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New words for the Larousse dictionary 2025

This post references an article in The Connexion, a popular newspaper for British people living in France. In a recent interview on France Info I heard a fellow from Larousse talking about the criteria for inclusion of new words in their 2025 dictionary. The editorial team base the new additions on attested usage - not sure how they carry this out, but it involves a frequency count. This means that they do not publish gender-neutral words such as the pronoun iel (il and elle combined) since these are so rarely used by the general public. (As a teacher, I would point out language items like these to students - for societal interest - but not really 'teach' them.)  In the same interview, the Larousse man also said that they gently encourage French speakers to avoid anglicisms where possible. Good luck with that! Not sure why they would take this political stance either.

Anyway, roughly 150 new words have been added to the illustrated Le Petit Larousse 2025, including Anglicisms such as ‘fast-fashion’ and ‘skatepark’. Each year, new words are added to the dictionary to reflect changing usage, cultural shifts, and zeitgeist-capturing moments. 

 Carine Girac-Marinier, director of the dictionaries and encyclopaedias department to Le Figaro said:

“...we apply a qualitative criterion: we check that the word is shared by everyone, and in particular by all generations and the general public.

"We have a lot of new words this year that reflect concerns, developments or strong movements,” she said. “We debate each word. The selection is never simple. Some definitions take a long time to write and require numerous revisions.”


New words include:


  • Masculinisme: A term for a social movement that believes that men are suffering from the emancipation of women. (Known as ‘men’s rights’ or ‘meninism’ in English.)

  • Platisme: The belief that the Earth is flat (‘flat-Earthism’).

  • Empouvoirement: The act of being empowered, from the US word, often used to describe people feeling more independent and strong.

  • Cyberterrorisme: Digital and IT attacks against nation states, or public or private companies.

  • Visibiliser: To raise your profile online; to make yourself more visible; to develop your online ‘brand’, either on social media or on professional sites to improve employability.

  • Désanonymiser: The act of no longer being anonymous, especially when interacting online. Some have called for a ‘de-anonymous’ law to prevent online bullying and illegal activity.

  • Trottinettiste: Someone who uses a ‘trottinette’ (the French word for electric scooter).

  • Deconjugaliser: Calculating a social benefit or tax based solely on the resources of a recipient or taxpayer, without taking their relationship or couple status into account.

  • Webtoon: A cartoon strip or animated cartoon published online.

  • Spéléonaute: Someone who explores caves for leisure/sport (‘speleologist’).


Empouvoirement is an interesting one. There are already words like émancipation and habilitation which denote conferral of equal rights, so I guess empouvoirement is a just a kind of borrowing from empowerment in English.

News items like these are of interest, particularly to linguists. Maybe your advanced level students would enjoy a chat about language change, or maybe they could make up their own neologisms with definitions.


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