Adulting
Etymology
A playful verbing of the noun "adult," which took off among millennials around 2013–2016 and was shortlisted as a word of the year. The grammar is the joke: turning a fixed identity ("adult") into an ongoing effortful activity ("-ing") implies it doesn’t come naturally. It carries a note of both pride and self-mockery.
noun · /uh-DULT-ing/
The performance of grown-up responsibilities — paying bills, cooking, scheduling — treated, often wryly, as an effortful achievement rather than a given.
What it names
A handle for the modern experience of adulthood as a set of skills one consciously does rather than a status one simply reaches, and for the humor and anxiety around that gap.
Example
"I filed my taxes, changed a tire, and made a real dinner — I’m adulting so hard today."
Related idea
Life admin is the actual work; adulting is the wider, half-ironic identity of being someone who has to do it.