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In a decision that will surprise absolutely no one who has spent five minutes online lately, ‘maxxing’ was named Dictionary.com’s word of the year for 2026 on Sunday.

After all, the suffix has attached itself to almost everything these days, be it sleep, protein, gym and, in a somewhat alarming case, lethality (in March when the US Department of Defence boasted about its killing capabilities). It was only a matter of time before it went mainstream.

A lot of people attribute maxxing’s popularity to the highly controversial influencer Clavicular, who was charged with raping a 17-year-old girl last month. He used to promote ‘looksmaxxing’, an online subculture focused on maximising people’s physical attractiveness, on his social media platforms frequently. But the term maxxing itself is older than its current ubiquity suggests, dating back to the 90s when gamers used to ‘min-max’ (balance good and bad) character traits.

Where it once belonged to niche communities, it now clings to everything: people, these days are sleepmaxxing, cosymaxxing, even tokenmaxxing the AI tools they use at work.

Other words that landed on Dictionary.com’s shortlist for 2026 Word of the Year are affordability, data centre, odyssey, and unc.

Affordability and data centre made it to the list due to obvious reasons, as the former is a global concern and the latter is in the process of becoming one.

Dictionary.com credited the popularity behind odyssey to Oscar-winning director Christopher Nolan. And it makes sense because The Odyssey crossed the much-coveted $1 billion mark at the global box office in August (less than a month after its release).

As for unc, it’s the new ‘OK Boomer’ equivalent for Gen Zs and Alphas.

So, in case you’re unable to wrap your head around the words that made it to Dictionary.com’s Word of the Year list, maybe don’t say it in front of anybody in their early 20s or teens if you don’t want them to say you’re unc-maxxing. Just a thought.