Above all, national news once again shaped the choice of the Luxembourgish “Wuert vum Joer” – Word of the Year – in 2025. For the sixth time since 2020, the Centre for the Luxembourgish Language (ZLS) at the Ministry of Culture, in collaboration with media partners, launched the search. As in previous years, radio 100,7, RTL, Tageblatt and the Luxemburger Wort took part. The results were:
From mid-November until 7 December at midnight, anyone could submit their proposal for the Word of the Year 2025 to the ZLS, either on a slip of paper at the Walfer Bicherdeeg festival or via an online form. Around 622 submissions were received, covering roughly 190 different words. Among them were many terms mentioned only once or twice.
Most suggestions were directly linked to specific, largely national events. Alongside the pension reform, several related expressions were proposed, such as ‘Stoussrichtung’ (strategic direction) and ‘zeréckrudderen’ (to backtrack), both of which appeared frequently in public debate on the reform. The term ‘Projet Alpha’ – the name of the pilot project introducing French-language literacy – was also submitted several times.
A number of entries came from youth slang, including ‘goonen’, ‘ume’, and ‘six-seven’. The word “fréistécken” (to have breakfast) appeared with particular frequency.
From the long list of all proposals, the ZLS team drew up a shortlist of 20 words, which was then presented to the jury. The main criterion was the number of nominations, but relevance to current affairs, general familiarity, and overall comprehensibility were also taken into account.
The jury consisted of 100,7 editor Dany Weyler, RTL senior journalist Andy Brücker, Tageblatt journalist Leslie Schmit, Wort culture editor Marc Thill, the Commissioner of the Luxembourgish Language Pierre Reding, Angie Gaasch as a representative of the Council for the Luxembourgish Language (CPLL), and Alex Gillander from the ZLS.
In the first round of voting, the list was reduced from 20 to 10 words, and in the second round from 10 to 5, with ‘Trounwiessel’ (accession to the throne) emerging as the Word of the Year 2025. It succeeds ‘Presidententrick’ (CEO fraud, Word of the Year 2024), ‘KI’ (AI, 2023), ‘Ukrainkrich’ (Ukraine war, 2022), ‘boosteren’ (booster vaccination, 2021), and ‘Corona’ (Corona virus, 2020).
*For legal reasons, we have abbreviated the name of the former trade unionist ‘N’, both in this text and in the original press release.
