edgelord

English

Etymology

From edge (“the quality of being edgy”) +‎ -lord, compare to shitlord.

Pronunciation

Audio (US): (file)

Noun

edgelord (plural edgelords)

(originally Internet slang, mildly derogatory) Someone who tries to appear edgy by doing or saying provocative, controversial, taboo, or offensive things.
- 2018 October, Brad Cox, “Top 5 Things That I Hate About Halloween”, in Exotic‎, volume 26, number 4, Portland, OR: XMAG LLC, →OCLC, page 54:
  Given that I have a certain personality that draws in a certain type of person, I have a ton of people on my feed who are Wiccan, Pagan, Satanist or some other kind of fringe religion or cult member. […] They make extra sure to remind you that they never take down their Halloween decorations, because, in the dark, black heart of an edgelord, every day is Halloween.
- 2019 March 19, Talia Lavin, “The Death of Fascist Irony”, in The New Republic‎, →ISSN:
  But the joke, in the end, is that there is no joke. The sensibility of the edgelord—who pushes the boundaries of offensive humor—is really one long tumble into the abyss.
- 2019 October 9, Kevin Roose, “What Does PewDiePie Really Believe?”, in The New York Times Magazine‎, →ISSN:
  [Felix] Kjellberg knew plenty of edgelords — he was a gamer, after all — but he never considered himself one of them. Sure, he cursed and shouted while playing video games, but that was normal behavior.
- 2021 December 13, Molly Ball, Jeffrey Kluger, Alejandro de la Garza, “Elon Musk: Person of the Year 2021”, in Time‎:
  This is the man who aspires to save our planet and get us a new one to inhabit: clown, genius, edgelord, visionary, industrialist, showman, cad […]
- 2023 May 24, Joe Coscarelli, quoting Grimes, “Grimes Invited Anyone to Make A.I. Grimes Songs. Here Are Her Reviews.”, in The New York Times‎, →ISSN:
  The good thing about the music industry being so against this is that it seems pretty easy to strike things down. But I also think it’s good for there to be one edgelord moment.

Related terms

English terms suffixed with -lord

Descendants

→ French: edgelord
→ Finnish: reunaruhtinas (calque)

Verb

edgelord (third-person singular simple present edgelords, present participle edgelording, simple past and past participle edgelorded)

(originally Internet slang, mildly derogatory) To behave like an edgelord; to provoke with risque behaviour.
- 2017 June 5, Sarah Jeong, “Students Lose Acceptance to Harvard Over Racist Memes”, in Vice‎:
  The Crimson doesn't name any names, probably because no one wants to be known as the kid who almost went to Harvard except they edgelorded too hard.
- 2018, Richard Greene, Joshua Heter, editors, Westworld and Philosophy: Mind Equals Blown‎, Open Court Publishing, →ISBN:
  Logan is a great example of the false depth that comes from denying morals just for the sake of edgelording.
- 2021 August 14, Jim Salter, “The Perl Foundation is fragmenting over Code of Conduct enforcement”, in Ars Technica‎:
  I have personally used and enjoyed the Perl language for nearly 30 years, and it's distressing to see the bigotry and edgelording coming from prominent elements of the community—not to mention the board's failures to respond decisively.