Gen Z slang term ‘rizz’ named Oxford word of the year

Many of us got our groove back in 2023. After two long years of pandemicinduced isolation and disruption, we left the house. We went on dates. And — according to Oxford’s Word of the Year — we got rizz.

“Rizz” is a slang term that refers to someone’s “ability to attract a romantic or sexual partner,” according to Oxford Languages, an arm of Oxford University Press, which picks the Word of the Year. It was selected by experts and a popular vote from a list of eight terms — beating words like “Swiftie” and “beige flag” for the top slot.

The victory for “rizz” — which Oxford said is believed to be short for “charisma” — could be because a word that encompasses swagger, game and style reflects people’s more “positive” outlook in 2023, Casper Grathwohl, president of Oxford Languages, said in a phone interview. “That pandemic exhaustion is starting to give way to all the feelings that come after that,” he said.

Whereas the 2022 Word of the Year — “goblin mode,” which Oxford defined as a “type of behavior which is unapologetically self-indulgent, lazy, slovenly or greedy, typically in a way that rejects social norms or expectations” — was about keeping people away; “rizz” is more “about how you attract people,” Grathwohl said.

The word “rizz” is believed to have emerged in 2022 out of online gaming communities, according to Oxford University Press. But it truly took off this year after actor Tom Holland used it in an interview with BuzzFeed to describe his alleged lack of romantic skill. “I have no rizz whatsoever. I have limited rizz,” Holland said in the June interview, a clip of which has since been viewed over 58 million times on X, formerly Twitter.

The comment caused some eyebrow-raising among social media users, many of whom questioned the actor, who is in a relationship with actress and singer Zendaya. “Bro really said ‘i have limited rizz’ when he’s with zendaya,” joked one user.

In the interview, Holland added, “I’m locked up. So I’m happy and in love. So I’ve got no need for rizz.”

The word spread on social media and soon became mainstream, particularly among young people, according to Oxford University Press. It spawned puns — “irrizzistable” — and spinoff terms; people who prioritized style over substance in a romantic or sexual partner became known as wearing “rizz-colored glasses.” It even made its way into companies’ marketing lingo, such as dating app Tinder’s “rizz-first redesign.”

“Rizz” was added to Oxford Languages’ eight-word shortlist for 2023 Word of the Year because of its popularity and origins in internet culture, according to a news release. These words were drawn from Oxford’s vast language corpus — a collection of large bodies of tagged, electronic text — that is regularly updated with new English words drawn from around the world. This year, the list included terms relating to pop culture, like “Swiftie,” the moniker for fans of Taylor Swift, and words relating to AI and the climate.

The eight words were paired in head-to-head matchups — “rizz” was up against “beige flag” — and the public was asked to choose its favorite word for each matchup. Language experts then analyzed usage data and “public commentary” to pick the winner. More than 30,000 people voted in the poll between Nov. 27 and 30, the organizers said.

Last year was the first time the group held a public vote for Word of the Year, and the winner — “goblin mode” — was chosen entirely based on the results of that vote, it said at the time.

Grathwohl said he wasn’t surprised when “rizz” beat out the competition. The word is “short, snappy, sparkly” and fun to pronounce because of its rolled Z, he said. It feels “playful” at a time when people want to “take a break” from sometimes-grim news cycles and “reflect on the year in a way that doesn’t feel heavy or burdensome,” he said.

While “rizz” is a new word, the feelings it captures are as old as time. They have been similarly expressed over the years by other words, such as “game,” which Oxford said was first popularized in the 1970s. This shows that while language might evolve, parts of human culture stay the same, Grathwohl said.

“The pursuit of ‘rizz’ is an eternal one,” he said.