Gaming Glossary: Terms Every Player Should Know
Gaming has developed one of the most expansive and fast-evolving vocabularies of any modern leisure domain. From competitive esports arenas to single-player narrative campaigns, players communicate in a shorthand that compresses complex tactical, mechanical, and social concepts into single words or brief phrases. This glossary defines the terms in common use across platforms, genres, and communities.
Core Mechanics
AFK — Away From Keyboard. A player who has stopped actively participating in a session, whether intentionally or due to disconnection. In team-based games, an AFK player is a liability and often triggers vote-kick systems.
Aggro — Short for aggression or aggravation. In RPGs and MMOs, aggro refers to the attention or hostility of enemy AI. A tank “holds aggro” by drawing enemies away from more vulnerable party members. In competitive play, it broadly describes an aggressive playstyle.
AOE (Area of Effect) — Any ability, spell, or weapon that damages or affects all targets within a defined radius. Grenades, carpet bombs, and fireball spells are canonical AOE attacks.
Buff / Debuff — A buff is a temporary positive status effect that enhances a character’s attributes (speed, damage, defense). A debuff is the inverse — a negative effect applied to an enemy or, through misfortune, to oneself. Both originate from tabletop RPG convention.
Cooldown — The mandatory wait time between uses of an ability or item. Managing cooldowns — knowing when they expire and timing abilities accordingly — is a fundamental skill across virtually every game genre.
DPS (Damage Per Second) — A numerical measure of offensive output over time. DPS is also used as a role descriptor for characters whose primary function is dealing damage rather than healing or tanking. Maximizing DPS is central to raid and dungeon optimization.
DoT (Damage over Time) — An effect that deals damage in periodic increments rather than a single hit. Poison, bleed, and burn effects are common DoT mechanics.
HoT (Heal over Time) — The restorative counterpart to DoT. Regeneration spells and bandage effects that restore health across multiple ticks rather than instantly.
Hitbox — The invisible geometric shape that determines whether an attack connects with a target. Hitbox accuracy varies by game and is a frequent subject of competitive complaints when it diverges from a character’s visible model.
Proc — Short for “programmed random occurrence” (though etymology is disputed). A proc is a secondary effect triggered by probability — a weapon with a 15% chance to apply a stun “procs” the stun when the random check succeeds.
RNG (Random Number Generator) — The system governing chance-based outcomes: loot drops, critical hits, spawn locations. Complaining about RNG is universal. High-RNG games are considered “luck-dependent”; low-RNG games reward consistent mechanical skill.
Tick Rate — The frequency at which a game server processes and updates game state, measured in hertz. Higher tick rates (64Hz, 128Hz) produce more accurate hit registration and smoother gameplay, particularly in fast-paced shooters.
True Damage — Damage that bypasses all resistances, armor, and mitigation. It deals exactly the stated value regardless of target defenses.
Player Roles and Classes
Carry — A player or character capable of single-handedly determining the outcome of a match through high damage output. Carries typically require resources and protection in early phases before becoming dominant. “Hard carry” implies near-total dependence on that player’s performance.
Support — A role focused on enabling teammates through heals, shields, crowd control, or vision. Supports sacrifice individual statistical prominence for collective team advantage.
Tank — A high-durability role designed to absorb damage and occupy enemy attention. Tanks operate at the front line and protect squishier teammates.
Jungler — In MOBAs, the player who farms neutral monster camps between lanes rather than occupying a fixed lane. The jungler exerts pressure across the map through ganks and objective control.
Flex — A player capable of performing effectively in multiple roles. Also describes champion or character picks that function across several positions.
Competitive and Esports Terms
Meta (Most Effective Tactics Available) — The prevailing set of strategies, character selections, and item builds considered optimal at a given point in a game’s competitive lifecycle. The meta shifts with patches, tournament results, and community discovery.
Gank — A surprise attack, typically executed by a roaming player, on an opponent who is overextended or has insufficient map awareness. Successful ganks produce kills or force valuable resources (summoner spells, ultimates) from the enemy.
Tilt — A state of emotional dysregulation triggered by losses, mistakes, or frustrating gameplay that degrades performance. A tilted player makes impulsive decisions, communicates poorly, and compounds errors. The term originates from pinball machine behavior.
Smurfing — A high-ranked player creating a secondary account to compete at lower skill levels. Smurfs distort matchmaking and produce uncompetitive games for legitimate lower-ranked players. The term derives from a 1996 Warcraft II incident involving players named Smurf and Papasmurf.
Elo — A rating system adapted from chess for competitive matchmaking. Elo increases with wins and decreases with losses, adjusted for opponent rating. Colloquially, “Elo hell” describes a perceived rating bracket where individual skill cannot overcome team deficits.
One-trick (OTP) — A player who specializes exclusively in a single character or strategy. One-tricks achieve high mechanical mastery but are vulnerable when their chosen option is banned or countered.
Cheese — An unconventional, often risky strategy designed to catch opponents off guard before they can establish standard play. Cheese strategies succeed on surprise and lose value once anticipated.
Poke — Long-range harassment designed to wear down an opponent’s health before a decisive engagement. Effective poking forces enemies to use resources defensively and creates windows for all-ins.
Kite — Maintaining maximum attack distance while retreating to avoid melee engagement. Kiting is essential for ranged characters against faster melee enemies.
Zoning — Controlling space through the threat of damage or presence, preventing an opponent from accessing resources or optimal positions without fighting.
Economy and Progression
Grinding — Extended, repetitive gameplay to accumulate experience, currency, or items. Grinding is sometimes a deliberate design feature and sometimes a pejorative describing inefficient content gating.
Farm — Accumulating in-game currency or resources through systematic elimination of enemies or completion of tasks. In MOBAs, “farming creeps” (CS — creep score) is the primary income mechanic.
Pay-to-Win (P2W) — A monetization model in which real-money purchases confer competitive advantages unavailable through gameplay alone. Distinguished from cosmetic-only monetization, which does not affect competitive balance.
Gacha — A monetization mechanic, originating in Japanese mobile gaming, based on randomized character or item acquisition using premium currency. Named for gashapon vending machines. High-value items carry extremely low probability, encouraging repeated spending.
Battle Pass — A seasonal content delivery model offering tiered rewards unlocked through gameplay progression. Players purchase the pass and earn cosmetics incrementally across the season.
Loot Box — A randomized reward container purchasable with real or in-game currency. Regulatory scrutiny in multiple jurisdictions has reduced their prevalence in major titles.
Movement and Positioning
Strafing — Moving laterally while maintaining aim at a target. Effective strafing makes a player harder to hit while sustaining offensive pressure.
Peeker’s Advantage — In online shooters, the mechanical edge afforded to a player emerging from cover due to latency discrepancies. The peeker sees the defender before the defender’s client registers the peel.
Bunny Hopping — Chaining jumps to maintain or exceed running speed, exploiting physics engine behavior. Present as an intentional mechanic in some titles, an exploit in others.
Wallbang — Firing through a wall or barrier to hit an opponent on the other side. Effective where penetration mechanics exist and opponents shelter behind thin cover.
Flanking — Attacking from an unexpected lateral or rear angle to bypass frontal defenses and create confusion.
Communication and Community
GG / GGWP — “Good Game” or “Good Game, Well Played.” Conventional end-of-match sportsmanship. “GG EZ” (Good Game, Easy) is the hostile inversion, implying the opponent offered no challenge.
Grief / Griefing — Deliberately sabotaging teammates’ experience through intentional feeding, item destruction, blocking, or other disruptive behavior. Distinct from simply playing poorly.
Noob / Newbie — A new or inexperienced player. “Noob” carries pejorative connotation when applied beyond literal inexperience to describe poor decision-making.
Tryhard — A player investing maximum effort in contexts perceived as casual. The label functions both descriptively and as criticism of unsociable competitive intensity.
Clutch — Performing successfully under extreme pressure, typically when outnumbered or with high stakes. A clutch play reverses expected outcomes through individual skill.
Carry diff — “Difference.” Appended to any role or factor to attribute a match outcome: “support diff,” “jungle diff.” Used analytically and sarcastically.
Throw — Losing a match from a winning position through errors, poor decisions, or overconfidence. “Throwing” is distinct from losing at even footing; it implies squandered advantage.
Technical Terms
Lag — Delay between player input and game response caused by network latency or client performance issues. High lag produces desynchronization between perceived and actual game state.
Ping — Network latency measured in milliseconds between client and server. Low ping (sub-30ms) indicates a responsive connection; high ping (150ms+) produces visible input delay. Also used as an in-game communication signal marking map locations.
FPS (Frames Per Second) — The rate at which the game renders visual frames. Higher FPS produces smoother motion and, in competitive contexts, can reduce input latency and improve target acquisition.
Packet Loss — The failure of data packets to reach their destination, causing stuttering, teleportation effects, or desync. Distinct from high latency, which delays packets without losing them.
Anti-cheat — Software systems monitoring game processes and player behavior for unauthorized modifications. Kernel-level anti-cheat (Vanguard, EasyAntiCheat) operates with elevated system permissions and is a recurring source of privacy debate.
Genre-Specific Terms
BR (Battle Royale) — A genre placing a large number of players in a shrinking play area until only one player or team survives. Popularized by PUBG and Fortnite.
MOBA (Multiplayer Online Battle Arena) — A genre featuring two teams of heroes competing to destroy the opponent’s base, typically through three lanes. Dota 2 and League of Legends define the genre.
Roguelite / Roguelike — Games featuring procedurally generated levels and permanent death. Roguelikes enforce strict genre rules (turn-based, grid movement, permadeath); roguelites adapt the structure with modern accommodations.
Souls-like — Games in the design tradition of FromSoftware’s Dark Souls series: punishing difficulty, death-as-learning-mechanic, minimal handholding, and intricate environmental storytelling.
Sandbox — Open-world games with minimal directed objectives, emphasizing player-constructed goals and emergent narrative. Minecraft and Dwarf Fortress represent extremes of the genre.
This glossary reflects terminology in active use as of 2026. Gaming language evolves rapidly; new genres, competitive formats, and community cultures continuously generate vocabulary that absorbs or displaces older terms.