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ENTITY reports on what does bae mean

Slang words such as “selfie,” “yolo” and “twerk” have officially made it to the dictionary. But we’re still left wondering the importance of these words.

Have these words forced themselves so deep into our conversations that they’ve become a part of the American language?

I’d heard the word “bae” about a hundred times before I had the courage to ask someone what it meant. And now it’s in the dictionary? Now I even use it interchangeably with babe.

But if you don’t know what it means by now or its origin, you might be too embarrassed to ask. Thankfully, we’ve got you covered.

We’re here to answer all your questions. So, you know, your cool friends don’t think you’re lame for being so far behind the times.

What does bae mean?

ENTITY reports on what does bae mean

According to dictionary.com, bae is a noun defined as an “affectionate term used to address or refer to one’s girlfriend, boyfriend, spouse etc.” For example, you would say to your significant other “I love you bae.”

It can also be used as an adjective used to describe you greatly admire or love. You can also use it to describe something you think is cool. For example, you could say “Entity mag is totally bae.”

More importantly, Urban Dictionary says bae is also an acronym for “before anyone else,” which is the definition I remember.

But where did bae come from?

Dictionary.com states that the word stems from the early 2000s and was a shortening of baby or babe.

Bae was used in mainstream media for the first time in Pharell’s “Come Get it Bae,” and Google Trends shows that the word bae has been trending since 2004.

But bae was first submitted to Urban Dictionary in 2003 with the definition “a bastardization of the term ‘babe’ as pronounced typically in a Vietnamese accent.”

ENTITY reports on what does bae mean

Screenshot via Urban Dictionary

Despite these definitions, though, the first use of the word as an acronym was in 2011 by Twitter user @HeavyD_EyeSee_K, who tweeted out: “My girl hates being called bae but I still call her that bc it stands for Before Anyone Else.”

The word then became a trend on Twitter in 2012 with the meme “bae caught me slippin.'”

Twitter user @NostrandAv began the trend by posting a photo of a woman taking a picture of herself sleeping with the caption, “Females Be Like ‘Bae Caught Me Slippin.'”

ENTITY reports on what does bae mean

Photo via Twitter/frijoldae

This sparked a trend of tweets of people posting intentionally obvious selfies of themselves sleeping with the same caption, “Bae caught me slippin.'”

Lexicographer Neil Whitman also claimed that the most recent “bae” meme was “You got a bae? Or nah?,” which was coined by Vine user TooTurntTina, who created a vine titled, “when u see a cute boiii #ornah.” She sparked a trend of “you got a bae? or nah?” remakes.

(Side note: She also created this hilarious video titled “Why girls wear makeup,” explaining that girls don’t wear makeup for boys, and it’s pure gold.)

So is it an acronym or not?

Linguist Tyler Schnoebelen told TIME that as words get more popular, their meaning tends to change. It’s like a game of telephone where, by the last person, the phrase is completely different from the original phrase.

“As it gets picked up by more people, its meaning will either calcify or bleach,” Schnoebelen told TIME. “Calcify” refers to having a definition that means only one specific thing or including a range or meanings.

While bae originally started out as a shortened version of babe, it turned into an acronym for “before anyone else.”

At the end of the day, both definitions ultimately have the same meaning and usage.

But even bae has a problematic background.

According to The Huffington Post writer Zeba Blay, bae first became popular on Black Twitter and Instagram with the hashtag #baecaughtmesleepin and #cookinforbae. She states the word has been killed and overused by white people who stole the slang word from the black community.

“So when suddenly words and phrases that have strong ties to the black community are adopted and warped by non-black people, it can cause some of us to feel indignant, even insulted,” Blay wrote.

Also, bae means “poop” in Danish, so we should probably kill the word altogether.

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