textspeak

[ tekst-speek ]

noun

, Digital Technology.

1. a form of written language as used in text messages and other digital communications, characterized by many abbreviations and typically not following standard grammar, spelling, punctuation, and style.

Word History and Origins

Origin of textspeak¹

text (message) + -speak

Example Sentences

To me, the idea that language can be purist is nonsensical; language always evolves, whether it's through technology — think emojis and textspeak — or increased social awareness, such as the evolution from "wife beating" to "intimate partner violence."

From Salon

But the language shimmers most when it pivots between “lol” textspeak and the grandiloquent pronouncements that recall the Romantics.

From New York Times

Human emotion gets standardized into generic, two-character textspeak, but then turns, through Ms. Humphries’s lashing of oil paints through the stencil, back into lifelike form.

From New York Times

Even in longhand, he wrote in his signature style, an idiosyncratic precursor of textspeak that he’d perfected back in the eighties: “Eye” for “I,” “U” for “you,” “R” for “are.”

From The New Yorker

Procter & Gamble, the household products company, has applied to trademark acronyms common in textspeak including “LOL” and “WTF”.

From The Guardian