Hey there and welcome to Furry, Explained! I’m Finn, a big black cat from the internet, and Furry, Explained is my show about furries and their culture. In this episode we’re going to do something a little different; as you can probably tell by the title we’re going to go over some furry slang. As with any large but specialized group of individuals, furries have their own set of terms that they used solely in the context of the furry fandom. Think of it as a language, within a language. We’ll be going over exactly why furries have special words and phrases to describe certain things that are reserved for the fandom, and after that I have a list of terms here that I’ll go through, define each word, and explain the context around where that term is used. This is going to be a fun episode; it’s going to be a lot less scripted than usual and the second segment is going to be very rapid-fire with terms and definitions coming right after each other. Hopefully by the end of it, you come away with a few new words added to your vocabulary, and you’re a lot more comfortable talking like a seasoned member of the furry fandom. I’m excited to get started so let’s get into it! Welcome to Furry, Explained, and we’ll get started right… here.

So what exactly is Furry Slang? Well if you look at the actual definition of the word slang, it’s defined as a group of informal words, said more in speech than in writing, and restricted to a particular group of people. That’s why I wanted to put the word slang in the title of this episode in the first place; most of these words you’ll learn about are very informal, and only have meaning when put into the context of the furry fandom. As you might have guessed, this episode is targeted more towards newer furries, since members who have been in the fandom for a decent amount of time should know what most of these mean, but hey, it never hurts to review. Now I’ll go ahead and say this upfront: outsiders already find furries weird, and part of the reason why definitely has to do with is some of the words in our vocabulary the we use. But I actually think that’s part of the fun of being a furry; after a while, you won’t find some of the things we say all that weird, because you’ll know what a lot of these words, acronyms, and phrases mean, allowing you to carry a furry-related conversation as easily as having a normal one. Now I’ll be honest, I was debating on putting this in the last episode talking about furry communication, but I actually shifted the focus of that episode kinda last second to talking about the actual process of starting a good conversation with furries, and shoehorning something like this into it didn’t really feel right. But I still think it’s important to know most of these terms when you’re in a furry environment, as it’s one of the main barriers to someone new to the fandom from truly fitting in among furry circles. Now the cool thing is if you’ve been listening to the show for the past few weeks, and if you have, hopefully, you’re subscribed wherever you get your podcasts, you’ve actually already learned a few of the most important terms that relate to the furry fandom. Things like fursuits, conventions, and fursonas are some of the foundational pieces of the furry vocabulary. And even though a lot of the words that we’ll go over will also end up having an entire episode dedicated to them, there are a lot of words that furries say that don’t really warrant that level of an explanation, so we’re going to get them out of the way here so you don’t have to look them up on your own later on. Some of these words are fun to say while others are a little more awkward and honest cringy (which, as much as I despise the word cringe, I feel like it’s an appropriate description here), but once you start hearing these terms being thrown around in conversion, it will for sure help you feel more like you’re a part of the club. Now before we immediately dive into the deep end here, I do have my limits, and we’re not going to be covering all the terms that are out there for a couple of reasons. Primarily, the furry vocabulary grows with the fandom, with new words being ushered in as older terms get phased out, meaning there may be some words that I haven’t even heard of yet and I can’t really explain what I don’t know. But the other big reason is that, for right now, I’m staying away from the NSFW side of the fandom. Oh in fact here’s a free one; if you don’t know what NSFW stands for, it’s for Not Safe For Work, and typically pertains to the more explicit side of a particular interest, like the furry fandom in this case. And don’t worry, we will eventually cover the more sexually explicit part of the fandom, since trying to hide it is pretty irresponsible in my opinion. I’m just still working on how I want to go about tackling that aspect of the furry fandom while still keeping the broad audience that I prefer to have for this show. But I already got ahead of myself with defining terms you may not know, so let’s take a quick break and when we come back, we’ll go over the list of terms that I have and explain their definitions and their appropriate contexts! I know, quick first segment this episode, and honestly this episode might be on the shorter side anyway but the next part should be a lot of fun. Stay tuned, we’ll be right back.

Alright, we’re back. So now that you know a little bit about why furries have their dialect, let’s go over some of the more popular terms that you may hear when talking with other furries. I have a list of terms here that I broke down into a few categories, and the first category I have describes words for different actions that furries do.

Actions

• Awoo: Howl, mostly done by canines.
• Not uncommon to get a “howl” going at a convention, and as you might imagine, can get pretty annoying.
• In fact there’s a joke in the fandom that debates whether howling, or in this case awooing, is legal or not, and you’ll get a different answer depending on who you ask.
• Personally I think it’s fine in moderation, but it can get a little much from time to time.
• Boop: The next word I have is a boop, which means to lightly touch someone’s nose. It’s regarded as a cute gesture, but one that you should only do with explicit permission, especially if you’re doing it to a fursuiter. As we discussed in previous episodes, fursuits, especially the head, are very expensive, and even a small tap on the nose can cause serious damage to someone’s investment.
• With this in mind, this means you really shouldn’t even think about giving a fursuiter a bap, which is known as a much harder boop, usually with an open palm. I wouldn’t say it has the same force as a full-on slap, but it’s somewhere in between.
• Scree: (Back to noises, you might see furries say the word scree from time to time) Is a very high pitched...vocalization that is typically associated with foxes, especially with fennec foxes. A lot of fox furs scree ironically, using it as a reaction of pleasure, annoyance, or honestly for any reason I find the noise rather annoying when people actually try to do it in person, but that’s part of the point of why they do it. Foxes, I’ll never figure them out.
• But if you’re around much more sophisticated species, you might see cats or other felines say the word mow. Mow, spelled like mow, MOW, represents the actual sound of a cat meowing. So if meowing defines the actual feline vocalization, mow is referring to the sound.

Art Terms

• Anthropomorphic: Giving something, in this case animals, human-like qualities
• Zoomorphic: Opposite or inverse of anthropomorphic, meaning giving something that’s not an animal animal-like qualities. Think of something like those stone lions that rich people have in front of their houses: that’s an example of physical zoomorphism (giving stone animal-like qualities).
• We already talked about commissions and what those are, but there’s a specific type of commission you can get that we haven’t mentioned yet, called a YCH, or Your Character Here. Your Character Here’s are essentially art auctions where the setting and background of a piece is done, and you could win the rights of your character being the subject of the art piece. Usually only a rough sketch or outline of a generic character is placed as the subject for advertising a TCH, and whoever wins the auction gets to have their character featured in that specific piece of work. I’ve also heard it referred to as TCBY, or This Could Be You, but YCH is much more popular.
• Speaking of characters, if you’re a member of the furry fandom, you’re already probably familiar with the idea of an original character.
• Original Character: Any character you come up with; typically your fursona, but any intellectual property that you generate that wasn’t there before can be considered an original character.
• Adoptable: This is related to something called an adoptable, which is an original character or species that someone creates and release the rights to. It’s called an adoptable because you are basically adopting someone else’s creation. This typically means that you have to buy adoptables, since you are essentially buying the rights to a particular character from someone, and that someone is giving you the right to use their creation as your own character.
• Original Species: This is not to be confused with the term original species, despite them being under the same general category. At their most basic, original species are fan-made creations that usually combine multiple real or fiction animals into a new species. They are a little more complicated than something like a mixed species, since a mixed species is just combining two or more animals, or basically another word for a hybrid. Depending on what kind they are, and how their original inventors govern their use, there are rules and regulations around the actual use of original species.
• I’ll keep it brief since this is getting more into online art terminology and not necessarily furry terminology, but original species are referred to as either closed, open, or semi-open. A closed species means that people cannot create a character based on that species freely, and must adopt characters from administrators, moderators, or special guest artists who are authorized to draw that particular creation. Open species, on the other hand, can be used and created freely. The ref sheet is open sourced and there’s nothing stopping anyone from creating characters of that particular species. And a semi-open species is a mix of the two, where the actual species may be open, but specific things like certain characteristics of the creation must be paid for. I’ve also had semi-opened species described to me as being able to have one character of that species, but any more you create must be paid for.
• There are many examples of these in the furry fandom with some popular examples including things like:
  • Dutch Angel Dragons, which look more like horses with wings and a dragon-like tail.
  • Sergals, which are an alien species with a shark-like head.
  • Manokits, which have canine-like heads, paws, and fur, but a theropod-like body shape, and a dorsal and caudal fins.
  • And protogens, which are basically cyborg raptors with a visor for a head.
• If these all sound complicated but interesting, don’t worry; I have plans to do an separate episode on each of these and more original species so stay tuned for that.

Convention Stuff: There’s a few terms related to conventions that I wanted to go over and I’ll start by actually talking about conventions themselves.

• You’ll often hear conventions referred to by shorter names or even just the initials of the name of the convention. So conventions like Furpocolypse, Anthro NorthWest, or Biggest Little Furry Convention, are referred to as FurPoc, ANW, or BLFC, respectively. So if you hear someone referencing a seemingly random assortment of letters, most likely they’re talking about a convention.
• Headless lounge: At conventions, a term that might hear that might make you do a double take is something called the headless lounge. And no, it’s not a place specifically designed for convention goes to decapitate themselves, it’s a specific room for people fursuiting to take their fursuit heads off and rest. Typically, only people who fursuit are allowed in there and if it is more open to the public, no cameras or picture taking is allowed. This again is to preserve the identity of the suitors who may like to stay anonymous.
• Furspeech: More generic furry terms that basically involve sticking the word fur, paw, or extra oos in regular words. You don’t really hear these all that often anymore, but I still think they are important to go over despite most of them being self-explanatory.
  • Everyfur
  • Facepaw
  • Pawesome
• You can easily guess what each of these terms mean, they just have the word fur or paw added into them.
• Floof: Describes something very fluffy, with the word floof also acting as a noun for a specific bundle of fur on a character’s body.
• You’ll also find popular fursona species be shortened to smaller, truncated words, mainly because we as a fandom are lazy.
  • GShep: German Shephard.
  • SNep: Snow Leopard.
  • Roo: Kangaroo.
  • Bun: Bunny or rabbit.
• Popufur: Arguably my least favorite word that this fandom has come up with, but as it sounds, it’s used to describe relatively popular members of the furry fandom. I don’t like this term because it’s very...loaded. It’s commonly used in a condescending manner from people who are jealous of their popularity and feeds into the idea that sometimes this fandom can turn into a popularity contest from time to time.
• Greymuzzle: Now a term that is never used in a condescending way is calling someone a greymuzzle. This is a term used to describe older members of the fandom, people who have considered themselves furries for upwards to 15 to 20 years. This is a word that is used in respect for the older members of the fandom who helped shaped what it is today, and can be seen as an honor to be regarded as one.
• Scalies: Now let’s say you’re furry, but your character species is that of a reptile, like a lizard or a dragon. Then you would be considered a scalie, which is a member of the furry fandom with a reptilian character or fursona. It’s a really good term to describe a relationship that’s very similar to the one that rectangles and squares have: every square is a rectangle, but not every rectangle is a square. In that same vein, scalies are furries, but not all furries are scalies, if that makes sense. Basically think of furry as the umbrella term that reptilian fursonas fall under, that should help clear things up.
• Now in general, most people have a solid idea of who furries are and more importantly, know who furries themselves think they are too. But sometimes there’s confusion between furries and these two other categories of individuals.
• The first of which are therians, who are people who actually identify as an animal in some intrinsic way. They think that this animal may exist within them in some way that is human only in outside appearance, or they believe they have the body of a human and the soul of an animal that exists or previously existed on earth. Again, these are not furries per se; they may be apart of the furry fandom by their choice but they do not define what a furry is, which again is someone who is a member of the furry fandom who is interested in the idea of anthropomorphic animals.
• The other common category of individuals that tend to get mixed up with furries are referred to as otherkin. The best way for me to describe otherkin are individuals who don’t identify as human from a social and spiritual level. It’s a little more broad than therians, but otherkin also identify as partially or entirely nonhuman, and more akin to another animal, real or fictional. And again, otherkin can join the furry fandom, but someone who is a furry does not make them an otherkin.
• Just wanted to get those two common confusions properly defined and separated incase someone calls you something you’re not.

Fursuit Stuff: Let’s wrap up with some fursuit related terms.

• We’ve already described fursuits in detail, including the difference between plantigrade and digitigrade suites.
• Quad suit: But what we didn’t mention are quad suits, which are fursuits that resemble a quadruped animal but utilizing the arms of the suiter as the forelegs of the animal depicted. They are much less common as they are harder to make and wear, but are impressive to look at since they look a lot more realistic to the real version of that animal.
• Fursuit handler: Now if you’re fursuiting somewhere in public like a convection, and  you’re either new to it or  your suit head has extremely limited vision, you might want to enlist the help of a fursuit handler. A handler is someone who acts as a helper to someone who is performing in fursuit. The handler helps the fursuiter do things like walk around, navigate through crowds, and obstacles, and is considered an assistant that the fursuiter can use if they need help with things they may sound simple, but are a lot more difficult in a fursuit. They also can monitor the behavior of others who may wish to approach the fursuiter, and instructs them or intervenes when necessary.
• Breaking the magic: Now in that fursuit episode we did earlier, we talked about how fursuiting is considered a performance. Well not everyone sees it that way, and a lot of people take a more casual approach to fursuiting. This includes only wearing parts of their suit and not having it cover the entire body, showing human skin instead. This is referred to as poodling, which is a reference to how poodles may have a lot of skin that is visible and not covered with fur. This falls under the umbrella of what is known as breaking the magic, which is when any human feature is visible while wearing a fursuit, seemingly breaking the illusion that a full suit has of replacing a human with an anthropomorphic animal. This makes some more traditional fursuiters upset, while some couldn’t care less. Personally, I think it’s fine only if it’s super hot, since you got to take care of yourself to properly perform in the first place so it’s not that big of a deal to me.
• Kiguruimi (Kigu for short): But let’s say you don’t want or can’t get a fursuit for any. reason but still want to wear something that represents your character. In that case, you’d might be interested in a kigurumi. A kigurumi, or kigu for short, is a japanese term for a costumed character with the costume being closer to a onesie than a full-on fursuit. Think of them as cosplay pajamas, they are a loose-fitting jumpsuits lined with cotton or fleece, with the outside design matching the colors and fur patterns of your character. A lot of kigus will have detailed ears and tails that match your character as well and are extremely popular in the fandom for being that intermediary between wearing human clothes and a full fursuit in terms of both price and looks.

But yeah, that’s all the terms I had listed that I thought were important to go over. Again it’s not an exhaustive list, but I think it gives you or anyone else new to the fandom a good base to start talking like a furry. Hopefully you didn’t find most of them too weird, but now you have a whole list of new terms and vocabulary to use when talking to other members of the furry fandom, and that vocabulary is known as furry slang!

Alright, that’s it for this episode of Furry, Explained! Thank you so much for tuning in and listening, I really hope you enjoyed it and maybe learned a few new things today. As always if you want to continue the conversation about furry slang, or have any other feedback for the show, make sure to find and follow me on Twitter. I’m @FinnThePanther and a link to my Twitter is down in the show description. If you do like the show but don’t know how to support it, well the best thing you can do is to subscribe wherever you get your podcasts! If you’re on iTunes or Apple Podcasts, make sure to give the show a rating and a review as well. You can also tell people about the show, and I’d greatly appreciate it if you did that as well. Thank you in advance for doing so and we’ll be back next week for another episode of Furry, Explained, but until then, stay wild out there. Peace.