In Caribbean usage, primarily a clipping of "dreadlocks" — the matted, rope-like hairstyle most strongly associated with Rastafari, where the locks are understood as a covenant of faith rooted in the Nazarite vow of Numbers 6.
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Regional slang from around the English-speaking world — British, Australian, Irish, Caribbean, Nigerian, Filipino, AAVE, and the hyphenated-English dialects that make the internet sound local.
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(Internet slang, neologism) A person with dreadlocks.
A Rastafarian: an adherent of the Rastafari movement, a Jamaican-born religious and cultural tradition that emerged in the 1930s among the descendants of enslaved Africans. The name comes from Ras Tafari Makonnen, the pre-coronation name of Ethiopian emperor Haile Selassie I, whom Rastas regard as the messianic returned Christ and the living embodiment of Jah (God). Core practices and themes include the wearing of dreadlocks, an Ital (natural, often vegetarian) diet, the sacramental use of ganja for meditation, and a strong identification with Africa, repatriation and liberation from "Babylon" — the oppressive Western/colonial system. The word is also used loosely (and sometimes loosely enough to annoy actual adherents) to describe anyone with locs, reggae taste or a vaguely Afrocentric aesthetic.
Friend, brother, or member of one's inner circle. From Jamaican Patois, where "bredren" (and the variant "bredrin") generalises the English word "brethren" into everyday speech, carrying a strong Rastafarian inflection: among Rastas it specifically signals a fellow believer or member of the community, equivalent to "brother in faith". In wider Caribbean and UK diaspora use it has loosened into a warm term for any close male friend — roughly equivalent to "bro", "mate" or "fam" in other Englishes. The female counterpart is "sistren". Common in dancehall lyrics, UK road rap and everyday speech across Jamaica, Trinidad, the wider Caribbean and second-generation Caribbean communities in London, Birmingham and Toronto.
In Caribbean usage, primarily a clipping of "dreadlocks" — the matted, rope-like hairstyle most strongly associated with Rastafari, where the locks are understood as a covenant of faith rooted in the Nazarite vow of Numbers 6. By extension "dread" is also used as a respectful, affectionate term of address for a Rastafarian or for any locs-wearing person of like-minded outlook ("alright, dread?"), similar to how "bredren" works between male peers. The word also keeps its older Rastafarian metaphysical sense of holy awe — the "dread" of righteousness in the face of Babylon — which is where the hair style took its name in the first place. Hugely common in reggae, dub and roots lyrics from the 1970s onward.
big up the dread on the corner with the I-tal stall
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