'Rizz' announced as the 2023 Oxford Word of the Year

Oxford University Press (OUP) has announced that the Oxford Word of the Year 2023 is the colloquial term "rizz", which is defined as "style, charm, or attractiveness" and as "the ability to attract a romantic or sexual partner".

The Oxford Word of the Year is a word or expression that reflects the past 12 months in some way. It is a word that is seen to have potential as a term of "lasting cultural significance" or that provides a "snapshot of social history". Previous words chosen by OUP have included "vax", "climate emergency", and, by public vote for the first time last year, "goblin mode". 

More than 30,000 members of the public refined a shortlist of eight words, all chosen to reflect the mood, ethos, or preoccupations of the year. The shortlist was narrowed down by the public to four finalists, comprising "rizz", "Swiftie", "prompt", and "situationship".

Language experts at OUP then considered the corpus data, the votes and public commentary around the words to choose Oxford’s Word of the Year for 2023. The winning term was hailed as an "interesting example of how language can be formed, shaped and shared within communities, before being picked up more widely".

The word "rizz" was seen to speak to how younger generations like Gen Z define the language they use everywhere from activism to dating and wider culture. Supported by "evidence of real language usage", OUP’s language experts track words as they emerge throughout the year via the Oxford Monitor Corpus of English, analysing frequency statistics and identifying words or expressions that have been recently added to the language.

Etymologically, this year’s winner is believed to be a shortened form of the word "charisma", taken from the middle part of the word. This is seen to be an "unusual word formation pattern", with other examples of this including fridge from refrigerator and flu from influenza. "Rizz" can also be used as a verb, in phrases such as "to rizz up", which means "to attract, seduce, or chat up (a person)". 

Casper Grathwohl, president of Oxford Languages, said: “Given that last year ‘goblin mode’ resonated with so many of us after the pandemic, it’s interesting to see a contrasting word like ’rizz’ come to the forefront, perhaps speaking to a prevailing mood of 2023, where more of us are opening ourselves up after a challenging few years and finding confidence in who we are.

"’Rizz’ is a term that has boomed on social media and speaks to how language that enjoys intense popularity and currency within particular social communities — and even in some cases lose their popularity and become passé —  can bleed into the mainstream... The spike in usage data for ’rizz’ goes to prove that words and phrases that evolve from internet culture are increasingly becoming part of day-to-day vernacular and will continue to shape language trends in the future.”