GfdS announces German Word of the Year 2025
An AI-generated image of Donald Trump, Elon Musk, some robots, some bankers and a pile of money. Image credit: ShutterstockAI / Shutterstock.com
By Olivia Logan
The Association for the German Language (GfdS) has announced its pick for the German Word of the Year. Can you guess it? We’re all living in it.
“KI-Ära” named German Word of the Year
“KI-Ära” (“AI Era”) has been named the 2025 German Word of the Year by the GfdS. AI has “left the ivory tower of scholarly research” and “stepped into the centre of society”, the association said in its announcement.
Selected annually by a jury of media experts and linguists, the GfdS Word of the Year is supposed to reflect German political, economic and social life over the past 365 days. “The term "AI" is short, understandable and emotionally loaded,” the association added.
While the technology has sent a shockwave across almost all industries in 2025, few nationwide or EU regulations have been adopted to manage the consequent economic upheaval. According to a June 2025 study from the ifo Institute in Munich, a quarter of companies in Germany plan to cut jobs in the next five years because of AI.
Trump’s “Deal” in second place
The second German Word of the Year wasn’t a German word, but the English word “deal” and particularly the word “deal” in the way that it is so often used by President Donald Trump. Turning politics into business, “[Trump] uses the word for trade, customs and international agreements,” explained GfdS boss Andrea Ewels.
“With associations ranging from casualness to drug-related crime, he stands for a policy that unapologetically puts its own economic interests first, ignoring the concerns of others and their right to territorial integrity, cultural self-determination, and prosperity,” the GfdS wrote in its announcement.
Top German words of the year 2025
Overall, these were the top German words of 2025, according to the GfdS:
- KI-Ära
- Deal
- Land gegen Frieden (Land in exchange for peace, referring to pressure on Ukraine to cede land to Russia)
- Sondervermögen (Special fund i.e. Friedrich Merz’s infrastructure fund)
- Wehrdienst-Lotto (Military service lottery i.e. part of Germany’s new military service law)
- Drohnisierung (Dronification i.e. Russian drone incursions in Europe)
- Strafzölle (Punishment tariffs i.e. Trump’s tariff plan)
- Wohlstandsverlust (loss of prosperity i.e. economic downturn in Germany)
- Klimamüde (climate fatigue i.e. people have too many worries to prioritise climate worries)
- Vertiktokung (TikTokification i.e. the TikTokification of information sharing)
What a cheerful list! To find out more details about why each word was chosen for the 2025 list check out the GfdS website.
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Editor for Germany at IamExpat Media. Olivia first came to Germany in 2013 to work as an Au Pair. Since studying English Literature and German in Scotland, Freiburg and Berlin she has worked as a features journalist and news editor.Read more