edgelord

UK/ˈɛd͡ʒˌlɔːd//ˈɛd͡ʒˌlɔɹd/

edgelord noun: someone who tries to appear edgy by doing or saying provocative, controversial, taboo, or offensive things.

Noun

edgelord (plural edgelords)

(derogatory, mildly) Someone who tries to appear edgy by doing or saying provocative, controversial, taboo, or offensive things.
- Given that I have a certain personality that draws in a certain type of person, I have a ton of people on my feed who are Wiccan, Pagan, Satanist or some other kind of fringe religion or cult member. […] They make extra sure to remind you that they never take down their Halloween decorations...2018 October, Brad Cox, “Top 5 Things That I Hate About Halloween”, in Exotic, volume 26, number 4, Portland, OR: XMAG LLC, →OCLC, page 54
- But the joke, in the end, is that there is no joke. The sensibility of the edgelord—who pushes the boundaries of offensive humor—is really one long tumble into the abyss.2019 March 19, Talia Lavin, “The Death of Fascist Irony”, in The New Republic, →ISSN

edgelord (third-person singular simple present edgelords, present participle edgelording, simple past and past participle edgelorded)

(derogatory, mildly) To behave like an edgelord; to provoke with risqué behavior.
- The Crimson doesn't name any names, probably because no one wants to be known as the kid who almost went to Harvard except they edgelorded too hard.2017 June 5, Sarah Jeong, “Students Lose Acceptance to Harvard Over Racist Memes”, in Vice
- Logan is a great example of the false depth that comes from denying morals just for the sake of edgelording.2018, Richard Greene, Joshua Heter, editors, Westworld and Philosophy: Mind Equals Blown, Open Court Publishing, →ISBN

[Felix] Kjellberg knew plenty of edgelords — he was a gamer, after all — but he never considered himself one of them.2019 October 9, Kevin Roose, “What Does PewDiePie Really Believe?”, in The New York Times Magazine, →ISSN:
This is the man who aspires to save our planet and get us a new one to inhabit: clown, genius, edgelord, visionary, industrialist, showman, cad[…]2021 December 13, Molly Ball, Jeffrey Kluger, Alejandro de la Garza, “Elon Musk: Person of the Year 2021”, in Time, archived from the...
But I also think it’s good for there to be one edgelord moment.2023 May 24, Joe Coscarelli, quoting Grimes, “Grimes Invited Anyone to Make A.I. Grimes Songs. Here Are Her Reviews.”, in The New York...

Noun
plural	edgelords
Verb
third-person singular present	edgelords
present participle	edgelording
past participle	edgelorded
past	edgelorded

From edge (“the limit of acceptable behavior”) + -lord

What does edgelord mean?: Edgelord means someone who tries to appear edgy by doing or saying provocative, controversial, taboo, or offensive things.
How do you use edgelord in a sentence?: [Felix] Kjellberg knew plenty of edgelords — he was a gamer, after all — but he never considered himself one of them.
What part of speech is edgelord?: Edgelord can be a noun or a verb.
How do you pronounce edgelord?: Edgelord is pronounced /ˈɛd͡ʒˌlɔːd/ (UK).
What is the plural of edgelord?: The plural of edgelord is edgelords.

Adapted from Wiktionary: edgelord (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated: 2026-09-02

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Wodencafe-edgelord.wav.

Cite this entry: “edgelord.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/edgelord. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.