Slang dictionary
ight
or aight [ahyt] or [ah-ahyt]
What does听ight mean?
If you’re hanging in there, having a good time, or if you’re just a decent human, you’re ight.听Ight is black colloquial English for听all right.
Where does ight come from?
Ight is a variant of aight, itself a variant of the adjective, adverb, and interjection听all right as pronounced in colloquial Black English. It resulted from a series of what linguists call elision, or leaving out sounds. So, in colloquial Black English,听all right 产别肠补尘别听aight [ah-ahyt], which was further shortened to ight.
The spellings听补颈驳丑迟 补苍诲听ight date to the 1990s, though almost certainly found in speech well before then. One early example of aight in pop culture can be found in the song “I’m Looking for the One (To Be With Me)” by DJ Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince (Will Smith). On it, Smith raps: “You feeling’ aight?听You feelin’ aright? …Well next time bring a friend with you / So (they can feel the same way too).”听The song reached #79 on the Billboard Hot 100, and helped introduce the form听补颈驳丑迟听to a wider audience.
Ight is recorded online in the late 1990s, the shortened spelling perhaps influenced by Doug E. Fresh’s track “I-ight,” first released in 1993.
Into the 1990s, aight and听颈驳丑迟听were frequently featured in popular black culture, especially music and TV. With growing mainstream popularity of hip-hop music in the 2000s, ight or aight went more mainstream, although remained closely associated with black culture.
Aight/ight听notably appeared in the lyrics of hip-hop artist Blueface’s popular 2018 track “Deadlocs,” which begins:听“Blueface, baby / On the dead locs / Yeah, aight.”
Blueface baby… yea ight 馃ぃ
— 鉁ю潛曫潛潛叼潛拆潛潛拆潛湩 (@yagirl_felicia)
Examples of ight
Who uses ight?
Ight听补苍诲 aight听are typically heard in colloquial Black English and writing, especially in hip-hop and on social media. Other colloquial variations of all right听颈苍肠濒耻诲别听a’ight, ‘ight, a-ight, all meant to point back to the original all right.
Like the original all right, ight can be an interjection expressing affirmation, assent, or enthusiasm, 脿 la OK, e.g., Ight, I’ll you meet you there. or You got the tickets to the concert! Ight!听
Her: Come over I cooked for you
Him: Ight what u cook?
Her: Fried fish, hold on look— Jr Pettaway (@llpbball)
厂颈尘颈濒补谤濒测,听ight can be used as a discourse marker, especially to introduce a new subject or express a skeptical attitude about a topic, e.g.,听Ight, you听sure you’re going to stick to that diet.
Ight so I鈥檝e been trynna write an essay for the last two hours and this is literally me
— Memo (@maybe_memo)
I left New York for this ? Yea ight
— 馃叡锔�. O . N (@CokeBoyCR)
Ight, also like all right, can be used as an adjective (e.g., This food is ight) or adverb (We did ight).
Lol bruh if Bron A&R鈥檇 this album??? He did IGHT 馃槶馃槶
— Low (@LowKeyUHTN)
Ight is informal in writing. It’s closely associated with black vernacular english, and so, use of it by people outside that community may be considered a form of cultural appropriation.
Note
This is not meant to be a formal definition of ight like most terms we define on Dictionary.com, but is rather an informal word summary that hopefully touches upon the key aspects of the meaning and usage of ight that will help our users expand their word mastery.