What Does Lowkey Mean- Know the Slang from Tweets to Dictionaries

The language used on the internet has been rapidly evolving over the past few decades. They were basically invented to ease communication and save time. Online chats, social networking sites, and online games are the best places to make use of internet slang and to learn new slang. 

It was in the early days of the internet when internet slang was originated. Internet slangs are mostly abbreviations, emoticons, and acronyms but can also be archaic words or the lesser-known meanings of conventional terms. 

Let’s know about the word ‘lowkey’ that you may have seen a lot on social media. It made its entry in Internet linguistics a couple of years back but has been into the mainstream way earlier.

Wondering what lowkey means? Well, if we go by the dictionary definition as given in Merriam-Webster, it means “quiet and relaxed: not very forceful, emotional, or noticeable”. We can say that this is how “lowkey” came into being and has in a way derived from the mainstream term “low-key”. 

When you look up the meaning of ‘low key’ in the crowdsourced online dictionary ‘Urban Dictionary’, you’ll find the same meaning. Refer to the two contributions given below.

According to a contributor’s post-Donjamin on June 10, 2005: 

keep something low key: to not announce it; to have a quiet gathering; opposite of a large party or big group of people; not much emphasis, closely aligned with a normal night out doing the usual stuff.

Usage- I'm going out tonight but it's pretty low-key; work tomorrow so tonight's going to be a low-key event.

According to a contributor’s post in 2010, lowkey has the following meanings: 

1) Secretly or discretely

2) Slightly or kinda

Example 1: "He's moving to Chicago in three weeks but the semester isn't over for another seven weeks. He's lowkey dropping out."

Example 2: "I didn't think I would be but I'm lowkey sad that my roommate is moving out."

And this is how a Quora user ‘Krystal Sanchez’ has described lowkey by quoting a few examples.

A word to describe a state of keeping on the low and not to have your name in everyone’s mouth. Low key is also a state of which someone does not want to be talked about or be heaty.

It is kind of synonymous with being "under the radar", depending on the context.

Example:

"I am low-key obsessed with this new show"

What they mean is that their obsession is not obvious, but they are obsessed nonetheless.

"I've been just staying low-key and getting my life together"

What they mean is that they have been under the radar and out of sight for some time.

Now let’s have a look at some of the tweets where “lowkey” has been used.

HighKey- The Opposite of Lowkey

Interestingly enough, there’s a word called ‘high-key’ that means just the opposite of ‘lowkey’. You’re like “don’t tell” when you use lowkey and you’re like “tell-all” when you use high-key. It is used as a modifier online that means “a lot”, “very” “intensely” “much”.

These tweets are pretty good examples of high-key and lowkey struggles we all go through in our daily lives.

So now it’s pretty clear that the old and new ‘lowkey’ are much similar in meaning. And quiet or relaxed isn’t any different than kinda or subtly. 

You can use the word“Lowkey” when you wish to tell people about your secretly held thoughts or feelings. Another interesting fact is that the old “low-key” was an adjective and the new “lowkey” is used as an adverb.