About lowkey

What lowkey is

lowkey is a dictionary and set of guides for words that show up in group chats, classrooms, offices and family gatherings before they show up in a standard dictionary. Each entry says what a word means, where it came from, whether it is rude, and how to answer someone who uses it.

The site has two halves that share one idea.

• In English: Gen Z and Gen Alpha slang, texting shorthand, dating terms, office jargon, and Arabic words that English speakers now use, like yalla and habibi. Start at the slang dictionary or the guides.
• In Arabic: city guides to Jordanian, Saudi and Emirati dialect, and party games written in those dialects. Start at lowkey بالعربي.

Who it is for

Mostly for the people on the outside of a conversation: a parent reading a text over a kid's shoulder, a teacher who keeps hearing "6-7" in class, a new hire decoding a manager's email, or someone moving to Amman or Riyadh who wants to understand the street, not the textbook. Teens use it too, usually to settle an argument about what a word really means.

Editor

lowkey is run by Almutaz Younes, who owns the site and is responsible for everything published on it. Corrections, complaints and suggestions go to him directly at mutazyounes@gmail.com.

How entries are made

Every entry starts from published sources: dictionary entries from Merriam-Webster, Dictionary.com, Cambridge and Oxford, reporting from news outlets, and documentation of where a meme or phrase started. Drafts are written with AI assistance from those sources. A separate checking pass then goes through every meaning, date and link, and anything that cannot be confirmed is cut. Each page lists the sources it relies on at the bottom.

The full process, including what we will and will not publish, is in the editorial policy.

A few things we hold to:

• Credit origins plainly. A lot of current slang comes from Black American English, LGBTQ+ ballroom culture, gaming and streaming. Entries say so as a matter of fact.
• Say when a word is rude. Every term carries a tone label, and the "Is it rude?" section is written for an adult deciding whether to worry.
• Dates on everything. Each page shows when it was last reviewed. Slang moves fast, and a page that was right in 2024 can be wrong now.

The tools and quizzes

The translators and quizzes are small extras built on the same word lists. They run entirely in your browser from a fixed phrase list. They are not chatbots and do not send what you type anywhere. Each tool page explains exactly what it can and cannot do.

What lowkey is not

It is not a chatbot, a joke generator, or a site for children. The two kids' games linked from the bottom of the Arabic games page are separate projects. They are not part of the dictionary and never carry ads.

Get in touch

Spotted a wrong meaning, a newer sense of a word, or a missing term? Every page has a "Send a correction" link, or see the contact page. Privacy questions are answered on the privacy page.