Taiwan people pick 'dismiss' as most representative word of 2025

TAIPEI -- The Chinese character "ba," which means both "dismiss" and "stop," was chosen as Taiwan's most representative word of 2025 in a poll that drew over 78,000 votes.

The poll, organized by Taiwan's United Daily News, gathered 60 candidate characters recommended by people from various sectors before opening a public voting process, which ran from Nov 13 to Dec 8.

In addition to "ba," which won more than 15,000 votes, words such as "deceit," "flood," "support," "chaos," "split" and "tax" were among the 10 candidates that received the most votes.

The character "ba" was recommended by Taipei Mayor Chiang Wan-an, lawmakers Chang Chi-kai and Ko Chih-en, and a high school teacher.

In July and August this year, two rounds of recall votes targeting a number of legislators of the Chinese Kuomintang party and one suspended mayor failed to pass.

This was the 18th annual vote for Taiwan's character of the year. Other characters chosen in recent years include "greed," "shortage," "rise," "stay-at-home," "epidemic" and "disorder."