Hunch. Dictionary.com found on 26 October that 'maxxing' was used nineteen times more in August than in 2025, and a shortlist is where Oxford puts the year's fastest growing words.
Resolves YES if by 31 December 2026 'maxxing' or another form with '-maxx' is the Oxford University Press 2026 word of the year, one of its words of the year, or on the shortlist Oxford publishes. Words Oxford only mentions outside the shortlist do not count, and if the Oxford page does not open, BBC News and Guardian reports decide.
We looked for cases where Oxford named its word of the year after another big English dictionary had already named its own word that year. We found ten such years, from 2015 to 2025, and in each of them Collins went before Oxford.