'Gramota.ru' names ten finalists of 'Word of the Year — 2026'

Ten finalists of the campaign

The Gramota.ru portal has determined a shortlist of ten words competing for the title of 'Word of the Year — 2026'. This was reported by the portal's press service, and the information was published by Gazeta.Ru and Life.ru. The list includes 'dofaminovy' (dopamine), 'nishevy' (niche), 'prime-era', 'vaibcoding' (vibe coding), 'generit' (to generate), 'AI-agent', 'iishka' (little AI), 'data-center', 'vozdukhan' (airhead) and 'trevozhnik' (anxious one).

Three groups of words

Experts divided the finalists into three thematic groups. Half of the shortlist consists of vocabulary about artificial intelligence and technology: 'vaibcoding', 'generit', 'AI-agent', 'iishka' and 'data-center'. The second group, the linguists linked to people's tendency to allow themselves small joys in difficult times — it includes 'dofaminovy', 'nishevy' and 'prime-era'. Life.ru clarifies, that the adjective 'dofaminovy' has gone beyond scientific usage and now describes something bright and evoking strong positive emotions — for example, a manicure or a bouquet, while 'prime-era' reflects the new meaning of the word 'era', which is used to refer to a separate period of a person's life. The third group — colloquial names for types of people: 'vozdukhan' and 'trevozhnik'. According to linguists' observations, this series, which previously included 'skuf', 'normis' and 'masik', continues to grow.

How the selection was made and what comes next

At the first stage, the organizers collected more than 500 words. The finalists were selected taking into account the dynamics of search queries and the frequency of use in blogs, social media and mass media — Life.ru notes that the data was provided by the SKAN monitoring system. The winner will be chosen in early December by more than 400 linguists, after which the word will be included in Gramota.ru's digital meta-dictionary. For comparison: the portal's word of 2024 was 'vaib' (vibe), and in 2025 the leader was 'zoomer'; back then, second place went to 'burnout', and third to 'red flag'.

Context around individual words

Some words on the shortlist have already been the subject of expert assessments. Doctor of Philological Sciences Natalia Kozlovskaya stated, that 'vozdukhan' will most likely enter dictionaries of youth slang, but will not make it into academic dictionaries: according to her, the word gives a negative assessment of a person, is associated with inner emptiness and a desire to exaggerate one's achievements, and its meaning is based on a metaphor close to the idiom 'to throw words to the wind'. In addition, it was previously reported that about a third of Russians get irritatedwhen they hear expressions from internet slang.