Voting opens for Austria’s 2026 word of the year

The Society for Austrian German in Graz has published the candidates for Austria’s 2026 words of the year, ORF reports. Online voting is open until December 1, with the winners to be announced on December 3.

Nominees for word of the year include “Hitzesommer” (heatwave summer), “Hydration Break” and “Koralmbahn”. The shortlist also features “Österreichaufschlag”, referring to higher prices in Austria for identical branded products than in countries such as Germany, and “Schlapfenradius”, a short distance that can be walked in slippers.

Among the candidates for “unword” of the year is “Klimahysterie” (climate hysteria), a political slogan used by climate change deniers to portray concern about climate change as excessive. “Lifestyle-Teilzeit” (lifestyle part-time work), a phrase coined by Economy Minister Wolfgang Hattmannsdorfer of the Austrian People’s Party, is also nominated. His remarks that the trend threatened the welfare state and weakened economic competitiveness sparked a heated debate.

“Remigration”, a term used by the far right that refers to the often mass and forced deportation of people with a migration background, is also on the unword shortlist.

The youth word candidates range from “Du bist gut genug” (You are good enough), a song refrain that spread on social media in spring, to “bodenlos”, meaning awful or unbelievable, and “dayummm”, a variation of “damn” meaning something like astonishing or damn.

Three statements each are nominated for quote and anti-quote of the year. One contender for anti-quote is a remark by Chancellor Christian Stocker of the Austrian People’s Party: “Well, childcare is not unpaid work for me … I would not see that as work. I’ll be honest.” Stocker later apologised for the comment, which drew strong criticism.

Another candidate is a former mountain guide’s remark to a Polish group of climbers. He tried to overtake them on the way to Adlersruhe and was verbally and physically aggressive, according to the article. His words were: “I’m a mountain guide. Shut up or I’ll come up and hit you!”

Last year’s word of the year was “Elch Emil” (Moose Emil). “Rabattpickerl” (discount sticker) was named unword of the year, while the youth word was the number sequence “6 7”.