A Porto Editora revealed this Monday, November 3rd, the ten finalist words in the 2025 Word of the Year electionan initiative that aims to reflect the themes and events that marked Portuguese society throughout the year. Among the highlighted terms are “blackout”, “flotilla” and “taser”.
The full list of finalists also includes: “elections”, “elevator”, “fires”, “immigration”, “moderate” and “perception”. Until the end of November, citizens can vote in the official website of the initiative.
In a statement, Porto Editora emphasizes that the election goes beyond a simple choice: “The Word of the Year works as a reflection of collective memory. The selection of finalists resulted from more than 6500 suggestions from Portuguese peoplefrom analysis to the most frequent searches in the dictionary of Infopedia and continuous monitoring of the language in the media and social networks”.
No last yearcoinciding with the 50th anniversary of the 25th of April, the most voted word was “freedom”. Since 2009, the initiative has highlighted terms such as “esmiuçar” (2009), “vuvuzela” (2010), “austeridade” (2011), “entroikado” (2012), “fireman” (2013), “corruption” (2014), “refugee” (2015), “geringonça” (2016), “fires” (2017), “nurse” (2018), “domestic violence” (2019), “saudade” (2020), “vaccine” (2021), “war” (2022), “teacher” (2023) and “freedom” (2024).
The election of the Word of the Year aims to outline a portrait of what marked Portugal each yearcapturing linguistic and social trends that are reflected in the daily lives of Portuguese people.