abeg
Abeg is Nigerian Pidgin for “please.” It comes from “I beg,” and Nigerians use it to soften a request (“Abeg, pass the water”) or to tell someone to stop (“Abeg, leave me alone”).
What abeg means
Most of the time it’s a friendly please: “Abeg, help me carry this bag.” Said with a sigh or a raised eyebrow, it becomes “please, spare me,” the reply to a story you’ve heard five times or an excuse nobody believes. It goes at the start of the sentence, and sometimes it is the whole sentence.
Examples
- “Abeg, help me carry this bag.”
- “Abeg, park well, you’re blocking the gate.”
- “Abeg, I don’t want to hear that story again.”
Where it came from
Wiktionary traces abeg to Nigerian Pidgin, from the English words “I beg.” In January 2026, Nigerian newspapers including BusinessDay, Vanguard and Leadership reported that the Oxford English Dictionary had added abeg, along with nyash and biko, the Igbo word for please.
Related terms
More Nigerian words are in our Nigerian slang guide.
Example sentence
Abeg, wait for me, I’m almost ready.
Similar words
please, biko
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