Peace was voted word of the year among British children, according to Oxford
The word "peace" topped the ranking of children's words of the year for 2025 according to the results of a study by Oxford Children's Corpus. This was reported by Oxford University Press.
As part of the study, nearly 5,000 children in the UK aged 6 to 14 answered questions about the words and topics that are most important to them. Based on their answers, experts compiled a shortlist of three words: "peace," "artificial intelligence," and "resilience."
In the final vote, "peace" received the most support, with 35% of respondents voting for it. Second place went to "artificial intelligence" with 33%, while 21% of children chose the word "resilience."
Oxford University Press notes that for more than ten years, scientists have been analysing children's language to understand how children convey their emotions, experiences and experiences through words.
When explaining their choice, one in ten children directly mentioned war. Some of the respondents cited specific military conflicts, particularly in Ukraine and the Gaza Strip, as the reason why the word "peace" is especially important to them.
The Oxford Children’s Corpus is a large database of English texts written by or for children, containing over half a billion words. According to the study, since 2015, the number of mentions of the word “peace” in children’s stories submitted to the BBC 500 Words competition has increased by 60%.
Peace, Oxford Children’s Corpus, war, Oxford University Press
