OTP

OTP stands for “one true pairing,” a fan’s absolute favorite romantic couple, usually from a TV show, book, game or band.

What OTP means

Fans can ship lots of pairings. Your OTP is the one above all the others, the couple you’ll defend in every argument and write fan fiction about at 3 a.m. People usually have one per fandom.

It gets used jokingly too, for any perfect match: a person and their dog, a celebrity and a snack, peanut butter and banana. Dictionary.com notes that playful use.

Examples

• “They’re my OTP and the finale ruined my life.”
• “Me and iced coffee: OTP.”
• “Every fandom I join, I find an OTP within a week.”

Variations

• NOTP: a pairing you can’t stand.
• BrOTP: a favorite friendship, not a romance.
• OT3 or OT4: a favorite group of three or four.

Where it came from

OTP is older than most internet slang. Fanlore and Know Your Meme both point to a 1984 summary of a Star Trek fanzine that jokingly called Kirk and Spock “our one true pairing.” Online, it shows up on LiveJournal in 2002 and on Urban Dictionary in 2003. According to Fanlore, it first meant the only pairing a fan supported, and shifted toward “favorite” as fans started shipping more than one couple. Fanlore says it was used most heavily around 2013 to 2015; since then, “ship” has taken over a lot of its work.

Not to be confused with

In security and banking, OTP means “one-time password,” the code sent to your phone when you log in. If someone asks for your OTP, they don’t want to talk about fandom, and you should never share that code with anyone.

Related terms

• Ship: to want two people to be together.
• Stan: an extremely devoted fan.
• Bias: your favorite member of a K-pop group.

See more terms like this in our internet slang dictionary.