Lorraine Williamson
Spain Word of Year choices rarely land like a headline. This one does. FundéuRAE has crowned arancel (tariff) as its 2025 word, a neat snapshot of a year shaped by trade disputes and economic anxiety.
Yet the sharper argument is not about customs duties. It is about a four-letter acronym. The Royal Spanish Academy’s dictionary now includes mena, and notes that it is used “sometimes” in a derogatory sense. That single addition has triggered a political backlash — and a wider debate about how Spain talks about children arriving alone.
Why ‘arancel’ won in 2025
FundéuRAE’s annual pick is meant to reflect public language, not polish it. In 2025, that pointed straight at tariffs. Trade talk has been everywhere, from supermarket prices to geopolitics.
The foundation’s shortlist also tells its own story. Alongside apagón (blackout) and macroincendio (mega-wildfire) were words that speak to conflict and tension, including rearme (rearmament) and boicot (boycott). Even tierras raras (rare earths) made the cut, a nod to tech supply chains and global bargaining.
2024 word of the year
A dictionary entry that landed like a political statement
The RAE’s Diccionario de la lengua española (DLE) lists mena as an acronym of menor extranjero no acompañado. Its definition describes an underage migrant without an adult responsible for them, and adds a crucial usage note: it can be used in a derogatory way.
In other words, the dictionary is describing what happens in real life. It is not endorsing it. That distinction matters, and it is at the heart of the dispute now playing out in public.
Why the government wants the word out of circulation
Spain’s central government has criticised the term’s presence in the dictionary. Ministers and senior officials argue that labels are not neutral. They can harden attitudes. They can also turn children into a category, rather than people with rights and needs.
Officials have also pointed to the way mena is used in everyday debate. The concern is that it often arrives paired with crime narratives and suspicion, particularly in polarised political moments. That, they say, is how stigma is built.
What this argument is really about
This is not a niche fight between linguists and politicians. It is a clash between two ideas of responsibility.
One says a dictionary should document language as it is, including its uglier edges. The other says public institutions should lead by example, especially when the people being described are children with limited power and public voice.
Spain has been here before. Words like okupa, mantero or turismofobia have all carried baggage beyond their literal meaning. In each case, the language becomes a shortcut — and shortcuts are where stereotypes thrive.
The quieter lesson from FundéuRAE’s shortlist
There is a second story running underneath all this. FundéuRAE’s shortlist shows how quickly Spanish absorbs the pressures of the moment. Energy scares. Climate extremes. Surveillance tech. Generational labels. The vocabulary of 2025 is restless because the year was restless.
That is why the arancel announcement resonates. It is a single word, but it points to an entire atmosphere: uncertainty, negotiation, and the sense that decisions made elsewhere can land in Spanish households with a price tag attached.
Where the ‘mena’ debate goes next
The argument is unlikely to fade fast. The word is now officially recorded, and the controversy has amplified it further.
What may change is how newsrooms, politicians, and institutions choose to speak. The more Spain argues about the label, the more space there is to ask a harder question: when children arrive alone, are we describing a situation — or deciding, in advance, how they should be seen?
Sources: rtve.es, eldiario.es, fundeu.es