bae

Bae is a pet name for a boyfriend, girlfriend or partner, like “babe” or “baby.” It can also describe anything you love: a favorite snack, a celebrity crush, your dog.

What bae means

Merriam-Webster defines it simply as “sweetheart, baby.” You might call your partner bae to their face, talk about them as bae (“bae and I are staying in tonight”), or use it jokingly for things: pizza is bae, this song is bae. Dictionary.com also lists an adjective sense, meaning greatly loved or very cool.

One caution from Dictionary.com: calling a stranger or someone you barely know “bae” can come across as presumptuous or even disrespectful.

Examples

• “Can’t tonight, it’s date night with bae.”
• “Bae surprised me with breakfast in bed.”
• “This hoodie is bae. I’m never taking it off.”

Does bae stand for “before anyone else”?

No. That explanation is popular, but it’s a backronym, invented after the word already existed. Wikipedia calls it a false etymology. Linguist Neal Whitman found the acronym story first appearing in a tweet from 2011, years after bae was already in use. The word is a shortening of “babe” or “baby,” and Whitman traces it to African American English.

Where bae came from

Dates vary by source. Merriam-Webster gives a first known use of 1976, Dictionary.com says the early 2000s, and the first Urban Dictionary entry appeared in March 2003. It spread through hip-hop, R&B and social media, and 2014 was its big year: Pharrell Williams released “Come Get It Bae,” which reached No. 23 on the Billboard Hot 100, and bae made the shortlist for Oxford Dictionaries’ Word of the Year. (“Vape” won.)

That same summer, Time magazine explained the word for its readers, and the internet mocked the explainer with the hashtag #TimeTitles. Bae was officially mainstream.

Related terms

• Bestie: best friend.
• Situationship: more than friends, not quite dating.
• Hard launch: going public with a relationship online.
• ILY: I love you.

See more terms like this in our Gen Z slang guide.