Financial TimesFinancial Times

Why ‘goblin mode’ is good for you

By By Carola Long

08 Dec 2022 · 3 min read

The FT’s deputy fashion editor introduces her own definition for the word—or phrase—of the year: “A celebration of the feral unfiltered self, a healthy and restorative state of anti-perfection.”

Curated by informed

Being on trend without trying doesn’t happen to me very often, so I was chuffed to find myself recognised by the Oxford Dictionaries word (or rather phrase) of the year: “goblin mode”. Although I think that, for a bunch of lexicographers, they could have come up with a better definition.

According to the Oxford publishers, the term voted for by more than 300,000 people to reflect the “mood, or preoccupations of the past twelve months” refers to “a type of behaviour which is unapologetically self-indulgent, lazy, slovenly, or greedy, typically in a way that rejects social norms or expectations”.

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