Rate limit is tech jargon for a cap on how often an app or user can do something ("you've been rate-limited; try again later"). If your kid mentions it they are likely using a developer tool or API. Not concerning. Increasingly common because of AI tools. 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.
rate limit
The max number of requests you can send an API in a given window.
reɪt ˈlɪm.ɪtCoined ~20232020sGen AlphatrendingCurrent433 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
There isn't really space here for everything- it's an RTX 4090 running driver version 580.126.09 and Cuda 13.0. Base OS is Ubuntu 24.04. I'm using torch 2.7. I'm imposing the rate limit by imposing a delay proportio…
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BlueskyMay 2026
It's fun until you hit the hourly or per minute rate limit on labels while catching up on a backlog 🙄
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BlueskyMay 2026
Mitigando Ataques DDoS en mikrotik con rate limit, firewal y raw En este post se describe como son las mejores practicas de mitigación de ataques DDoS con router mikrotik usando raw, fiewall y desabilitando servicios…
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BlueskyMay 2026
@bsky.app Why can I not log into my other account, all I get is "rate limit exceeded " No idea why I was logged out as I hardly posted. I have left it over night and still it won't allow me in!
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Definitions
Global
+512100%
#1·Apr 24, 2026Global
The max number of requests you can send an API in a given window. Hitting it returns a 429; every developer has hit one; OpenAI's 429s are the stuff of 2am Slack threads.
"Burst traffic tripped the rate limit — customers got errors for 6 minutes."
Origin: AI / developer industry term, 2023–2025.
For parents
Rate limit is tech jargon for a cap on how often an app or user can do something ("you've been rate-limited; try again later"). If your kid mentions it they are likely using a developer tool or API. Not concerning. Increasingly common because of AI tools. 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
Rate limit is a standard computing term meaning a cap on the frequency of requests to a system. Use in technical writing, API documentation, and developer chats. Formal equivalent: "request quota" or "throughput cap." Common non-native mistake: hyphenating inconsistently. As a noun, "rate limit" (two words); as a verb, "to rate-limit" (hyphenated). The participle "rate-limited" is always hyphenated when used as an adjective.
Heard in the wild
“There isn't really space here for everything- it's an RTX 4090 running driver version 580.126.09 and Cuda 13.0. Base OS is Ubuntu 24.04. I'm using torch 2.7. I'm imposing the rate limit by imposing a delay proportional to the elapsed time for each tile”
— Bluesky· May 2026“It's fun until you hit the hourly or per minute rate limit on labels while catching up on a backlog 🙄”
— Bluesky· May 2026“Mitigando Ataques DDoS en mikrotik con rate limit, firewal y raw En este post se describe como son las mejores practicas de mitigación de ataques DDoS con router mikrotik usando raw, fiewall y desabilitando servicios innecesarios por linea de comando y por interfaz gráfica”
— Bluesky· May 2026“@bsky.app Why can I not log into my other account, all I get is "rate limit exceeded " No idea why I was logged out as I hardly posted. I have left it over night and still it won't allow me in!”
— Bluesky· May 2026
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Show 1 more dictionary-style sense (imported)
Global
#2·May 2, 2026Global
The maximum number of requests in a given timeframe that are able to be made to a server that uses rate limiting.
Source: Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 4.0)
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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 "rate limit" (R)
ratchet maxxingratchet moderatchetnessratchet pilledratchet sznrateable valueRatelimitedratepayerratepayers groupratesrate tartratfink
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Related terms
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Semantically related
- Ratelimited67%
Being blocked by Discord (or another API) for sending too many requests in a short period. Bots that misbehave get ratelimited; spammers get ratelimited; users who try to send 50 messages in 5 seconds get a popup. 'You're being ratelimited' is the canonical Discord cooldown message — many users have seen it during outages even at normal usage.
- temperature61%
An LLM setting that controls randomness. Temperature 0 = deterministic, always pick the most likely next token. Higher values = more creative / less predictable.
- restricted61%
Limited within bounds.
- capacity60%
The maximum that can be produced.