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Jan 13, 2026
This week’s theme
New words

This week’s words
touch grass
doomscroll

doomscroll
Anxiety, 1894
Art: Edvard Munch

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A.Word.A.Day
with Anu Garg

doomscroll

PRONUNCIATION:
(DOOM-skrohl)

MEANING:
verb tr., intr.: To scroll through the news or other online material compulsively, especially negative or distressing stories.

ETYMOLOGY:
From doom, from Old English (judgment, law) + scroll, a blend of Old French scrow (writing) + rowle (roll). Earliest documented use: 2020.

USAGE:
“Most people grab their phones and doomscroll. Instead of actually dealing with how they feel, they want to mask how they feel. And then you start looking through the news, and it’s like a spark plug to your anxiety.”
Sleep Dreams; Wired (San Francisco, California); Jan/Feb 2026.

See more usage examples of doomscroll in Vocabulary.com’s dictionary.

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:
Sometimes laughter hurts, but humor and mockery are our only weapons. -Cabu (pen name of Jean Cabut), cartoonist and co-founder of Charlie Hebdo (13 Jan 1938-2015)

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