‘Hallucinate’ named Dutch word of the year amid rise of AI

By Ilayda Cakirtekin

ISTANBUL (AA) - "Hallucinate" was named the Dutch word of the year for 2025 on Tuesday with the new meaning being defined as providing unreliable information amid the rise of artificial intelligence.

The Dutch dictionary Van Dale announced in a statement that “hallucinate” was selected as its Word of the Year after gaining a new definition in recent usage.

The term is now commonly used to describe the act of "providing information that is not based on (reliable) data and is therefore inaccurate or completely wrong," a definition that became widespread in 2025 amid the rapid adoption of AI applications using generative language models, such as ChatGPT and Gemini.

"We chose this word because it reflects an important development in society and in language. After all, AI applications also use language to answer user questions, sometimes 'say' things that are incorrect, and thus influence our vocabulary," Van Dale said.