Evals is shorthand for evaluations, used heavily in AI and machine-learning work. "How did the evals go?" means "how did the test results look?" If your kid uses it they likely work in tech or research. Not concerning, technical jargon. If your kid uses it constantly, ask them where they first heard it, not to police their speech but to understand which online community they are in.
evals
Plural of eval.
iːˈvælzCoined ~20232020sGen AlphatrendingCurrent175 viewsLast reviewed Jun 29, 2026＋ Add a definition
Seen in the wild
4 citations · last seen May 2026
Etymology timeline
Born ~2023 · 1 year of recorded useSeen in the wild
BlueskyMay 2026
The full writeup and video cover how we test Alyx with traces, evals, experiments, and CI/CD. arize.com/blog/why-te...
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BlueskyMay 2026
Good luck! I did the same this spring. The evals aren't in yet, but the students actually seemed to like the system. The difference in their (in-class) work was positive.
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BlueskyMay 2026
Every lesson in this post comes from building and shipping Alyx v2. Production traces became our regression dataset. Evals became our shared language for agent behavior. CI/CD gates became the guardrail for prompt, t…
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BlueskyMay 2026
Like Parkinson’s and Lewy body disorder. It’s useful in determining learning disorders and tracking recovery from traumatic brain injury. It’s actually incredibly useful in some ADHD evals.
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Wikipedia: Fitness Report
Navy officers are given Fitness Reports, while Navy chief petty officers (E-7 to E-9) are given "Chief EVALs" and Navy sailors E-6 and below are issued Evaluation Reports (EVALs).
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Definitions
Global
+578100%
#1·Apr 24, 2026Global
Plural of eval. The test suite — automated checks, golden-set comparisons, A/B preference — used to measure LLM output quality before shipping.
See it in action
“The full writeup and video cover how we test Alyx with traces, evals, experiments, and CI/CD. arize.com/blog/why-te...”
“Every lesson in this post comes from building and shipping Alyx v2. Production traces became our regression dataset. Evals became our shared language for agent behavior. CI/CD gates became the guardrail for prompt, tool, and model changes.”
"Every prompt change needs evals now. No more vibes."
Origin: AI / developer industry term, 2023–2025.
For parents
Evals is shorthand for evaluations, used heavily in AI and machine-learning work. "How did the evals go?" means "how did the test results look?" If your kid uses it they likely work in tech or research. Not concerning, technical jargon. If your kid uses it constantly, ask them where they first heard it, not to police their speech but to understand which online community they are in.
For ESL learners
Evals is informal industry shorthand for "evaluations," especially structured test sets used to measure AI model performance. Use in machine-learning, research, and tech-company contexts. Formal equivalent: "evaluation benchmarks" or "performance evaluations." Common non-native mistake: confusing with "reviews" (subjective ratings); evals are usually structured, repeatable test suites. Avoid in non-technical professional writing where it sounds like jargon. Read or listen to the word in context several times before trying it yourself; the right register is harder to learn than the dictionary meaning.
Cluster: ai_specific
Heard in the wild
“The full writeup and video cover how we test Alyx with traces, evals, experiments, and CI/CD. arize.com/blog/why-te...”
— Bluesky· May 2026“Good luck! I did the same this spring. The evals aren't in yet, but the students actually seemed to like the system. The difference in their (in-class) work was positive.”
— Bluesky· May 2026“Every lesson in this post comes from building and shipping Alyx v2. Production traces became our regression dataset. Evals became our shared language for agent behavior. CI/CD gates became the guardrail for prompt, tool, and model changes.”
— Bluesky· May 2026“Like Parkinson’s and Lewy body disorder. It’s useful in determining learning disorders and tracking recovery from traumatic brain injury. It’s actually incredibly useful in some ADHD evals.”
— Bluesky· May 2026“Navy officers are given Fitness Reports, while Navy chief petty officers (E-7 to E-9) are given "Chief EVALs" and Navy sailors E-6 and below are issued Evaluation Reports (EVALs).”
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For specific readers
Why is this section here?
Slang is read by different audiences for very different reasons. The For parents view re-explains the term in plain, non-judgemental language so a caregiver can understand what their child means without needing the surrounding subculture. The For English learners view focuses on register (when it's safe to use), formal alternatives, and common mistakes — what a textbook won't teach you.
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Other words near "evals" (E)
eval energyeval faileval godeval maxxingeval modeeval pilledevals checkevals energyevals failevals modeevals pilledeval szn
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Related terms
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Semantically related
- eval73%
Short for "evaluation." A benchmark or test suite used to measure how well an AI model performs. "Write better evals" is a common 2025 refrain.
- evals check67%
An evals check is a moment of honest, structured self-assessment or peer review — borrowed directly from the AI world where 'evals' (evaluations) are the benchmarks you run to see how well a model is actually performing versus how well you think it is. In internet slang, running an evals check on someone — or yourself — means cutting through the vibes and actually measuring: are you performing, or just presenting the impression of performance? The concept is spreading from tech discourse into general use, especially in productivity and career contexts where people are tired of fake metrics.
- evals pilled65%
Describes someone who has been fully converted to the belief that rigorous evaluation and benchmarking are the only trustworthy path to truth — whether about AI models, relationships, career moves, or anything else. Evals-pilled people refuse vibes-based takes; they want data, reproducible results, and measurable outcomes before they'll call anything good. The term carries a mild irony since being this obsessed with metrics is itself a kind of unexamined ideology. Often used affectionately within AI-discourse communities.
- l eval64%
An evaluation that comes back as a loss — the assessment concluded you didn't measure up. An L eval is worse than a mid eval because it's not ambiguous; someone looked carefully and decided the answer is no. In chess communities it refers to a losing position confirmed by engine analysis; in social and sports contexts it means someone's track record has officially been judged and found wanting. Public L evals are catalogued and referenced forever online.
- eval check62%
An eval check is a quick but pointed assessment of someone's performance, reasoning, or output — running the numbers on how they actually did rather than how they think they did. Borrowed from AI/machine learning culture where 'eval' means evaluation benchmarking, it migrated into everyday language as slang for any blunt, honest appraisal. Did your plan work? Someone's running an eval check. Did you actually ace that test? Your friends are doing an eval check on your confidence. Cuts through self-assessment bias with refreshing directness.