The term vibe coding has now reached formal recognition in the English lexicon, signifying a shift in how we talk about programming and artificial intelligence. According to Collins Dictionary, vibe coding has become its Word of the Year 2025.
What Is Vibe Coding?
Vibe coding is defined as “the use of artificial intelligence prompted by natural language to assist with the writing of computer code.”
In practice, it means a developer might write something like “make me a web-app that tracks my expenses” and an AI tool generates the code, significantly reducing manual programming. The phrase captures a more intuitive, prompt-driven approach to software development.
How Did Vibe Coding Reach the Dictionary?
- Lexicographers at Collins monitor large corpuses of language (billions of words) for terms that reflect emerging trends and increased usage.
- They observed a marked rise in usage of the term “vibe coding” since early 2025, and judged it significant enough to select it as Word of the Year.
- Following this selection, and given its clear definition and widespread use, the term is now treated as an official entry rather than mere slang.
Why This Matters
Shift in Software Development Culture
Vibe coding reflects how generative AI tools are transforming software engineering: developers are increasingly relying on natural-language prompts and AI generation rather than hand-coding every line. This alters what “coding” means.
Language Evolution
When a term like vibe coding enters the dictionary, it highlights not just technology change, but cultural and linguistic change — how society adapts language to new realities.
Implications for Education & Skills
With vibe coding gaining formal acceptance, it may influence curricula, developer training, and employer expectations. Skills may shift from detailed syntax mastery towards prompt design, AI oversight and evaluation.
Reactions & Discussions
- Some celebrate it as democratization: allowing more people to create software via intuitive prompts, lowering barriers.
- Others raise concerns: when code is generated by AI with minimal human review, issues of maintainability, security, and accountability emerge.
- The term’s recognition by Collins also sparked commentary across tech-media as a symbol of AI’s penetration into everyday workflows.
A Quick Look at the Definition & Usage
- Part-of-speech: Noun (slang) — vibe coding. AOL
- Typical context: “I’m not hand-writing the UI; I’m vibe-coding the component by prompting the AI” or “With vibe coding I can spin up a prototype in half the time.”
- Usage note: While still informal, its formal recognition signals that it may appear in more formal writing, industry reports, and academic work.
What’s Next?
- The term may spawn derivatives (e.g., “vibe-coded”, “vibe-coder”) as it becomes more embedded.
- Educational programmes may start teaching “vibe coding” as a distinct workflow or module.
- Industry-standards may evolve to address quality, review, and ethical guidelines around AI-generated code in vibe-coding workflows.
- We may see literature, research papers, and frameworks exploring how vibe coding works, its benefits, and its risks. Indeed, several academic papers have already started exploring the paradigm. arXiv
Conclusion
The addition of the term vibe coding into the dictionary marks more than just a lexical milestone: it reflects a fundamental transformation in how software is built, who builds it, and how our language adapts to technological change. For developers, educators, and organizations alike, recognizing this shift is key to staying relevant.
