Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for July 6, 2026 is:
deepfake • DEEP-fayk • noun
Deepfake refers to an image or recording that has been convincingly altered and manipulated to misrepresent someone as doing or saying something that was not actually done or said.
// The leaked video incriminating the school's dean was discovered to be a deepfake.
“Overall, the deepfakes are impressive, if not maybe a tad uncanny, showing a near-perfect replica of how Jagger, Keith Richards and Ronnie Wood looked in the late '70s.” — Ethan Millman, The Hollywood Reporter, 14 May 2026
The old maxim “things aren’t always as they seem” seems more true than ever in the age of deepfakes. A deepfake is an image, or a video or audio recording, that has been edited using an algorithm to replace the person in the original with someone else, especially a public figure, in a way that makes it look authentic. The fake in deepfake is transparent: deepfakes are not real. The deep is less self-explanatory: this half of the term is specifically influenced by deep learning—that is, machine learning using artificial neural networks with multiple layers of algorithms.
