How ChatGPT Can Expand Our Vocabulary

Is AI the Key to Rescuing Intellectual Language?

There’s a curious paradox in the evolution of the English language. While its global influence is rising, the development of sophisticated and subtle words is in decline. Our dictionaries are constantly updated with new entries, but many reflect fleeting trends in entertainment and popular culture rather than advances in human thought.

Words like “bootylicious,” “freestyle,” and “manscape” are amusing and timely, but they reveal a pattern: much of our modern vocabulary is shaped by style rather than substance.

Conversely, we are introducing few genuinely new terms to describe complex or abstract concepts. Consider that words like “nationalism,” “existentialism,” and “mental” were once modern innovations that gave us crucial tools for thought. They provided frameworks for discussing intangible yet vital ideas. Today, it seems we have largely stopped creating language for this higher-order thinking.

This is where artificial intelligence, and specifically ChatGPT, enters the scene. While often discussed in terms of automation, its potential as a creative and intellectual partner is just being recognized. With access to an extensive database of historical and contemporary language, ChatGPT can perform etymological research, generate new words based on established linguistic patterns, and help refine vague ideas into precise terminology.

Co-Creating Words with AI: A Practical Experiment

Recently, I found myself struggling to articulate a concept that was unclear and underdeveloped—an idea that existed mentally but without definition. Phrases like “free thought” felt insufficient. I turned to ChatGPT for linguistic innovation.

Together, we explored linguistic roots and experimented with sound and meaning. This collaborative process yielded two neologisms:

• Blurion: A term for an idea present in the mind but remains hazy and ill-formed—like a blurred vision of a concept.

• Noncept: A word describing something that appears to be a concept but lacks substantive content or coherence, representing the illusion of thought.

Encouraged by this, I continued the AI-powered word creation process. With ChatGPT’s assistance, I developed:

• Gesturic: An adjective describing physical gestures or cultural expressions that mirror widespread trends—think social media poses or fashion signals. It captures the communicative power of body language in modern culture.

• Ideonic: A term referring to abstract concepts, theoretical frameworks, or purely intellectual constructions. A philosophy like postmodernism, for instance, would be considered an ‘Ideonic’ system.

Why This Matters: Language Shapes Thought

These examples show how AI can contribute not just to convenience, but to the very architecture of our thinking. Language doesn’t just reflect our thoughts—it actively shapes them. Without words to express complexity, we risk losing the ability to think complexly. The Sapir-Whorf hypothesis suggests that the boundaries of our language are the boundaries of our world.

Fortunately, ChatGPT offers a way to push these boundaries. By giving users access to the raw materials of language—prefixes, roots, and histories—it democratizes the creation of new words for new ideas. This isn’t about replacing natural language evolution, but about enhancing it.

With thoughtful use, AI can help revive a part of English that has been quietly fading: its power to capture abstract, subtle, and evolving forms of thought. While pop culture will continue to shape our lexicon—as it always has—we can consciously create space for intellectual advancement. The challenge isn’t to resist change, but to guide it.

If we want to keep English a rich and flexible tool for human expression, we must keep inventing the words we need. With curiosity, creativity, and tools like ChatGPT, we can begin to write the next chapter ourselves.