Word.ws English Dictionary

vibe shift

/ˈvaɪbˌʃɪft/

vibe shift noun: a major change in the current zeitgeist.

Noun

vibe shift (plural vibe shifts)

  1. (neologism, slang) A major change in the current zeitgeist.
    • [Sean Monahan] thinks the new vibe shift could be the return of early-aughts indie sleaze.2022 February 16, Allison P. Davis, “A Vibe Shift Is Coming – Will any of us survive it?”, in New York, →ISSN
    • If there wasn't technically a depression, the country had certainly woken up in a depressed mood. There was a marked vibe shift from the sunny optimism of the Reagan '80s.2025 June 7, John Ganz, “The decade that made Donald Trump”, in FT Weekend (Life & Arts section), London: The Financial Times Ltd., →ISSN, →OCLC, page 19

Forms of vibe shift

pluralvibe shifts
alternative formvibe-shift

Origin of vibe shift

Coined in a Substack post in June 2021 by trend forecaster Sean Monahan.

Questions about vibe shift

What does vibe shift mean?
Vibe shift means a major change in the current zeitgeist.
What part of speech is vibe shift?
Vibe shift is a noun.
How do you pronounce vibe shift?
Vibe shift is pronounced /ˈvaɪbˌʃɪft/ (US).
What is the plural of vibe shift?
The plural of vibe shift is vibe shifts.

Words near vibe shift in the dictionary

  1. vibe codes
  2. vibe coding
  3. vibe debugging
  4. vibe out
  5. vibe politics
  6. vibe shift
  7. vibe shifts
  8. vibe with
  9. vibe worker
  10. vibe workers
  11. vibe working

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: vibe shift (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Neøn-vibe shift.wav.

Cite this entry: “vibe shift.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/vibe_shift. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.