Gen Z Slang: 100 Words Explained (Rizz, No Cap, Delulu, Aura)

How to read this guide

Three things to know before the list.

A lot of Gen Z slang is older than Gen Z. Words like slay, tea, shade, cap, drip, finna, lit and periodt come from Black American English and from Black and Latino ballroom and drag culture, often decades before TikTok. They went mainstream through social media, and Gen Z gets the credit or the blame. Knowing that keeps you from sounding like you think a sixteen-year-old in Ohio invented "no cap".

The expiry date is the point. A word that everyone under 25 uses is, by definition, on its way out. The moment a term appears in a corporate tweet or a school assembly, it becomes "cheugy" (see below). So this list marks each word as current, fading or dead as of 2026, and if you are reading this in 2028, assume half of it has shifted.

Use it, do not perform it. Nobody over thirty gets points for saying "that's bussin, no cap" in a meeting. The goal here is to understand what is being said to you and about you. If you want to use a word, use one, lightly, and let your kids wince.

Labels used below: (current) in wide use in 2026, (fading) still understood but sounding dated, (dead) understood but will get you laughed at if you use it sincerely.

The core Gen Z slang everyone should know

Gen Z slang by category

Reading the whole table is a lot. If you only need the words for one situation, start here.

Compliments: slay, ate, understood the assignment, goated, built different, tuff, snatched, drip, fit, rizz, aura.

Insults and disapproval: mid, cringe, cheugy, NPC, sus, out of pocket, cooked, Ohio, opp, pressed, glazing, simp.

Agreement: bet, fr, no cap, say less, valid, periodt.

Doubt: cap, sus, respectfully, caught in 4K, receipts.

Dating: rizz, ick, situationship, ghosting, simp, soft launch, hard launch, red flag, green flag, beige flag, pookie, delulu.

Feelings: lowkey, highkey, menty b, crash out, a whole mood, hits different, sending me, living rent-free, it's so over, we're so back.

Internet-native: ratio, W, L, brainrot, chat, NPC, touch grass, unalive, iykyk, core.

Kids' slang (roughly ages 8 to 14), which adults should understand and never say: skibidi, gyatt, sigma, fanum tax, Ohio, mewing, rizzler, six seven, huzz.

How Gen Z slang actually works

A few patterns explain most of the words, and they help you decode the ones invented after this page was written.

Clipping. Cut a word down and add a vowel: charisma becomes rizz, delusional becomes delulu, mental breakdown becomes menty b, outfit becomes fit. If you hear a new two-syllable word ending in a vowel, it is probably a clipped longer word.

Gaming and streaming vocabulary. NPC, W and L, lock in, chat, let him cook, ratio, cooked, aura all come from watching people play games and talk to an audience. If a teenager talks to you like a streamer talks to Twitch, that is why.

Reclaimed and borrowed Black American English. Cap, no cap, bet, finna, deadass, bruh, pressed, salty, tea, shade, slay, drip, opp, crash out, out of pocket. This is the largest single source, and it has been for every generation of American youth slang since jazz. Give credit where it is due.

Therapy and internet-discourse words. Gaslight, valid, boundaries, red flag, ick, situationship. Gen Z grew up with mental-health language and dating-app language and uses both casually, sometimes accurately and sometimes not.

Irony layers. A large share of Gen Z slang is used with at least one layer of irony. "Slay" is often said flatly to mean "that's fine, I guess". "Sigma" is almost always a joke. "It's so over / we're so back" is always exaggeration. If you use these words sincerely, you have missed the joke, and the joke is the point.

Rapid death. Yeet, sheesh, cheugy, "it's the ... for me", Ohio and fanum tax all peaked and died within about two years. The faster a word spreads, the faster it goes.

The words to actually avoid using if you are over 25

Understanding is free. Using is risky. These are the ones that will get a visible flinch from anyone under twenty if you say them with a straight face.

• Skibidi, gyatt, sigma, fanum tax, six seven. These are children's playground words in 2026. An adult saying them is either a teacher doing a bit or a brand doing a worse bit.
• Slay, yeet, sheesh, lit, on fleek. Fine in 2016 to 2021. Now they read as "aunt who watches TikTok".
• Rizz. Still current among the young, but the moment it became Oxford's word of the year it became unusable for anyone with a mortgage.
• Bussin, no cap, sus, periodt. Fading; sincere use by an adult sounds like an advert.
• Cheugy. Using the word is cheugy. This was true almost immediately.

Safe, low-risk ones that adults can use without embarrassment: mid, cringe, vibe, lowkey, fit, glow up, red flag, situationship, cooked, lock in, hits different, valid. They have crossed into general English and nobody will notice.

Gen Z slang in other languages

Gen Z slang travels. Because TikTok is global, the same words often show up in French, Spanish, German and Japanese youth speech, either borrowed directly or translated.

• French teens say "c'est cringe", "il a du rizz" and "c'est la base" (for based). "Chill", "swag" and "flex" are borrowed whole.
• Spanish-speaking teens use "cringe", "random", "crush", "hype" and "stalkear" (to stalk online), plus their own: "tremendo" (huge, awesome), "de locos" (crazy), "literal" said in English.
• German youth speech has "cringe", "sus", "lost" (confused, clueless), "sheesh" and "Digga" (dude), and picks a "Jugendwort des Jahres" (youth word of the year) every year.
• Japanese teens say "emoi" (from emotional, meaning nostalgic or moving), "kusa" (grass, meaning lol, because "www" looks like grass), and "oshi" (the idol or character you support), which is now in English K-pop and anime fandom too.
• Korean fandom language gave English "delulu" adjacent culture, "bias" (your favourite member) and "stan" behaviour.

If you are learning one of these languages and want to sound like a person rather than a textbook, the youth vocabulary is where the textbooks stop and real speech begins.

Practise real speech, not just the vocabulary

Reading a slang list makes you able to understand. It does not make you able to talk. That is true of Gen Z slang and it is true of any language you are learning: the words are the easy part, the rhythm, the timing and the tone are what make you sound fluent, and you only get those out loud.

If you are learning English or another language and want your speech to sound like how people actually talk, casual, fast, a bit messy, practise with something that talks back at that speed. SPAIKING's AI speaking partner will hold a natural conversation with you, slang and all, and correct your pronunciation in real time. It is the closest thing to a patient native speaker who does not mind you asking what "it's giving" means.