If you have been anywhere on social media lately, or chatting with your friends, you might have come across some words that just sound, well, new. Words like ‘rizz’, or ‘rizzler’, or even ‘gyatt’ have started to enter popular colloquial use, ushering in a new wave of slang terms used amongst English speakers, typically skewed towards the Gen Z and Gen Alpha demographics. In fact, ‘rizz’ was named by the Oxford University Press as the “Word of the Year”. So today, we will look into where these three words come from, and what they mean. And trust me, it took me some time to figure out what they mean based on the contexts they are used.

Rizz

Firstly, we have the word ‘rizz’. It is a slang word for ‘attractiveness’, or ‘charm’, much akin to the word ‘charisma’. Or perhaps even more colloquially speaking, to say a person has rizz would be kind of equivalent to saying that a person got game. Translating this back into a less colloquial register of English, it would mean that the person is able to seduce a potential love interest, and from the contexts I have seen, the love interest would typically be female. It could be used as a noun or a verb, following the usual patterns of conjugation.

Rizz was first seen in 2021, used by a streamer and YouTuber Kai Cenat. This was later spread and popularised through TikTok, and colloquial use has surged since. It is thought that this word was formed from the word ‘charisma’, with which it shares considerable meaning. According to the OUP, this word is formed from the pattern of forming words like ‘flu’ from ‘influenza’, and ‘fridge’ from ‘refrigerator’, although for the latter, there was a proposed influence from the Frigidaire brand of fridges. Even outdated words like ‘frigerator’ were identified and proposed as an influence resulting in the word ‘fridge’.

Rizzler

Now, what happens if you have a person who has a lot of rizz, or is really able to rizz people up? Then we have ourselves a ‘rizzler’. Briefly put, it describes a person who is a capable seducer. This word is slightly easier to explain in terms of etymology, as it is formed as a blend of ‘rizz’ and ‘riddler’. It probably does not technically qualify as a portmanteau at first sight, since a portmanteau requires that both elements of the blend to also combine the meanings of these constituents. The ‘riddler’ part does not really make intuitive sense when used as part of ‘rizzler’, but it is thought that it actually refers to the DC character (I am not falling for that tautological DC comics) the Riddler. And that is where we might find an argument for a portmanteau.

The Riddler is a character in the DC universe known for his genius. His ability to think laterally and conjure up puzzles gives him this very name. In the Batman comics, his personality is described as an egocentrist, a megalomaniac, or a narcissist, which conveys an air of projected self-importance. Looking back at the word ‘rizzler’, we can probably see how the ability (and aptitude) of the Riddler would have shared some meaning as part of the portmanteau. Whether or not a rizzler’s personality traits match that of the Riddler is up to the person themselves.

Gyatt

For some reason, the first instance I have come across this word is from a lyric “sticking out your gyatt for the rizzler”. This word has a more diverse set of meanings, and has slightly longer use than the rizz counterpart. It was originally the African-American Vernacular English pronunciation of the word ‘God’. It is more commonly used as an interjection, sharing the same, or similar connotation with the interjection ‘God damn’. Alternatively spelled ‘gyat’, it has first seen popular Internet use on the social media platform formerly known as Twitter. The first wave of surge in popularity was brought by the rapper Nicki Minaj, and in the turn of the new decade, has seen a resurgence in popularity in usage.

But in more recent months, a new meaning has arisen, which is to refer to a woman’s attractive buttocks. It is also used as an interjection when seeing an attractive or curvy woman, which sounds like another way to catcall people. YouTubers and streamers like Kai Cenat and YourRAGE are attributed to this word’s more recent meaning and usage, as well as the subsequent popularity of the word ‘gyatt’ in colloquial speech and Internet vernacular.

Why words like ‘rizz’ are chosen as Oxford’s Word of the Year largely pertains to what this accolade is all about. After all, ‘goblin mode’ was the winner in 2022, and in 2015, it was just an emoji. 2013 was the year of the ‘selfie’, and 2004 had the word ‘chav’. What is common amongst these words is they have attained a lot of interest during that calendar year, and what Oxford deems to have “reflected the ethos, mood, or preoccupations” of that year, and has “lasting potential as a word of cultural significance”. That probably explains the UK Oxford’s Word of the Year in 2008, which happens to be ‘credit crunch’.

In the Internet age, it would seem intuitive that words arising and popularised from social media platforms would spread fast, resulting in attaining a great deal of interest and use. What new words could surge in use in 2024? We shall wait and see.