slay

Slay is warm, hyped-up approval. It praises looks, outfits, performances and wins of any size. As a one-word reply, it often celebrates tiny things on purpose. Cleaning your room can be a slay. The word has been said so much that some of its force has worn off. The youngest speakers now mostly use it with a wink. Adults who use it earnestly read as a step behind.

Where it came from matters more than with most slang. Slay was top praise in the Black and Latino LGBTQ ballroom scene. In drag culture it still carries its full weight, as real applause for a flawless look or performance. Most people saying it today do not know that history. Knowing it is treated as basic respect, the way crediting a songwriter is.

The verb itself is Old English and meant to strike or kill. English has turned it into praise more than once. "You slay me" meant "you make me laugh" back in the 1920s. The modern sense was forged in the Black and Latino LGBTQ ballroom scene of 1970s and 80s New York. There, slaying meant a flawless outfit, look or performance on the floor. The 1990 documentary Paris Is Burning filmed that world and its language directly. That is why this origin is unusually well documented for slang. RuPaul's Drag Race carried the word far beyond queer communities from 2009 on. The mainstream tipping point was Beyonce's "Formation" in February 2016. The song was built around the phrase "I slay," and she performed it at the Super Bowl the day after release. Beyonce did not coin the word. She amplified a term ballroom culture had owned for decades.