Crowdsourced slang dictionary and internet language website

Urban Dictionary

Urban Dictionary is a popular crowdsourced dictionary website for slang, memes, names, phrases, jokes, and informal meanings that may not appear in traditional dictionaries.

Core use

Urban Dictionary helps readers look up slang, informal phrases, memes, acronyms, names, jokes, and user-submitted definitions.

User-submitted

Definitions are written by users, which makes the site fast-moving but uneven in accuracy, tone, and usefulness.

Tagline

Urban Dictionary is widely associated with the phrase “Define Your World.”

Urban Dictionary is a crowdsourced website for slang, informal phrases, and internet language.View image on original site

What Urban Dictionary is

Urban Dictionary is a crowdsourced online dictionary for slang, informal language, memes, names, acronyms, jokes, and phrases. On Urban Dictionary, users can search definitions, browse examples, submit entries, and see how people describe words that may be too new, niche, regional, rude, or playful for standard dictionaries.

Crowdsourced definitions

The site’s defining feature is that entries are written by users rather than by a traditional editorial dictionary team. Multiple definitions can appear for the same term, often showing disagreement, humor, regional use, changing meanings, or competing subculture interpretations.

Slang and internet culture

Urban Dictionary is especially useful for language that moves quickly: online slang, social-media phrases, fandom terms, insults, jokes, dating language, gaming expressions, acronyms, and meme-related vocabulary. It often captures how people talk before formal references catch up.

Examples, votes, and tone

Entries usually include a definition and an example sentence, and readers can vote definitions up or down. The result can be funny and culturally revealing, but the tone can also be crude, biased, offensive, exaggerated, or intentionally unserious.

Use with caution

Because definitions are user-submitted, Urban Dictionary should be treated as a social signal, not a final authority. A term may be defined as a joke, a personal attack, a regional in-joke, or a niche usage that is not widely recognized.

Why it matters

Urban Dictionary matters because informal language is part of culture, and online communities often create words faster than institutions can document them. The site shows how slang, humor, identity, and internet communities shape language in public.

Limits and cautions

Urban Dictionary can contain adult language, offensive stereotypes, harassment, inaccurate definitions, and entries that are more joke than explanation. Readers should compare several definitions, check real-world context, and avoid treating entries as neutral or universally accepted meanings.

WHOIS domain data

Data pulled: May 20, 2026View current WHOIS record

Domain: urbandictionary.com
IP address: 37.19.207.37
Registrar: NameCheap, Inc.
WHOIS server: whois.namecheap.com
Referral URL: http://www.namecheap.com
Created: October 14, 2001
Updated: October 4, 2021
Expires: October 14, 2030
Nameservers: ns-cloud-d1.googledomains.com (216.239.32.109); ns-cloud-d2.googledomains.com (216.239.34.109); ns-cloud-d3.googledomains.com (216.239.36.109); ns-cloud-d4.googledomains.com (216.239.38.109); ns-1543.awsdns-00.co.uk (205.251.198.7); ns-1462.awsdns-54.org (205.251.197.182); ns-690.awsdns-22.net (205.251.194.178); ns-454.awsdns-56.com (205.251.193.198)
Domain status: clientTransferProhibited
Contact privacy: Registrant, admin, and technical contacts are redacted through Withheld for Privacy ehf in Reykjavik, Capital Region, IS.

Key concepts

SlangInformal vocabulary used by particular communities, generations, regions, platforms, or social groups.
CrowdsourcingA contribution model where many users submit definitions, examples, votes, and updates.
Usage exampleA sample sentence that shows how a contributor thinks a word or phrase is used.

Website features

SearchLook up words, phrases, acronyms, names, memes, and informal expressions.
Multiple definitionsCompare different user explanations for the same term, often with votes and examples.
SubmissionsUsers can add new definitions and examples as slang changes or new phrases appear.

Common misconceptions

Not a standard dictionaryUrban Dictionary records user-written meanings and jokes; it does not apply the same editorial standards as traditional dictionaries.
Votes are not proofA popular definition may be funny, familiar, or provocative without being accurate in every context.
One term can have many communitiesA phrase may mean different things by region, age group, platform, fandom, or social setting.

Open questions

ModerationHow should slang websites balance expressive user submissions with safety, harassment prevention, and misinformation concerns?
Cultural contextHow can dictionaries explain offensive or reclaimed language without flattening who uses it and why?
Language changeHow should reference sites preserve outdated slang while clearly showing when a meaning is old, niche, or contested?