The following is excerpted from an online article posted by Parents
Looksmaxxing, mommymaxxing, namemaxxing, sleepmaxxing, and even smellmaxxing—in the last two years especially, there has been a whole lot of maxxing going on. It’s become so popular that maxxing is Dictionary.com’s 2026 Word of the Year.
Through its research, the company found that interest in the variations of the word spiked in 2026. For example, looksmaxxing appeared nine times more often in August 2026 compared to the 2025 monthly average. But people have also been interested in the word maxxing on its own, with digital media using the term almost 19 times more when looking at that monthly comparison.
“Every Word of the Year tells us something about the mood people are in and how they’re expressing it. Maxxing captures the sense that we should be getting the most out of everything, a pressure many people felt in 2026,” Steve Johnson, PhD, director of lexicography for the Dictionary Media Group, tells Parents. “What I love about this word is that it doesn’t only describe that pressure. It also gives people a way to push back on it. You can use maxxing to say you’re trying hard, or to admit, with a wink, that trying this hard has gotten a little ridiculous.”
The term has long been used on gaming platforms with “min-maxing,” or maximizing a character’s strengths while minimizing weaknesses. In recent years, the suffix, which picked up two Xs, started being used to describe other habits and how to enhance them, especially with the help of social media.
Dictionary.com now defines maxxing as being short for maximizing: “This trendy term can be used on its own or added to the end of any word to convey you’re doing something to the fullest or optimizing it as much as possible.”
Source: Parents
https://www.parents.com/the-2026-word-of-the-year-12189718