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In the last month of the year, several organizations select their Word of the Year. You may have seen all the controversy when Dictionary.com selected 6-7, which many argued isn't even a "word." Oxford picked ragebait. Merriam-Webster has selected their Word of the Year for 2025, and the word is...slop.
For them, slop describes the use of artificial intelligence, but this word has several meanings that are worth exploring.
As you investigate this word, you'll see how polysemous words force us to rely on context for meaning. You'll encounter a free base that demonstrates a clear example of the doubling suffixing convention. Along the way, we'll touch on case endings from Old English and explore how this word works with both the verbal inflectional paradigm and the adjective inflectional paradigm.
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Meaning
What is this word's meaning and how does the word function?
Macquarie Dictionary, too, picked the AI definition of slop for its 2025 word of the year. Specifically, they defined it as "low quality content created by generative AI, often containing errors, and not requested by the user." The pictures I include with these Word Investigations might qualify as slop, given that I cannot afford to hire an artist.
The Collins dictionary gives us both a noun and a verb definition for slop. As a verb, it involves "a liquid coming over the edge of a container, usually accidentally." As a noun, it refers to "liquid waste, often containing the remnants of food."This took me straight to Charlotte's Web, where the farmer feeds Wilbur slop from that day's meals.
There are many polysemous, or "multiple meaning," words like slop in English. Studying the Battle of Thermopylae with a student, we encountered the noun pass, meaning "a route between mountains." My student was familiar with pass in verbal form as either "walk by someone" or "to succeed on a test." We also discussed another noun form as "a ticket to get you backstage."
The only way to determine how the word is functioning with polysemous words is through context. Here is another example:
- The pupils lined up outside the classroom to go to lunch.
- The doctor dilated my pupils during my examination.
If you only know pupils as a synonym for "students," then the second sentence doesn't make much sense.
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Structure
What are the elements that make up this word's structure?
My hypothesis is that the word slop is a free base. A free base can stand alone as a word in English. We can affix it to obtain new words as needed. If I needed an adjective form to say someone was sloppy, I have to attach the suffix < y>:
slop + y --> sloppy
Notice how we had to double the final consonant in the base before adding the vocalic, or vowel, suffix. The grapheme < y> acts as a consonant usually only when inital in a base (yellow, yarn, etc.). The pattern for this doubling suffixing convention is a single vowel letter followed by a final single consonant letter before a vocalic suffix.
Of course, we won't truly know if slop is a free base until we have evidence from an etymological source like Etymonline.
The entry for slop in Etymonline tells us this word came to us in the late Middle Ages, circa 1400. Do you ever stop to note that little abbreviation c. for "circa," a Latin word for "about; around." At the time, speakers used it to denote a "puddle." Etymonline traces it to an Old English word for "cow dung," sloppe. As time wore on in English, that suffix < e> wore off, as did many case endings. Old English had many case endings, whereas Modern English has few. The <'s> on "possessive" nouns is a case ending.
We also see changes in case endings with pronouns. If we are using the pronoun as the subject, we use heand she. When we need an object, we use him and her. For the possessive, or genitive, we use his and hers. These aren't true case "endings," but they are some of the few examples of "cases" left with English nouns.
But back to our investigation of slop...
I notice (n. 1) next to the Etymonline entry, which tells me there must be a second entry for slop that is also a noun. When I scroll down, I first come to an entry for the verb. Turns out this verb is from the same source as (n.1.). I must scroll more. The second noun form is related to a "loose outer garment" and is of "obscure etymology." I'll let Doug Harper, the author of Etymonline, explain more in his article.
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Relatives
What are the word's relatives and history?
So we already came up with sloppy to join the base < slop> in a lexical matrix. A lexical matrix is a graphic display of the elements in the words in a morphological word family. I might type < slop> into Neil Ramsden's Word Searcher to find more.
Since we can use slop as a verb, we can use the verbal inflectional paradigm endings to add to our matrix: slopped, slopping, slops. Notice that doubling suffixing convention coming back.
We can also use the adjective inflectional paradigm endings on sloppy to get sloppier and sloppiest. We can add the suffix <-ly> to obtain sloppily. We have the toggle < y> to suffixing convention present in that word as well. We can also add the noun sloppiness.
If we trace the word further back, we have relatives like sloop and sleeve. We have the floral cowslip. We have Latin forms which give us lubricant and lubrication.
And if someone says you are slovenly? Yep, that's an etymological relative too. It comes from a Germanic source.
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Graphemes
What can the pronunciation of the word teach us about the relationship of its graphemes and its phonology?
If your ideal is a one-to-one correspondence between grapheme and phoneme, well then slop is your word! There's nothing mysterious here.
In fact, the word slope, which has a single, final, non-syllabic to mark the phonology of the aslupan, "slip away."
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Next Steps
What concepts from this investigation can we explore next to learn more about the English orthographic system?
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Perhaps you and your students should begin collecting examples of polysemous, or multiple meaning, words? Besides slop, pass, and pupils, you might look up raise or ground. (Big Idea #1) |
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We typically preserve a morphological element's orthography across a family. Three occasions can alter it, and we know them as the suffixing conventions. Do your students know all three? (Big Idea #4) |
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With adjectives, we compare by using suffixes <-er> and <-est> or the words more and most. Are there patterns for when we use each? Some claim syllable count, but sloppy has two syllables, yet we used the suffixes. And fun is one syllable, but we don't say *funner or *funnest. Is there a pattern to it?
(Big Idea #3) |
Who would have guessed that a cowslip was related to slop or slovenly? Or that such a simple-looking word would show us more about suffixing conventions? I'd love to know what you thought when you first saw that slop was the word of the year for 2025! Reply and let me know.
Stay curious,
Brad
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PS. To learn more about those Big Ideas, you can sign up for the course I teach with Dr. Jennifer Petrich, Connecting the D.O.T.S.: Implementing Scientific Word Study into your Practice. We go over the ten Big Ideas that we have seen show up over and over again with our daily work with students.
PPS. If you know a fellow word nerd who'd be as happy as a pig in slop to know that lubricant shares ancestry with the Word of the Year, forward this along and ask them what connections shocked them the most.
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