Lit

Exciting, excellent. Also has an older meaning: drunk.

What it means

As slang, lit means exciting, excellent or full of energy. A lit party is a great one; a lit concert had the whole crowd going. Cambridge defines it as “very good, enjoyable, or exciting,” and Green’s Dictionary of Slang calls it a “wide-spectrum term of approval.”

There is an older slang meaning to know. Lit has long meant drunk or high, and both Cambridge and Dictionary.com still list that sense.

Where it comes from

Dictionary.com says lit was first recorded in the sense “intoxicated” in 1895–1900. The approving sense is far newer. Green’s earliest listed citation for it is dated 2016: a university student newspaper quoting a text message that called a pizza lit.

Who says it now

The translator files lit under Millennials. That is the wheel’s convention, not something the 2016 citation shows about who used it; that year the youngest Millennials were around college age and the oldest Gen Z were reaching college age. In our observation it still works for parties and events, though it may already sound a little dated.

Tone

Enthusiastic and informal. Not offensive in itself, but because of the older sense it can hint at drinking, so it is not a word for a school report or a job interview.

What adults hear, what kids mean

This is a common mix-up. A parent who hears “the party was lit” may assume people were drinking. A teenager may well mean it was fun and full of energy. A rough guide: “the party was lit” is about the event; “he was lit” is about a person, and that is more likely the old meaning.

How to use it

Use it for events and places: a lit party, a lit show. It is less often used to praise a person, because “he was lit” can bring back the drunk meaning.

Two examples, written by us:

How to answer it

If a kid says something was lit, they probably enjoyed it, so ask what made it good. If you need to know whether there was drinking, ask that directly instead of reading it into the word.

Same idea, other generations

The Slang-o-matic wheel files Lit under Millennials for the idea of excellent. These are the words it files under the same idea, by generation. They are related, not always exact translations:

Related slang

Try the slang translatorAll slang by generation

Sources

Meanings and dates on this page come from these dictionaries. Each quote is copied word for word from the linked page.