary are getting into the act.

过去几个月里，詹妮弗·劳伦斯、职棒“世界大赛”的球迷和右翼网红都承认做过这样的事。现在，《牛津英语词典》的编纂者们也参与了进来。

Oxford University Press has chosen “rage bait” — defined as “online content deliberately designed to elicit anger or outrage by being frustrating, provocative or offensive” — as its 2025 Word of the Year.

牛津大学出版社将“引战”(rage bait)选为其2025年的年度词汇，它指的是“故意通过令人沮丧、挑衅或冒犯的方式引发愤怒或愤慨的网络内容”。

“Rage bait,” which triumphed over the more upbeat “biohack” and “aura farming,” goes back at least to 2002, when it appeared in a post on a Usenet discussion group to describe a particular kind of driver reaction to being flashed by another driver seeking to pass. Since then, it has become an increasingly common slang term for an attention-seeking form of online behavior.

“引战”打败了更乐观的“健康整活”(biohack)和“培养人设”(aura farming)，这个词至少可以追溯到2002年，当时它出现在Usenet的一个讨论组中，用来描述某类司机对超车者闪灯示意时的反应。从那时起，它成了一个越来越普遍的俚语，用于指代一种寻求关注的网络行为。

Over the past year, according to Oxford’s data, frequency of use spiked by a factor of three. The two-syllable open-compound word lands with blunt force. It also sparks an immediate “aha.”

根据牛津大学的数据，在过去的一年里，这个词的使用频率飙升了三倍。这个双音节开放式复合词具有强烈的冲击力，能让人瞬间恍然大悟。

“Even if people have never heard it before, they instantly know what it means,” Casper Grathwohl, the president of Oxford Languages, said in an interview. “And they want to talk about it.”

“即使以前从未听说过这个词，也能立刻知道它的意思，”牛津语言协会主席卡斯珀·格拉斯沃在接受采访时说。“大家都想讨论这个词。”

Oxford’s Word of the Year, which began in 2004, is based on usage evidence drawn from its continually updated corpus of some 30 billion words, which is compiled from news sources across the English-speaking world. The idea is to identify new or emerging words with social and cultural significance, backed by data.

《牛津词典》的年度词汇评选始于2004年，其依据是从其不断更新的约300亿词语料库中提取的用法证据，这些语料库汇集了英语世界新闻来源的语言数据，旨在通过数据来识别具有社会和文化意义的新词或新兴词汇。

As in the past few years, Oxford’s experts chose a short list, and then invited the public to weigh in. This year, there was a new twist: The entries were turned into personified candidates, who sold themselves in on-trend vertical videos by the creative studio Uncommon. (Sample pitch: “What rage bait lacks in empathy, nuance or class they make up for in absolutely nothing.”)

和过去几年一样，牛津大学的专家们筛选出候选词短名单，然后邀请公众参与。今年有了一个小变化：入围词被变成了拟人化的候选人，由创意工作室Uncommon制作成时髦的竖屏视频为自己拉票。（举个例子：“‘引战’确实没同理心、没分寸、没格调，但它好在别的地方也一无是处。”）

The winner was chosen by Oxford’s committee, based on the vote (more than 30,000 people weighed in), public conversation and data analysis.

获奖年度词汇由牛津大学委员会根据投票（超过3万人参与）、公众讨论和数据分析选出。

“The point of the Word of the Year is to encourage people to reflect on where we are as a culture, who we are at the moment, through the lens of words we use,” Grathwohl said. “The whole point is to create conversation.”

格拉斯沃说：“评选年度词汇的目的是鼓励人们通过我们使用的词汇来反思当下文化图景与自我定位，其核心价值在于激发社会对话。”

Over the years, winners have included “selfie” (2013), “post-truth” (2016), “toxic” (2018) and “vax” (2021). In the past few years, they have tended to have a distinctly Gen Z, very-online cast.

历年获奖词汇包括“自拍”（selfie，2013年）、“后真相”（post-truth，2016年）、“有毒”（toxic，2018年）和“疫苗”（vax，2021年）。近几年的词汇往往带有鲜明的Z世代特征，极具网络属性。

Some winners, like 2023’s “rizz” (short for “charisma”) give a zingy new name to a familiar thing. “It’s sometimes about the intangible pleasure of saying and speaking a word,” Grathwohl said.

一些获奖词汇，比如2023年的“rizz”（charisma的简写，即魅力。——译注）给一个熟悉的事物起了一个活泼的新名字。格拉斯沃解释说：“有时纯粹是出于说出某个词语时那种难以言喻的愉悦感。”

Others, like the 2024 winner, “brain rot” (the supposed deterioration of mental capacity brought on by overconsumption of trivial online content), describe a new experience that many are feeling without knowing what to call it. And whether or not “brain rot” is real, the word is still going strong, with usage continuing to surge.

还有一些词，比如2024年的获奖词“脑腐”（brain rot，指过度浏览琐碎的网络内容导致的智力退化），描述了一种很多人都不知道该怎么称呼的新体验。不管“脑腐”是不是真的，这个词仍然很流行，使用频率持续飙升。

This year’s finalists, Grathwohl said, reflect the ways that 2025 has been defined by “questions about who we really are, both online and offline,” and the ways the internet both manipulates us emotionally, and allows us to manipulate others.

格拉斯沃说，今年的入围作品反映了2025年被定义为“关于我们自我认知的问题，无论是线上还是线下”，以及互联网如何操纵我们的情感，也允许我们操纵他人。

“Aura farming,” defined as the careful “cultivation of an impressive, attractive or charismatic persona or personality,” arose around 2023, according to Oxford’s research. Usage nearly doubled over the past year, spiking in July in connection with a viral video of a young boy in Indonesia doing a motivational dance on the prow of a racing boat.

根据牛津大学的研究，“培养人设”的定义是精心“培养令人印象深刻的、有吸引力的或有魅力的人物或个性”，这一概念在2023年左右出现。在过去的一年里，它的使用量几乎翻了一番，并在7月因一个印尼少年在竞速艇船头跳励志舞的热转视频而激增。

Linguistically, it merges a somewhat mystical Latin borrowing, aura, with a 15th-century word relating to the cultivation of crops. “What I love is the banal and the sublime put together,” Grathwohl said.

在语言学上，该词融合了略带神秘色彩的拉丁语借词aura（光环）与15世纪指代农作物培育的词汇。格拉斯沃说：“我喜欢的是这种平凡与崇高的结合。

“Biohack,” a verb describing attempts to “improve or optimize one’s physical or mental performance, health, longevity or well-being,” was first recorded around 2011. Its usage also doubled in the past year, aided by growing conversation among “broligarchs,” as Grathwohl put it, and other powerful people. (He noted an incident in September, when Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping were caught on a hot mic talking about organ transplants and the possibility of living to 150.)

“健康整活”是一个动词，描述的是“改善或优化一个人的身体或精神表现、健康、长寿或幸福”的尝试，最早出现在2011年左右。过去一年间，这个词的使用量翻倍增长。格拉斯沃指出，这得益于“兄弟寡头”（broligarchs）等权势阶层间日益活跃的讨论。（他提及九月的一则新闻：普京与习近平在一场无意中被录下的对话中谈论器官移植及活到150岁的可能性。）

“Rage bait” appeared in the headlines in early November after Jennifer Lawrence confessed to creating an anonymous TikTok handle so she could fight with movie fans online. And it’s something even lexicographers have been accused of peddling.

11月初，詹妮弗·劳伦斯承认创建了一个匿名抖音账号，以便在网上与影迷打架，之后“引战”这个词出现在头条新闻上。甚至连词典编纂者都被指责在兜售这类内容。

In 2015, when Oxford chose the tears-of-joy emoji, some old-school wordniks were … not happy.

2015年，当牛津选择了“笑哭”表情符号时，一些老派的词汇爱好者表示……不满。

“People feel so passionately, there’s no way to avoid rage-baiting a portion of the word-loving public,” Grathwohl said. “No matter what we choose, a bunch of people are going to flame out online.”

“人们的情绪如此激烈，以至于无法避免激怒一部分热爱文字的公众，”格拉斯沃说。“无论我们选择什么，都会有一群人在网上大肆攻击。”