It’s that time of year again: the moment when Dictionary.com shares the word it believes has captured trends, language and culture over the past year.
This year, the Dictionary.com 2026 Word of the Year is…maxxing.
You may have seen this word used in a variety of ways: looksmaxxing, sleepmaxxing, gymmaxxing and fibermaxxing, just to name a few. Maxxing refers to the practice of “pursuing an activity to the fullest or optimizing a certain aspect of your life.”
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According to Dictionary.com, searches for maxxing and spinoff terms spiked this year. While the spinoff terms have had their own journey through online trends, maxxing itself has risen rapidly over the past year.
“Maxxing functions as a verb, with something as its object, rather than as part of a longer word,” Dictionary.com explains.
Dictionary.com added that the word can be earnest, aspirational or even mocking. Maxxing “captures the very 2026 urge to keep pushing harder while also giving us a way to poke fun at ourselves when optimizing our lives starts to feel absurd.”
Additional words that stood out in 2026 include affordability, data center, odyssey and unc.