Gen Z slang

Gen Z slang is the dialect of people born between roughly 1997 and 2012 — the first generation to grow up post-smartphone, post-Vine, post-Tumblr. The vocabulary that shaped it spread mostly through Twitter, Vine, and TikTok, with a heavy debt to AAVE.

What follows is the working Gen Z lexicon: terms we have indexed on Slangora that originated in or were adopted heavily by this generation. Some of these (slay, vibes, no cap) have started crossing into mainstream English. Others (deadass, bussin', sus) are still tightly identified with the generation. A few (yas queen, periodt) are already fading.