Ever wondered where your favorite lingo really comes from? From ancient phrases to pop culture catchphrases, here's the origin of slang words that are popular now.
The Surprising Origins of Your Favorite Slang Words
Updated on Jun. 26, 2025
Slay
From the Old English verb slean, slay originally meant to kill or destroy (think slaying a dragon). In slang, slay means to dominate, look amazing or absolutely crush it—whether on a stage, on a runway or in life. It’s about serving fierceness, confidence and flawless execution. RuPaul’s Drag Race helped bring slay and other drag ballroom terms into the mainstream.
“Slay is interesting because there is a subset of slang words—like kill, destroy, throw down—that have to do with being at the top, being the best, that carry some substrate of violence in them,” says Adams. (BTW, the professor is a bit of an expert on slaying: He wrote a book about the language in Buffy the Vampire Slayer.)
Cap
Sometimes shorthand phrases are regional slang first. “In Atlanta and Memphis slang,” says Zafarris, “cap meant to lie or brag or to talk big without backing it up.” And, according to Green’s Dictionary of Slang, in the 1940s cap could mean to surpass something. No cap, she says, “could be related to cap meaning top or upper limit. There’s no top on how authentic I’m being.”
Mid
Popular lingo often grows out of laziness—the origin of slang words is commonly a shortened version of a longer word. Mid is short for middle or mediocre. When someone calls something mid, they’re saying it’s average at best—not great, not terrible, just … meh. It’s often used dismissively, as if the thing should be better but totally fails to impress.
Simp
The word simp has been around since at least the early 1900s as a shortened form of simpleton—meaning a foolish or gullible person—although it could also come from simper (to smile in a silly, affected or ingratiating manner), says Zafarris. It’s a catch-all for someone (usually a man) who shows excessive attention or affection toward someone else (usually a woman) in a way that is perceived as desperate or embarrassing.
Cringe
Speaking of embarrassing, I present: cringe. It’s from the Old English cringan, meaning to bend or to yield. But in modern slang, Zafarris says, “It’s that secondhand embarrassment when someone tries to do anything too hard and fails at it, like when a brand says lit or when Dad dabs at graduation.”
She points out that cringe can take many parts of speech: It can be used as a noun (“That was pure cringe”), an adjective (“cringe behavior”) or a verb (“I cringed so hard I evaporated”).
Sus
Sus is another slang word that’s a clipped version of a “real” word. It’s short for suspicious or suspect, and it’s used to call out something or someone that seems shady, untrustworthy or just off in some way.
Ate
When someone says someone ate a performance or a look, they mean they ate it up or devoured the moment; in short, they did amazing.
As it did with slay, RuPaul’s Drag Race helped to bring ate from drag ballroom culture into the mainstream. By the late 2010s and early 2020s, TikTok and Twitter users adopted ate especially for fashion, music and special events.
Oh, and if you pair ate with “and left no crumbs,” it means absolute perfection.
Main character energy
These days, social media is often the origin of slang words and lingo. This phrase took off around 2020, especially on TikTok, where users made videos imagining themselves as the protagonist in a movie. Someone with main character energy is confident, self-focused and loves to be the star of the show—never just a bit player. It has more than one meaning too. It can be used seriously, aspirationally or ironically.
Drip
Here’s another one that most likely originated with early 2000s hip-hop culture. It metaphorically connects to the idea of “dripping” with jewelry, luxury or confidence. Drip can also mean confidence or aura beyond just clothes. It’s similar to other slang terms like swag and flex, but drip leans more into fashion and luxury vibes.
Delulu
Here’s another playful slang word that is a variant of an existing word. Delulu is shortened from delusional, and to get technical, per Merriam-Webster, it features a reduplicated lu for expressive effect. Though delusional has been around for centuries to mean holding false or unrealistic beliefs, delulu is said to have originated about 10 years ago in K-pop fandoms, where fans would joke about having delusional (or unrealistic) hopes of meeting or dating their idols.
Hey, I get it. As a teen, I had delulu hopes of marrying Simon LeBon from Duran Duran.
Legit
No, this word didn’t originate with MC Hammer’s 1991 hit “2 Legit 2 Quit.” According to the Oxford English Dictionary (OED), legit was used in the late 1800s to refer to a “legitimate” or well-written drama.
But why legit? Adams thinks it’s obvious. “English speakers, generally, American speakers, certainly, unless they’re making fun of something, don’t really like five-syllable words. We prefer words to be short. To say legitimately in a conversational context just sounds kind of overdone and pompous, so you use legit instead.”
“But it also gets a little snap to it then, even though the word’s been there forever.”
Salty
No longer is salty used simply to describe food; it now applies to people. The term dates back to the 1930s, according to Zafarris, where a “salty” sailor was someone tough and short-tempered. But the modern meaning—salty as bitter, the opposite of sweet—started showing up in Black American English in the 1990s and then went mainstream.
Adulting
“Slang is like a shorthand that a group uses that kind of works to provide group cohesiveness,” says Barrett, and adulting is a very popular word among millennials, who often use it jokingly when they engage in grown-up activities such as preparing taxes, buying a home or mowing the lawn. The exact origins are a little murky, but it supposedly first showed up in a 2008 Twitter post. It then took six years to enter the mainstream and the Merriam-Webster dictionary.
Throw shade
Throwing shade could be an Olympic sport, as it clearly requires mad skill! The term was first propelled into the mainstream after its excessive use on RuPaul’s Drag Race. Now, everyone uses it to carry out passive-aggressive acts online and IRL. “It’s like the art of the indirect dig,” says Zafarris. “Instead of saying ‘you look terrible,’ you might say, ‘bold choice.’”
There’s a chance, says Adams, that the phrase didn’t originate in drag ballroom culture. He points to a line in Jane Austen’s 1814 novel Mansfield Park: “With such warm feelings and lively spirits it must be difficult to do justice to her affection for Mrs. Crawford, without throwing a shade on the Admiral.” There, it is throwing a shade, not throwing shade, so it’s not exact, but Adams says it does make him wonder if there’s a connection. Stay tuned …
Basic
In its early use in the 1930s, basic just meant simple or fundamental, according to the OED. For about a decade, though, it’s been a gentle insult for someone who is nothing original or special and is painfully average in their tastes.
Basic is also a shortened form of another slang term, basic b*tch, which first appeared on Urban Dictionary in 2009 and refers to a woman who is unimaginative, follows trends and lacks individuality.
Extra
In a way, extra is the opposite of basic. “Being basic is a gentle insult for someone who’s painfully average in their tastes,” says Zafarris. “And extra is someone painfully too much.” Most commonly, extra is used to describe a person who is over-the-top in some way, dramatic or “doing the most.”
If I had to choose between being called basic or extra, I’d go with extra.
Hipster
The word hipster comes from hip. According to Barrett, two spellings of the word (hip and hep) appeared as early as 1903 in Black American culture, related to jazz and hips. “If you were hip, obviously you were something.”
Hipster appears by the 1940s, with an ending that’s similar to gangster, Barrett notes. And in his Original Jive Dictionary Hepster’s Dictionary (the glossary of the lingo of the Harlem Renaissance, which accompanied his sheet music), musician Cab Calloway wrote, “Nowadays you have to call a gone character a hipster. That comes from the fact that a real gone musician is said to have his boots loosed up right to his hips.”
The word faded out in the ’50s, but then in the ’90s, “we get a new version of hipster,” says Barrett. “Somebody who was trying really hard to be cool. We’re talking vintage clothes, skinny jeans, black rim glasses—that sort of thing.”
“But there’s also this outside judgment that comes with the new hipster,” Barrett adds. “It’s classifying you as a type of person who has an undeservedly high opinion, of yourself and your trendiness. And I think that meaning is still the prevalent meaning today.”
Ghosting
Some slang terms are metaphorical, says Adams. Ghosting is an example. Someone suddenly becomes invisible and unreachable and disappears from your life, like a ghost.
The act of ghosting, which describes someone quietly exiting an online conversation, became popular in the post-2012 dating app boom.
Photobomb
For some reason, we find the act of sneaking into the background of somebody else’s photo pretty funny. Photobombing has been around for a while, with Google Trends indicating that the term was used as far back as 2009. “It’s usually done intentionally, but your dog can photobomb you without meaning to. And when celebrities do it, everybody loves it,” says Zafarris.
She explains: “It’s a mash-up of photo and bomb, with bomb meaning a sudden, disruptive entrance. Truthbomb has the same sort of notion.”
Dope
The word dope originates from doop, the Dutch word for a “thick dipping sauce.” “Dope was extended to opium in the 1800s, referring to the process of smoking semi-liquid opium, which had a thick consistency,” says Zafarris. “Later in the 1800s, dope and dopey became words for foolish people, from the idea of someone who’s impaired by opium usage.”
Using dope to refer to insider information, she adds, “is thought to be from horse racing, that is, knowing which horse was doped.” And dope to mean excellent or impressive originated in the ’80s with hip-hop.
Dope might feel a bit “retro” or old-school compared with newer slang, but it’s being kept alive by those of us still using it to mean groovy or scuttlebutt—terms that are most definitely over.
That’s the thing about slang, and language in general. Words become popular, words become obsolete and the world keeps spinning. And, that ain’t no cap.
Additional reporting by Amari D. Pollard.
About the experts
|
Why trust us
At Reader’s Digest, we’re committed to producing high-quality content by writers with expertise and experience in their field in consultation with relevant, qualified experts. We rely on reputable primary sources, including government and professional organizations and academic institutions as well as our writers’ personal experiences where appropriate. We verify all facts and data, back them with credible sourcing and revisit them over time to ensure they remain accurate and up to date. Read more about our team, our contributors and our editorial policies.
Sources:
- Michael Adams, professor of English and linguistics at Indiana University Bloomington and author of Slayer Slang: A Buffy the Vampire Slayer Lexicon; phone interview, June 11, 2025
- Grant Barrett, linguist, lexicographer and co-host of A Way with Words, a national radio show about language; phone interview, June 13, 2025
- Jess Zafarris, etymology expert, founder of Useless Etymology, co-host of the Words Unravelled podcast and author of several books, including Words from Hell; phone interview, June 9, 2025
- Green’s Dictionary of Slang: “Cap”
- Merriam-Webster: “Adulting”
- Oxford English Dictionary: “Basic”
- Urban Dictionary: “A basic b*tch”
- Online Etymology Dictionary
