There are League of Legends terms that are used in and outside the game, with some terms being used to simplify and facilitate rapid communication. This is a list of these terms and their definitions.
Please contribute to the page by adding more terms and definitions alphabetically.
These terms are mostly used in the English language.
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- 10 death powerspike
- Refers to a community meme where someone jokingly proclaims a player gets a powerspike when reaching 10 deaths in a game, usually while also having a very low number of kills ("0/10 powerspike"); a very poor performance.
- 1v1
- A challenge to a duel.
- A custom game between two players. Usually done on
Howling Abyss but occasionally done on 
Summoner's Rift in mid lane. Could also refer to Showdown. - A champion's capability of dueling against an enemy champion. Fighters like
Jax and 
Irelia have good 1v1 capabilities. - 200 years
- Refers to a champion whose kit has a convoluted or superfluous amount of attributes, resulting in them being extremely frustrating to play against. Most commonly used to refer to Aphelios.
- Quotes a tweet from Nathan Lutz on a Wukong mini-rework: "Being good at playing a certain character in a video game is valuable, but I think I'll take the 200+ collective years of professional game design experience."
A
- AA
- Auto
- Auto attack
- Basic attack, which is nicknamed Auto attack since the champion can repeat without new orders.
- AAS
- Archangel's
- Archangel's Staff.
- ABAM
- All Blind All Mid: a custom game type where players pick champions in Blind Pick to fight only in the middle lane.
- Ace
- When all champions on a team are defeated at the same time.
- To kill the last living champion on the opposing team.
- Active
- Abilities possessed by champions and certain items that require activating (via clicking and/or hitting a key) to function, as opposed to "passive".
- AD
- Attack damage.
- ADAM
- All Draft All Mid: a custom game type where players pick a champion to only fight in the middle lane.
- ADC
- AD Carry
- Also see Carry. Attack Damage Carry: a champion that has greatly increasing outputs of attack damage as the match progresses, and is relied on as the primary damage dealer. Counterpart to the Ability Power Carry.
- Congruent to the above, veteran players may also refer the bottom role as "ADC" because the majority of marksman champions, whose outputs are largely attack damage, are started in the bottom lane.
- AFK
- Away From Keyboard: a player who is not currently in control of their champion in a match.
- Agency
- How much control a player have over a situation or how much a player is capable of responding an enemy's actions. For example, enchanter supports are often said the remove agency from assassins because enchanter supports can deny all possibilities of an assassin from doing their job (to burst squishies) without them being able to do anything back, effectively removing all control the assassin has over the match.
- Aggro
- The targeting priority (or enmity) of an A.I. controlled minion, turret, monster, etc.
- Alcove
- The outer corners of top and bot lanes added to Summoner's Rift in patch V9.23.
- Ali
- Alistar.
- All-in
- (verb) Engaging in a fight with all available attacks and abilities.
- (noun) An engaged fight in which all available attacks and abilities are used.
- Ani
- Aniv
- Anivia.
- AoE
- Area of effect.
- AP
- Ability power.
- APC
- AP Carry
- Also see Carry. Ability Power Carry: a champion that has greatly increasing outputs of ability power as the match progresses, and is relied on as the primary damage dealer. Counterpart to the Attack Damage Carry.
- Another term for champions, usually but not strictly Mages, intended to have offensive outputs that deal a significant amount of magic damage.
- Congruent to the above, veteran players may also refer the bottom role as "APC" when a (exclusively magic-damage-dealing) mage is started there. This contrasts the usage of "ADC" for a marksman being started in the bottom role, which is seen there more commonly than a mage.
- AR
- All Random. Used in ARAM and AR URF.
- ARAM
- All Random All Mid: A game where all players randomly pick or are assigned a champion each and the game is played on a single lane. The Howling Abyss as a map strictly has a single lane, so ARAM games are typically played there, and the matchmade queue of that map is also called ARAM.
- Armor Pen
- Armor penetration.
- AS
- Attack speed.
- Assassin
- Champions who can rapidly eliminate targets to the extent of being so quick the target cannot even react. Assassins' kit typically features a form of gap closer to reach an enemy, large burst for when they do, and a form of escape.
- Aura
- A passive ability that usually applies to the champion and those around the champion.
- Aura platform
- Aura bot
- A champion who is equipped with multiple aura-producing items to assist teammates.
- Atmog's
- A deprecated build that utilized Atma's Impaler and Warmog's Armor. Could also be referred to as Warma's.
B
- B
- Back: to retreat in the general direction of your base or away from the enemy.
- Recall: To return to the base by pressing the "B" key by default.
- Back-to-Front
- Also see Dive. One of the two standard executions of team comp that is supposed to lock down and burst squishy champions that have to stand at the backline and behind the more durable frontline. Opposite of Front-to-Back.
- Backline
- The champions that are positioning furthest away from the enemy team. Opposite of frontline.
- Bait
- To feign weakness in order to lure the enemy into a trap.
- Banana
- Soraka's autoattack which is shaped like a banana. Inspiration for Order of the Banana Soraka.
- Baron
- Baron Nashor.
- Hand of Baron. (Aka "Baron Buff")
- Base
- The walled area where the shop, nexus and inhibitors are situated.
- BC
- Black Cleaver
- BD
- Backdoor
- To approach the enemy's nexus while most of them are focused elsewhere. Typically this is done by sneaking through the jungle and only becoming revealed to the opposing team as late as possible.
- BE
- Blue Essence
- Bear
- Volibear
- Annie's Summon Tibbers
- Udyr's Bear Stance
- Bench
- The swap available champion pool in ARAM.
- BF
- BFS
- B. F. Sword.
- BFT
- Blackfire Torch.
- BG
- Bad Game.
- Blitz
- Blitzcrank.
- Blue
- Blue Buff: Crest of Insight. By extension, can also refer to the Blue Sentinel.
- Glyphs, a removed type of rune.
- BM
- Bad mannered / bad manners, to perform ludicrous actions meant to taunt an enemy at a disadvantage.
- Bomba
- (literally: "bomb") An exclamation of either hype (for a successful play) or disappointment (for an unsuccessful play) when a self- or team-playmaking effort looks extremely flashy and effortless. Also related to "wombo combo" for the team sense. Originally exclaimed frequently by a streamer known as SloppyWalrusX, referencing Gragas' flashy Explosive Cask + Barrel Roll combo and likening its massive area damage with a literal bomb being set off in the game.
- Boosted (animal)
- Describes a lower skilled player that has been undeservingly placed in a higher skill bracket. Coined by Michael Santana.
- Boosting
- Refers to Elo Boosting: an act where a player logs into another player's account to climb the ranks or increase matchmaking rating on their behalf. (See also: Report Feature)
- BoRK
- BotRK
- BRK
- Blade of the Ruined King.
- Bot
- Bottom lane.
- The bottom carry role.
- The Quarry/Boneyard capture points in Dominion.
- An A.I. controlled champion.
- Bot game
- Co-op vs. AI.
- A custom game where nearly all of the players are bots.
- Box
- Boxes
- Jack
- Shaco's Jack in the Box
- BRB
- Be right back.
- Broken
- When something within the game is viewed as grossly imbalanced or malfunctioning (a champion, an item, a spell, etc.).
- Bruteforce
- To agressively push an objective without regard for enemy counterattack.
- BT
- Bloodthirster.
- Buff
- (Abilities) A positive effect applied to a champion.
- (Patch) An official modification to the game which makes something more powerful; opposite of a nerf.
- (Jungle) Red Buff or Blue Buff.
- Bug
- A defect in the mechanics of the game that is not intended.
- Kha'Zix.
- Skarner.
- Rek'Sai.
- Burst
- A large amount of damage being dealt in a short time, pertaining particularly to the damage dealt by a single champion. Nuke is also a commonly used term.
- BV
- Banshee's Veil.
C
- Cait
- Caitlyn.
- Camp
- To gank the same enemy laner multiple times in a short amount of time. Can be effective at making them fall behind or to tilt them.
- A jungle monster's spawn location.
- Cap
- Rabadon's Deathcap.
- Wooglet's Witchcap.
- To capture a point in Dominion.
- A limit which something can not exceed (For instance, attack speed is capped at 2.5 attacks per second).
- Care
- To be careful, implying a possible gank incoming or any other kind of danger.
- Carry
- A champion that is designed to become powerful in damage by acquiring resources, thereby "carrying" the rest of the team on their back. Also see ADC and APC.
- By extension, a player that assumes the role of the primary damage dealer for their team, as opposed to having a lower-damage, facilitative, or supportive role.
- The acknowledgement of a player being ultimately responsible for winning a game for their team by having played exceptionally well.
- In context, the Bottom carry role.
- Cass
- Cassiopeia.
- Caster
- A champion whose main source of damage is their abilities. The damage can be either magic or physical damage, and can scale with either AP or AD.
- Caster minion.
- Cat
- Nidalee.
- Rengar.
- Yuumi.
- CC
- Crowd control: A category of status effects which limit movement or actions.
- CD
- Cooldown
- Waiting for an ability's cooldown to finish before commencing an action.
- CDR
- Cooldown reduction.
- Chain CC
- To consecutively use multiple crowd control spells on an enemy champion.
- Champ
- A champion; a particular character that the summoner calls on and controls.
- Char
- Short for "character", used to mean champion.
- Cheese
- An unexpected strategy, often early game oriented, that allows a player to kill or otherwise significantly cripple an enemy (generally during the first two levels), gain a lead, then snowball.
- Cho
- Cho'Gath.
- Classic
- The standard MOBA game mode in which players focus on laning, pushing minion waves, and destroying the enemy structures.
- Summoner's Rift and Twisted Treeline.
- Clash
- Name of the tournament system used in League of Legends.
- Clown fiesta
- A derogatory term used to refer to games, especially from lower elos, where one or both teams have no coordination or proper strategy, and the champion compositions are random and poorly planned.
- A teamfight where, from the spectator point of view, is difficult to properly understand what exactly happened.
- Clutch move
- To perform a well-timed action while under pressure.
- Collapsing
- When allied players converge and overwhelm the enemy team.
- Commit
- To not retreat. To stay in a fight until the battle is over, or until your champion is slain.
- Counter gank
- Setting up an ambush in immediate response to an enemy ambush with the intention of negating or thwarting the advantage gained by the enemy's attack.
- Counter jungle
- To slay the neutral creeps in the enemy's side of the jungle, depriving the enemy team of buffs, gold and experience.
- Counter pick
- To choose a particular champion during the selection phase in order to oppose a particular enemy champion.
- Counterplay
- Things that one can do to counteract or minimize the impact or dominance of a champion, ability, item, or rune. For example, against an ability that is a skillshot, the main counterplay is to dodge it.
- Counterpush
- To neutralize a shove or splitpush.
- Cover
- A player request for another teammate to hold the player's lane while they're not there. (See "babysit" and "hold.")
- Cow
- Alistar and more specifically Moo Cow Alistar.
- Crash
- When minions have successfully entered the upcoming enemy turret's range, or are left in a state that allows them to reach it on their own before the enemy can themselves reach those minions.
- A derogatory term referring to bugs in the Clash tournament system.
- When the game stops working properly, freezes, and shuts down unexpectedly.
- Creep
- The perception that an amount of something has gradually increased in the game when compared to the past. This could be caused by multiple changes, such as direct buffs to champion potential, nerfs to deterrents, etc. For example, cooldown reduction creep is used to refer to cooldown reduction being more abundant in items and easier to obtain for more champions, compared to the past.
- Creep block
- Being slowed down or temporarily stopped when moving toward a destination, or during a fight, because of the pathing radius of creeps meeting with your champion. Two units cannot coincide, therefore the champion is temporarily "blocked" or prevented from moving in the intended direction. "Minion block" refers to being creep-blocked by minions specifically.
- Creeps
- Minions and monsters. See Creep score definition.
- Cross-map
- Crossmap
- Getting an objective—including significantly pushing a lane—away from the enemy team's interest. Depending on the game state and objectives, the team successfully performing a crossmap play has the potential to snowball a lead, gain a lead, or neutralize the enemy's lead.
- Also sometimes refers to rotations and/or Recall timings in tandem with the ally team, in the context of gaining or utilizing game tempo.
- Crown
- Rabadon's Deathcrown.
- Wooglet's Witchcrown.
- CS
- Creep Score, an adapted term from DotA. It measures the number of minions and jungle camps killed.
- The Crystal Scar.
- Zilean's Chronoshift.
- Custom
- Custom game: the match mode created by player with the freedom to determine the team size, map, A.I. controlled champion participation and install a password for limited access.
- Cup
- Chalice of Harmony or Athene's Unholy Grail.
- Another name for a Clash tournament.
- Cupcake
- Caitlyn's Yordle Snap Trap.
- Caitlyn (coined by Vi)
- Bittersweet Lulu's polymorphed victims
- CV
- Clairvoyance.
D
- Dar
- Darius.
- D
- The first of two summoner spells the player can allot, bound to D by default.
- Def
- Defend: to protect the tower or base without attacking aggressively.
- DFG
- Deathfire Grasp.
- DC
- Disconnected.
- Debuff
- A negative effect applied to a champion; the opposite of a buff.
- Deny
- Denial
- To kill allied minions or pets, preventing the opponent from earning the gold and experience from killing them. While this feature is common in other MOBA games, it is intentionally absent from League of Legends and replaced with zoning tactics.
- Dirt Dragon
- Mountain Drake
- Disengage
- Successfully retreating from an initiated fight. Opposite of engage.
- A quality that certain champions naturally have due to their abilities, or a team comp they are part of. Refers to easily disrupting a fight from a distance and for long enough in order for allies to retreat from it safely or engage again in a better way.
- Dive
- To pursue a specific target into a highly dangerous area, typically beneath an enemy turret.
- Synonym for back-to-front.
- Dodge
- To disband champion select without mutual consent.
- A deprecated champion statistic, which determined the possibility to avoid a basic attack.
- Following the removal of the dodge global stat, it is the status effect granted by Jax's Counter Strike and Nilah's Jubilant Veil.
- Dog
- Doge
- Nasus.
- Dom
- Dominion
- A game mode that differs from the classic MOBA-style gameplay, and focuses on seizing capture points.
- Donger
- Heimerdinger. (coined by Michael Santana)
- DoT
- Damage over time effect.
- DotA
- Defense of the Ancients: Allstars: a successful mod created from Warcraft 3. It has inspired similar games such as League of Legends. "Dota" is also used to categorize games of this particular sub-genre within the real-time strategy genre.
- Double
- Double kill
- Single-handedly achieving two champion kills within ten seconds of each other.
- DPS
- Damage per second. A measure of how much damage a champion or team can deal each second.
- A champion who specializes in dealing steady sustained damage.
- Drag
- Either a reference to the Drake neutral objective, or a call to contest it. "Drag" and "dragon" may be used by veteran players, because the objective in place of Drakes used to be " The Dragon".
- Drain effect
- Drain effect is a conjectural term for various healing effects that are based on damage dealt, but are not life steal and spell vamp.
- Drain tank
- Drain tanking
- The act of lifestealing (or using spellvamp/other forms of sustain in case of casters) damage done against enemies to tank their damage. Champions which do this are difficult to kill, especially in 1x1 situations, because they heal through all the damage done, and even if they don't do a lot of damage back, they can win the duel just because the enemy cannot burst them down quickly enough to prevent them from healing back. However, if their sustain is reduced or denied (because they are under CC effects or unable to attack), they can become easy to kill, since they tend to not have or to have less actual tankyness to fall back on. Examples of champions designed to be drain tanks are Aatrox, Warwick, and Olaf.
- Dubstep Ignite
- The act of casting Ignite on a very low-health target and proceeding to walk away carelessly.
- Duelist
- A champion who excels at combating enemy champions one on one (e.g. Fiora, Jax).
- Dunking
- A flashy or rewarding kill on a champion, described in terms of a slam dunk.
- To use an aerial leap ability to severely damage or slay an enemy champion. Examples of dunking abilities include Darius' Noxian Guillotine, Jarvan IV's Cataclysm and Jayce's To the Skies!.
E
- E
- The third champion ability which is bound to the "E" key by default.
- Early game
- Laning phase
- The typical starting point of a game where champions are low-level, take a longer time to clear minion waves and monsters, when there are very few neutral objectives and few points of control on the map to be contested and all champions focus mostly on farming. Technically ends with either the first Outer turret falling or side lanes swapping around (instead of simply roaming) in order to achieve better objective control, and officially ends with Turret Plating falling off. It is followed by the mid game.
- EC
- Executioner's Calling.
- Effective health
- EHP
- Health multiplied by the various damage reduction affecting it (normally armor and magic resistance), i.e. the damage that the champion needs to receive in order to be killed.
- Egg
- Eggnivia
- Anivia during Rebirth, officially dubbed by the game's chat.
- Elo
- A mathematical rating system for a player's relative skill level.
- Elo hell
- A perceived Elo level where it is very difficult or frustrating for a player to get out of.
- Elojob
- When a low-elo player pays a higher-skilled player to boost the low elo's account to higher elo. This practice is extremely controversial and is generally condemned by players and punished by Riot due to the problems that result from the inappropriate matchmaking.
- Engage
- Successfully initiating a fight. Opposite of disengage.
- A quality that certain champions naturally have due to their abilities, or a team comp they are part of. Refers to easily initiating a fight from a distance and facilitating all-ins.
- ER
- Essence Reaver
- Eve
- Evelynn
- Execute
- An ability intended to eliminate a champion. Examples include Pyke's Death from Below and Jinx's Super Mega Death Rocket!.
- Exp
- xp
- Shorthand for experience points.
- Ez
- Ezreal
- Easy
F
- F
- The second of two summoner spells the player can allot, bound to "F" by default.
- Flash.
- Face check
- A champion blindly walking into a brush to see if an enemy champion is hidden in there. This can be a very risky action.
- Fall off
- When a carry champion does not scale well as the game goes on, and struggles particularly in the late game. Usually, champions that fall off are balanced to be strong during the early game and mid game, so they have a limited time window to carry and win the game before being out-scaled by the enemy. This is not synonymous with being useless in the late game however; the vast majority of these champions are balanced around having at least some form of facilitative capability, even in the late game. Examples of champions that fall off are Elise, Lee Sin, and Pyke.
- Farming
- To seek out and kill creeps to obtain experience and gold.
- Farm lane
- When, during the lane phase, neither of the opponents are able to kill each other or to effectively push without jungle interference, resulting into a lane phase where they both just farm.
- FB
- First Blood: the first kill of the game.
- Fed
- A champion becoming disproportionately powerful after obtaining multiple kills on enemy champions.
- Feed
- To repeatedly die to the enemy team, giving them gold and experience. A player who does this is a feeder.
- FF
- Refers to /ff or 'forfeit', another term for surrendering.
- FFS
- “For fuck's sake”. An expression of anger or frustration.
- Fid
- Fiddle
- FS
- Fiddlesticks
- Fiesta
- Clown fiesta
- A game with many mistakes made by both sides.
- Fish
- Fizz
- Nami
- Flame Horizon
- Having 100 minion kills more than a lane opponent. Coined by shoutcasters.
- Flank
- The act of bypassing the enemy frontline and going directly to the backline through an alternative route, mainly from behind while separated from the team. This strategy is useful for assassin-class and diver-class champions because they don't have enough durability to survive a barrage of crowd control and direct damage.
- FM
- Frozen Mallet
- Fog
- FoW
- Fog of War
- The shadowed areas of the map which are out of the vision range of allied champions, minions and structures.
- FoN
- Force of Nature
- FotM
- Flavor of the Month: a champion that suddenly becomes very popular among players. This can be for reasons such as their usage at a competitive level, an overtuned buff or the discovery of a bug that is highly beneficial to the champion.
- Fountain
- The raised stone platforms located in each team's base, where champions will respawn after death, regenerate health and mana, and can purchase items.
- Fourchan
- 4Chan
- A nickname for Miss Fortune based on her ability to dominate early-game bottom lane if played right. Namesake from the infamous image board.
- FPS
- Graphic Frames Per Second the game renders.
- Franky
- Vi
- Fratma's
- A deprecated build that utilized Atma's Impaler and Frozen Mallet. Could also be referred to as Atmallet.
- Fratmog's
- A deprecated build that utilized Atma's Impaler, Frozen Mallet and Warmog's Armor all at once.
- Freeze
- Freezing
- Allowing the current and at least one succeeding minion wave to stay at about the same position in the lane close to, but outside, the upcoming ally turret while only last-hitting, as ally and enemy minions cyclically come and die. A successful freeze forces the enemy to either walk up into a hostile part of the lane to gain minion rewards and/or finally advance the minion wave, or give up the rewards and the wave state altogether and potentially lose a lot of resources over time. To "break a freeze" means to allow minions to finally assume a different position that can advance to the upcoming turret, naturally or through shoving.
- Front-to-Back
- One of the two standard executions of team comp that is supposed to force the enemy to physically push their way through a durable frontline in order to access squishy champions that have to stand at the backline. Opposite of Back-to-Front.
- Frontline
- The champions that are positioning closest to the enemy team. Opposite of backline.
- By extension, because the champions that an enemy team usually meets first in a teamfight are those that take the brunt of the attacks, it may also refer to champions capable of successfully protecting and peeling for ally carries for an extended period.
- Frostmancy
- A build type that was flexed on most ranged mages where they would go top with Kleptomancy and Spellthief's Edge (And upgrade it to the Frostfang.). While top, they would completely ignore killing minions for gold, instead opting to rely on the aforementioned Keystone Mastery and their starting item for income. Because of this, they spent time that was otherwise allotted to CSing bullying their lane opponent, disallowing them from farming, or in more extreme cases, preventing them from remotely netting experience. While the Reddit post that brought the playstyle to the general public's attention was stylized around Kennen, the most common user of Frostmancy appeared to have been Zilean.
- Full damage
- To build all offensive items, contrary to generally building some defensive items for survivability. Consequently, these champions tend to do very high amounts of damage, but are very easy to kill.
- Full tank
- An item build that grants almost exclusively defensive stats, contrary to granting generally or exclusively offensive statistics. Consequently, these champions become very hard to kill, but deal less upfront damage on average.
- FWotD
- WotD
- First Win
- First Win of the Day: a daily mission that rewards the summoner with experience and some Blue Essences upon winning a matchmade game.
G
- GA
- Guardian Angel
- GP
- Gangplank
- Gank
- To ambush unsuspecting enemies. Portmanteau of 'gang kill'.
- Gap
- Diff
- Role Gap
- Role Diff
- Refers to the difference in skill, also sarcastically called a "gap", between a player and their role counterpart in the opposing team.
- By extension, signals or draws players' attention toward that difference in skill between two role counterparts. It may be used by a winning player as an exclamation of triumph, or by a losing player in order to vent frustration at a teammate.
- Gap closer
- An ability or spell that shortens the distance between the champion and the enemy.
- Gauntlet
- Iceborn Gauntlet
- GG
- "Good game."
- GG EZ
- GG IZI
- "Good Game, easy win." A phrase that is almost always perceived as poor sportsmanship.
- GGMF
- Gun Goddess Miss Fortune
- Ghosting
- Monitoring an enemy's and/or live spectator's perspective to gain informational advantages from learning things about the current game state they are not supposed to know (e.g. Enemy jungler's whereabouts, enemy ward placements, & important cooldowns). Usually done in order to gain access to the enemy team's minimap, causing many players who broadcast their gameplay live to obfuscate their minimap.
- GJ
- "Good job!"
- GL
- "Good luck!"
- GLHF
- "Good luck; have fun!
- Glass cannon
- A champion/build that is high in damage but lacking defense. This primarily refers to building a champion purely for offense, sacrificing survivability.
- Global
- An ability that can strike anywhere on the map (e.g. Gangplank's Cannon Barrage).
- Golden Pose
- Any stasis effect.
- Gold per 10
- GP10
- Items that generate extra gold over time. Gold generating items are often incorrectly referred to as GP5.
- Gold funneling
- Funnel
- Funnel strategy
- A strategy where multiple incomes of gold are focused onto one champion in an attempt to build a lead compared to the usual rate. In the case of two players, one champion takes both their gold/experience for itself, while the other will fall behind and try to build cheaper items with utility to compensate. This strategy was deterred with minion gold changes, such as the Huntsman effect on jungler items.
- Grag
- Gragas
- Gray screen
- Grey screen
- Death, in reference to the greyscale overlay that appears on the screen when waiting for respawn.
- Gutted
- A champion or item that, after a patch, has been rendered completely unviable to play (or buy in case of items).
H
- Harass
- Attacking an enemy while they are preoccupied with an action.
- Hard CC
- Crowd control that inhibits and stops movement and spell casting.
- Hard leash
- To aid the allied jungler by helping them kill a monster without the use of Smite.
- Hat
- Funny Hat
- Funky Hat
- Rabadon's Deathcap
- Heal bot
- Refers to Soraka contributing nothing but healing.
- Hec
- Heca
- Hecarim
- Heim
- Heimer
- Heimerdinger
- Hero
- The equivalent term for 'champion' in other MOBA games. Coined from DotA.
- Hexa
- Hexakill
- Hexakill - Single-handedly achieving six champion kills within 30 seconds of a Pentakill.
- The Hexakill game mode.
- HF
- Have Fun
- Hold
- To keep the lane from pushing into allied defenses. Primarily done by junglers while the laner is away.
- Hook
- Ability which prevents movement and brings an enemy towards the champion's position. Examples include Thresh's Death Sentence or Blitzcrank's Rocket Grab
- Horse
- Hecarim
- Hourglass
- Zhonya
- Zhonya's Hourglass
- HP
- Health, also known as "Hit Points"
- HP5
- Health Regeneration per 5 seconds
- Hybrid
- A champion with significant ability scalings from both AD and AP.
- A build that includes both AD and AP.
- A champion that does significant amounts of both physical and magic damage.
- Hypercarry
- A carry that hyperscales and whose kit often features additional tools which reinforce scaling with levels. Hyperscalers innately or by default become superior at the later stages of the game; they typically have a weaker early and mid game to compensate, but their late game outputs can be unstoppably lethal and single-handedly win the game for their team. Attack damage, attack speed, critical strike chance and damage, and/or repeatable on-hit effects, all multiply each other; Marksman-class champions are the ones that best utilize all of these statistics, and a hyperscaling Marksman has a very high amount of all of them. However, AP carries that have similar multiplicative and exceptionally lethal outputs in the late game, can also be called hypercarries. Examples: Jinx, Kog'Maw (ADC) / Syndra, Karthus (APC)
- Hyperscale
- Hyperscaling
- When power continuously increases through exceptionally good scalings, from the start of the game all the way to reaching a full inventory of items, and potentially beyond for certain infinitely-stacking effects.
I
- IE
- Infinity Edge
- IBG
- Iceborn
- Iceborn Gauntlet
- Inhib
- Short for Inhibitor
- Initiate
- A champion performing an action which signals allied champions to begin the battle. The initiator may act as bait and take heavy damage from the enemy in order to protect their allies from taking major damage.
- Innate
- A champion's passive ability separate from their four main abilities, shorten to P or I.
- Insec
- A type of play where a champion tries to position behind an enemy, then knockback them in the direction of the allied team. This makes them a vulnerable target. During the early game, it can be an effective gank setup, and at late game, it can be a game changing move. Popularized by a pro player named "inSec", which used to do this with Lee Sin (by wardjumping behind an enemy, then using Dragon's Rage to knockback them in the direction of an ally). Despite this, it is possible to insec with other champions too. The second most popular example is Azir, which can use Conquering Sands and Shifting Sands to reposition himself behind an enemy, then use Emperor's Divide to knockback them in the direction of allies. Other champions which can potentially insec include Tristana, Poppy, Shyvana, and Janna.
- Instagib
- Instakill
- Instant giblets or Instant kill: when a full health or nearly full health champion/monster takes lethal damage within such a short time that they essentially died instantly, with no chance to react.
- Instalock
- Instalocking
- Instant lock: to quickly select and lock-in a particular champion (or a random one) to prevent someone else from getting them, usually without previous warning to the rest of the team. This is often perceived as poor sportsmanship.
- Int
- Short for "Intentional feeding".
- Invade
- To go into the enemy's territory, particularly their jungle.
- Ire
- Irel
- Irelia
J
- J4
- Jar
- Jarv
- Jarvan IV
- Jay
- Jayce
- Jg
- Jungle.
- JoJ
- Journal of Justice
- Juggernaut
- A term coined by Riot, used to describe fighters that are extremely durable, but are lacking in mobility. They tend to be difficult to duel, but at same time easy to kite and inflict CC. Examples of juggernauts are Darius and Garen.
- Juke
- The act of feinting an enemy into the wrong direction, usually done by breaking line of sight.
- Jungling
- To kill monsters in the jungle.
K
- Kar
- Karth
- Karthus
- Kass
- Kassadin
- Kat
- Katarina
- Kay
- Kayle
- Kayn
- Kanye
- A gross misspelling of Kayn.
- Ken
- Kennen
- Kha
- K6
- Kha'Zix
- Kill lane
- A combination of the bottom lane selected for the specific purpose of slaying the opposing two champions during the laning phase.
- Kit
- A champion's set of abilities.
- Kite
- Kiting
- Maintaining safe distance from a pursuing target. Ranged champions can leverage the advantage to keep attacking.
- Kog
- Kog'Maw
- KS
- Kill steal: A kill assistant taking kill credit.
- KYS
- “Kill yourself”. In more recent seasons, this is a zero-tolerance phrase that is usually caught by the chat filter.
L
- Lag
- Slow response during the match due to high network connection latency.
- Some players also refer to the slowdown due to an insufficient computer system as lag.
- Lag specifically refers to the time between when information is sent and when it is received. This can be caused by a network latency, in which data is delayed between a user's computer and the game server, or by a slow computer. Lag most often manifests as "outbound lag", or delay between when a command is given and when it is performed. Lag can also manifest as "inbound lag", or a delay between when an event is registered on the server and when it is displayed on a user's computer. This causes "jumping", or the appearance that a champion's position, health, mana, etc. has suddenly changed.
- Lag Spike
- A sudden and often momentary period of severe lag.
- Laner
- The champion or player who occupies a certain lane during the early game.
- Lane bully
- A champion designed to win the lane phase against other champions. They try to constantly harass the enemy laner and deny them farm, making them fall behind. Most lane bullies fall off late game in order to compensate for their early game strength.
- Lane harass
- The act of constantly disturbing the enemy laner while they try to farm minions. Usually, this is done by spending the highest-range, lowest-cooldown, or lowest-cost output available at the time; the basic attack is the lowest cooldown, lowest cost output, and for ranged champions it is also longer-range than melee ones and guaranteed. The goal of a successful lane harass is to eventually become a threat through resource and position advantages, such as having more health than the enemy in order to influence the map in teammate numbers more safely, all-inning, or zoning, etc.
- Lane phase
- A stage in the match where players are farming for their first items, ends when one or two towers are destroyed and laners start rotating to other lanes.
- Lane swap
- A strategy where two lanes switch places to compensate for an innate disadvantage that arises from the matchup. This used to be very common in competitive games and very rare otherwise, because it could allow teams to counter some top laners who were unable to effectively lane against the power of a bottom laner and support. Over the years, systems have been implemented to render this strategy risky, which have also effectively removed it from competitive play. Firstly, the bot lane outer turret has less durable towers, allowing for ranged champions to farm turret plates and potentially acquire first tower gold more easily. Secondly, drakes that allow for potential scaling (which champions that are drafted in the bottom carry role usually want) are located toward the bottom part of the map, and there are more players to contest it at the bottom half of the map than the top half.
- Laning
- Remaining in lane to push or farm.
- Lantern
- Thresh's Dark Passage
- Laser
- Lux's Final Spark
- The Nexus Obelisk's basic attack.
- Last hit
- Getting the killing blow on a minion, creep, or enemy champion.
- Late game
- The point of the game characterized by longer death timers, intensive control of a large portion of the map and fast pushing and sieging, late-stage Baron and Drake contesting, and multiple champions finishing their item builds. Hypercarries are at their strongest point during the late game. Preceded by the mid game.
- LB
- LeBlanc
- Lich Bane
- Leash
- The interaction that takes place between two moving units where an attacker unit is following a target unit. When a unit is ordered to target an enemy unit from outside cast range either with a basic attack or certain abilities, they will automatically attempt to move toward them first.
- Basic attacks always have to acquire a target, so this interaction may always happen when targeting outside of cast range (= the attack range).
- For abilities, this specifically refers to ones that are able to acquire units or locations outside of their cast range (= the override for a target being out of range is to walk into range). In the LoL Wiki, each non-passive ability's acquisition behavior when used outside of cast range is noted in a table under "Details".
In these cases, if the target moves away from the attacker then the attacker is forced to walk toward the target again. Between a champion and a non-champion, this interaction considers the non-champion's targeting rules and range. Between two champions, this interaction takes place at the micro level and is a very complex, strategic one. Leashing may benefit the attacker by allowing them to follow a moving target without further input. Leashing may also disadvantage the attacker by resulting in them delaying or even canceling their attack, or being forced to move to a substandard direction/position. - A tactic where another champion—ally or enemy—assists the jungler in securing a non-epic monster camp, either by drawing monster aggro or attacking it. Most often, leashing refers to the first camp cleared by the jungler at level 1, due to (usually, but not always) requiring significantly more time to kill the first camp alone than with help from at least one ally. This is a vestigial term that refers to a removed mechanic where a monster would only focus the first attacker rather than the nearest. However, it may still apply at the present time in instances where an ally or enemy helps kill/secure the camp. Also pull.
- Leave
- Leaver
- Exiting the match before the game is finished, whether voluntarily or not. This is regulated by the Leaver Buster system.
- Lethal
- To "have lethal" on an opponent means to be able to all-in them when they are low enough on health and successfully kill them. Formally referred to as a "lethal threshold".
- LS
- Lee Sin
- Life steal
- Leech
- Staying close enough to dying enemy minions in order to share XP with a teammate without directly assisting them.
- Leo
- Leona
- Liss
- Lissandra
- Lockdown
- Applying crowd control to the point a champion cannot perform a certain action.
- Lockout
- A state in which a champion is unable to perform certain actions. Associated tip: Lockout.
- LoL
- League of Legends, the title of the game itself.
- lol
- “Laughing out loud”.
- LOM
- Low On Mana – See also Out of Mana
- LW
- Last Whisper
M
- Macro
- Macro play
- The large-scale strategies players employ as their general game-plan. Refers to choices in map location, objectives, and vision. Related to micro.
- Main
- A player's best or favorite champion to use.
- A player's best or favorite role.
- Mal
- Malphite, Malzahar
- Malp
- Malph
- Malphite
- Malz
- Malzahar
- ManBearPig
- ManBearPheonix
- ManBearTiger and combinations thereof
- Udyr
- Man drop
- Pantheon's Grand Starfall
- Mao
- Maokai
- Map awareness
- As a player, "to have map awareness" means to be conscious of the events occurring around the map, in order to potentially make decisions and strategize according to them.
- Map control
- To have vision and influence over areas around the map. Ways to increase Map control include placing wards and destroying enemy towers.
- Map objective
- A valuable mob or structure whose acquisition goes towards winning the match. These tasks include getting the blue and red buffs, slaying Drakes and Baron, destroying towers and inhibitors, etc.
- Melee
- Melee champion.
- Melee minion.
- Mermaid
- Nami
- Meta
- Metagame
- The game's current most effective play style, consisting of aspects such as lane setup, jungling, and team composition.
- Metagolem
- An incredibly strict build that can be flexed on a certain type of, or in more extreme cases, every champion, that dictates the meta by being unbelievably overpowered. The term is a portmanteau of the words "metagame" and "golem".
- A now archaic metagolem that consisted of Warmog's Armor, Atma's Impaler, Frozen Mallet, Trinity Force, and Mercury's Treads.
- To a lesser extent this term also applies to a trend in early 2016 for many champions that were supposed to build squishy, to build tanky. This is because back then, items like Sunfire Cape, Iceborn Gauntlet, and Titanic Hydra, as well as the Grasp of the Undying mastery, used to be overpowered. They allowed almost any champion to work with a tanky build because those items provided artificial sources of damage, with Grasp of the Undying providing health-scaling sustain and high base damage as well. A lot of champions that were otherwise supposed to build glass cannon started to build tanky. The most popular examples include Master Yi, Fiora, Ekko, Fizz, and even Akali. Most of those champions had their base damages nerfed to encourage them to build glass cannon, and the aforementioned items were also nerfed to make them more expensive or do less damage, discouraging their purchase on non-tanky champions.
- MF
- Miss Fortune
- Micro
- Micro play
- The small-scale strategies players employ during and around champion combat. Refers to choices in positioning, ability use and timings, and resource management. Related to macro.
- Mid
- Mid
- The Refinery/Drill capture points in Dominion.
- Mid game
- The point of the game where champions have typically completed an item or three, take a shorter time to clear minion waves and monsters, and when most of the regular map and objective control takes place. Preceded by the early game and followed by the late game.
- Mid top
- At the beginning of Dominion, a player declares to capture the nearest middle capture point then rushes up to top.
- Minion block
- See creep block.
- MM
- Matchmaking.
- Archaic abbreviation for " marksman champion"; now more commonly referred to as "ADC".
- MOBA
- Multiplayer Online Battle Arena: a genre of games which brings many of the RPG (Role Playing Game) and RTS (Real-Time Strategy) elements together.
- Mobi (boots)
- Boots of Mobility
- Monkey
- MonkeyKing
- Wukong
- Morde
- Mordekaiser
- Morg
- Morgana
- MP5
- Mana regeneration per 5 seconds
- MPen
- Magic penetration
- MR
- MRes
- Magic resistance
- MS
- Movement speed
- Server latency, from the amount of "ms", meaning "milliseconds", of latency displayed below the player score bar. Equivalent to "ping" (latency sense).
- Mundo
- Dr. Mundo, who isn't actually a doctor, so he is called Mundo.
- Mummy
- Mumu
- Amumu
- Murder bridge
- Another name for the Howling Abyss map. (At the start of the match, the announcer will occasionally refer to the 'Murder Bridge' rather than 'Howling Abyss'.)
- Previously, the custom game version of the Proving Grounds map, before it was replaced by Howling Abyss.
N
- N1
- "Nice one!"
- Naut
- Nauti
- Nautilus
- Nerf
- (Patch) An official modification to the game which makes something less powerful; opposite of a buff. The term is originally coined by users in the EverQuest forums describing patches reducing effects to the power of "nerf toy weapons".
- NJ
- "Nice job!"
- Noc
- Noct
- Nocturne
- Nid
- Nida
- Nidalee
- Nuke
- Any ability that deals huge amounts of damage, such as Javelin Toss or Requiem. Burst does not mean the same because most characters' burst combos consist of multiple abilities.
O
- OC
- Original content
- Occult
- Sword of the Occult
- OE
- Orange Essence
- Off tank
- A champion that has some attributes of a Tank (ability to soak damage, initiation ability, CC, etc.), but lacks in one or more areas.
- Off meta
- A champion being used in a completely different way from what is considered meta for them. For example, it can refer to going with a different lane than intended (e.g. jungle Brand, support Jarvan IV) or a different build (e.g. AD Ahri, AP Tristana).
- Sometimes the champions themselves may be considered off-meta if they are uncommon enough, even if they are played as intended. Examples include Volibear.
- Unusual strategies that are very rarely seen on most games. For example, going dual top instead of going with one top and one jungler, or playing a melee champion as your ADC.
- OMW
- On My Way
- One point wonder
- An ability that has very little change in level scaling, so it is almost full power at rank 1.
- One-Trick
- One-Trick Pony
- OTP
- A player who can play only one champion effectively.
- OOM
- Out Of Mana – See also Low On Mana
- OP
- Overpowered
- A champion or item (usually item builds) that are considered too strong in a particular meta.
- Open mid
- The enemy team conceding the match before surrender voting is available. Usually done by completely vacating the middle lane to allow the winning team to conclude the match as soon as possible. Usually seen in regions that more heavily value the early phases of a match and/or shorter match times, such as South Korea.
- Oracle
- Oracle's
- Oracle's Extract or Looted Oracle's Extract, used to detect invisibility.
- Orange
- Gangplank's Remove Scurvy
- Ori
- Orianna
- OTW
- On The Way
- Overextending
- A champion moving too far in lane/enemy territory, which can open them up to sudden engages.
- Overloaded
- A champion which has too many tools or their kit, allowing them to do many different things at once; either because their abilities have an excessive amount of effects, or because their abilities are just too versatile. Champions like this can be considered difficult to balance due to that reason, as simple numbers changes are usually not enough to bring them in line with other champions.
- This can also be applied to items; if an item is too versatile (either due to having many different stats, or effects, or both), it can be considered overloaded.
- Overkill
- The act of dealing (substantially) more damage to an enemy than is needed to kill him off.
- Overtuned
- A champion which has overbearingly high numbers on their abilities (base damage, scalings, range, missile speed, etc) or their stats (base HP, HP per level, base AD, etc).
- An item can also be considered overtuned if its stats or the numbers on their passive or active effects are too high.
P
- Pant
- Panth
- Pantheon
- Pass
- Battle Pass
- Event passes that links with event tokens and exclusive prizes.
- Path
- Pathing
- The line of movement that will be taken towards a destination after a movement order is issued.
- Often referred to in the context of a player prioritizing certain areas of the map ("path to/toward a lane/objective/etc."). May specifically refer to the order in which a jungler will kill jungle camps and gank lanes.
- PBE
- Public Beta Environment, a testing realm for upcoming content.
- PD
- Phantom Dancer
- Peel
- Peeling
- To use abilities in order to prevent an enemy from damaging, disabling, and/or killing an ally champion. Crowd control, shielding, healing, and various buffs given to allies may achieve this.
- Penta
- Pentakill
- Pentakill - Single-handedly achieving five champion kills within 30 seconds of a Quadra kill. Often regarded as the highest display of champion mastery when the champion is meant to be a carry.
- PFE
- Pulsefire Ezreal
- Philo
- Philosopher's Stone
- Ping
- Communication Pings.
- Server latency, from the term "pinging" in computer networking. Equivalent to ms (latency sense).
- Pink
- The removed Vision Ward colored pink, which is succeeded by Control Ward. Control Wards are sometimes still referred to as pink wards.
- Poacher
- Poacher's Dirk
- Poacher's Knife
- Poke
- Using attacks and abilities from a distance in order to safely cause small to moderate damage to enemy health.
- By extension, a team comp that includes champions capable of easily hitting enemies from a long distance in order to create a health advantage before teamfights.
- Pony
- Hecarim, generally used in a derogatory manner.
- Position
- Positioning
- A champion's location during a fight. Good positioning is determined by the player knowing the optimal location their champion should be at.
- Pot
- Potion(s), usually Health Potion.
- Powerspike
- The moment at which a champion significantly increases in power (= "spikes") by acquiring a certain level or item. The vast majority of champions inherently spike at level 6 since their ultimate ability can be unlocked. Example: Kayle gets a powerspike at level 16 because her innate, Divine Ascent grants her massive bonuses.
- Premade
- Multiple players, who know each other, forming a team together before entering the champion selection phase.
- Pro
- An act of calling someone that is very talented when playing, short for professional.
- Proc
- The activation of an effect. See also Proc damage.
- Projectile
- An object that has a certain speed and direction. Most projectiles (notably excluding turret attacks) can be either blocked or intercepted by an enemy Yasuo's Wind Wall, Braum's Unbreakable, or Samira's Blade Whirl. Targeted-projectile spells (point & click/unit-targeted and auto-targeted) may additionally be completely avoided by projectile-destroying effects, which includes most forms of untargetability.
- Proxy
- A high-risk, high-reward strategy (generally done at the top or bottom lanes due the length of the lanes) that involves farming enemy minions between the enemy turrets to prevent the opposing laner from effectively pushing or farming.
- Pubstomp
- When an organized team of good players thoroughly defeat random public players in a match.
- Pull
- Equivalent to leashing.
- A tactic where a large monster, most often the Red Brambleback, Blue Sentinel, or Drake, is first attacked to gain aggro, and then intentionally drawn by the aggressors outside of its idle position and into a better one to kill it in. The strategy of pulling is any of (A) surprising enemies, (B) lengthening the distance from the enemies' reach, or (C) obtaining a positional advantage. The intention and desired result is that, during the entire time that the monster is in its drawn position, it can be more safely attacked and contested by the ally team.
- An ability that displaces the enemy closer to you (e.g. Blitzcrank's Rocket Grab).
- Purple
- Purple team: The group of players that start out at the upper-right side of the map, once called Team Chaos.
- Hand of Baron. (Aka "Baron Buff" or "Purple Buff")
- Push
- To continue advancing forward in a lane, clearing it of minions and towers.
- PvP
- Player versus Player: game modes that do not include bot-controlled champions.
Q
- Q
- The first champion ability which is bound to the "Q" key by default.
- Depicts a pair of crying eyes, implying that the other player is complaining.
- QSS
- Quicksilver Sash
- Quadra
- Quadra kill
- Single-handedly achieving four champion kills within ten seconds of a Triple kill.
- Quint
- Quintessence, the removed most expensive/powerful type of rune.
R
- R
- The fourth champion ability (usually the ultimate) which is bound to the "R" key by default.
- Rage
- To display in-game frustration.
- Ragequit
- An incident where a player quits (leaves) the game due to in-game frustrations.
- Raka
- Soraka
- Rakan
- Rambo
- Diving into a fight alone, usually a suicidal tactic.
- Rat
- Twitch
- Razors
- Bloodrazor, Stormrazor
- Rdy
- Ready
- Re
- Short for reappear, meaning an enemy champion is no longer MIA.
- Used once someone is no longer AFK.
- Recommended
- A category of champions whose controlling difficulty is relatively low and suitable to new League of Legends players.
- The recommended items listed in the shop for shortcut purchase. Player can edit their recommended items manually.
- Red
- Crest of Cinders. Also known as "red buff." By extension, can refer to the Red Brambleback.
- Marks, a removed type of rune.
- Red ward
- Control Ward
- Ren
- Rene
- Renek
- Renekton
- Ren
- Rengo
- Rengar
- Rep
- Report: An action after each match to report a player to official for inappropriate behavior such as verbal abuse or intentionally feeding the opponent.
- Req
- Request
- Require
- Karthus' Requiem
- Revolver
- Hextech Revolver
- Rina
- Nickname for Katarina
- Riot
- The development company that created League of Legends.
- Riot Special
- (verb or compound noun) The act of Riot's game designers nerfing a champion or a group of champions as well as a system (item, buff, rune, playstyle, etc.) that they commonly utilize in the current meta, both with the same intent, and leaving said champion(s) as the complete opposite side of balance than they were before.
- Rito
- An intended misspell of Riot Games, the company that develops League of Legends. This word is usually used semi-ironically when players spot humorously blatant problems in the game, which they typically respond with 'Rito pls'.
- River
- The map dividing river that lies in neutral territory on Summoner's Rift.
- RNG
- Random number generation, game mechanics that utilize randomness. See RNG in WoW.
- RoA
- Rod of Ages
- Roam
- Movement by a laner away from their lane to a different area of the map to gank or otherwise apply map pressure.
- ROFL
- Rolling on the floor laughing.
- Rotate
- Rotation
- Temporarily switching lanes in order to maximize pushing minion waves and turrets, and minimize the time needed to reach a lane by one or multiple different team members to farm and/or defend structures.
- More broadly, moving away from the current lane and toward another lane, an objective, or a fight, in order to be present there for any reason.
- RP
- Riot Points
- RQ
- Ragequit
- Run it down mid
- Run it down
- A phrase coined by streamer Tyler1 meaning to feed the opposing mid lane player by repeatedly running past their mid turret
- Rylai
- Rylai's
- Rylai's Crystal Scepter
S
- Sarah
- Nickname for Miss Fortune.
- Satan
- A derogatory nickname for Teemo.
- Scale
- Scaling
- The mathematical interaction where any statistic, including levels, and in the case of non-champions game time, is added to or multiplied by a statistic's or effect's set number to numerically increase the potency of that effect. All other definitions are based on this definition.
- The measure of an effect's or champion's emergent power throughout the game (e.g. in terms of killing, waveclearing, etc.) as a function of resources gained. This is naturally based on the type and amount of available scalings to that effect or champion.
- The power of a champion or group of champions in a team comp in terms of all their available scalings, that can be compared to other champions or groups of champions in another team comp. "Good" scaling means that a champion has a good amount of statistics and scaling types and values as the game goes on, generally and on average compared to other champions. "Bad" scaling means a champion has worse statistics and scaling types and values as the game goes on, generally and on average compared to other champions. A champion or comp "scales harder" than another when they have comparatively more power as the game goes on.
- Scrim
- Scrimmage: two teams competing against each other for fun or practice in a non-tournament game.
- Scrub
- An insult indicating that the player has a low skill level for the game; a noob.
- Secret/Sleeper OP
- A champion or strategy that is potentially powerful enough to become meta, but is still unpopular and most people don't realize how strong it is.
- Sej
- Seju
- Sejuani
- Sera
- Seraphine
- Shop
- The location where items are bought.
- To return to the base and buy items. Interchangeable with "b" or "brb".
- Shotcall
- Shot-call
- The act of providing the team with useful information, problem-solving and decision-making on the current game state and potential strategy. Pings and/or chat may facilitate shotcalling.
- Shotgun Knees
- Urgot's Echoing Flames, sometimes used in a tongue-in-cheek manner.
- Shove
- Shoving
- Clearing the enemy minion waves as fast as possible, in order to push allied ones into the upcoming enemy turret. Also "shoving a/the lane".
- A call toward a teammate to shove, or help in shoving, the lane which they are located in.
- Shroom
- Teemo's Noxious Trap
- Shyv
- Shyvana
- Side lane
- Sidelane
- (verb or noun) Specifically refers to the top and bottom lanes or their respective laners in Summoner's Rift. "To sidelane" means to rotate to and start laning in one of the sidelanes, after the early game ends.
- Generally refers to the adjacent lane of one that is being discussed, for maps that have more than one lane.
- Siege
- Sieging
- The act of champions and minions focusing one or multiple lanes' turrets/inhibitors after minion waves are shoved, either (A) while uncontested by an enemy, or (B) with multiple team members (contested or otherwise). In the latter case, longer-range carries — ADCs and APCs — are the team members who assume the primary role of clearing the incoming minion waves and attacking turrets: carries because they have the most damage with which to hit minions and turrets, and longer-range because of the safety advantage. Usually, sieging in which most members of the team or the entire team may participate, takes place while the Hand of Baron buff is active. The desired result of sieging is both shoving waves and hitting the upcoming turret/inhibitor alongside allied minions; the minions themselves will be focused by the turret first, while champions hit the turret/inhibitor. "Advancing a siege" refers to persisting in clearing minion waves and hitting the upcoming turret/inhibitor.
- Congruent to the above, it may also be used to refer to the strategies used in order to prepare and advance a siege.
- Single target
- A targeting characteristic describing spells that affect only one target. Single-targeting is often used in projectile-based effects.
- Siv
- Sivir
- Skar
- Skarner
- Small indie company
- A derogatory term used to mock Riot for things such as small but useful features that have yet to be implemented, weird bugs, things that are supposedly easy to fix or need a urgent fix, or for poor/controversial decisions. Coined from the fact that Riot used to actually be a small indie company.
- Smurf
- A secondary account of lower level or rank than a player's primary account. Coined from Schlongor's second account "PapaSmurf".
- Snake
- Cassiopeia
- Snare
- An alias for root (Movement debuff that immobilizes its holder and silences mobility abilities). Because there were no functional differences between the two, snare as a keyword was eventually phased out of the game.
- Snowball
- Situation that occurs when a champion or team gains an advantage that allows them to progressively grow stronger.
- Mark / Dash
- Snowball item
- An item that grows in power as you gain kills/assists, e.g. Mejai's Soulstealer.
- Soft CC
- Crowd control that does not inhibit or cancel movement or spell casting.
- Soft leash
- To draw the aggro of a monster briefly before moving away.
- Solo
- A champion (usually the top and mid laners) that guards an entire lane on their own.
- Either being left alone to deal most of the damage to an objective, or outright starting and successfully completing an objective completely alone, without any help from the ally team.
- Solo bolo
- The act of killing the enemy lane opponent in a duel with no outside influence; also an exclamation of triumph and superiority after doing so. Coined by personality and former pro player TheBausffs.
- Sora
- Soraka
- SotO
- Sword of the Occult
- Soul point
- The point of the game where one team has slain the 3rd Elemental Drake, where the 4th one will grant Dragon Soul.
- Space
- Spacing
- Maintaining distance between your position and an enemy's or enemies' position during an encounter. Is most frequently used in the contexts of trading and zoning, and is the primary component of kiting. "Space" refers to the imaginary area between two champions at a given position.
- Space AIDS
- Malzahar's Malefic Visions.
- Spell
- Any unique action that a character can do, either directly through their kit or indirectly through secondary sources such as runes, items, etc, and which action has a unique identifier, is internally called a "spell". For example, the vast majority units—including all champions—have a basic attack spell. This usage is largely skipped in the League of Legends Wiki, as is also done by official Rioters, in favor of distinguishing spells into champion attacks, champion abilities, summoner spells, item passives and actives, rune effects, and others, and better presenting them. A unit that activates a spell is said to be "casting" that spell.
- Shorthand for Summoner spell. This is usually what is referred to with "spell".
- Split push
- To continuously advance in one lane while teammates are focused elsewhere.
- Squishy
- A champion that can be killed easily due to low base health/defenses.
- SR
- Summoner's Rift
- SS
- MIA
- A shotcall that was typed in chat to inform of an enemy champion being missing in action, or MIA. "SS" is shortened from "miss". "SS" and "miss" were more common on the EU servers, while "MIA" was more common on the NA servers. This form of shotcalling through chat fell out of favor with the introduction of smart pings.
- Stat check
- Stat checking
- A champion that wins trades just because it has superior stats, instead of because it outplayed the enemy or because it used a certain combo. Any champion can potentially be a stat check, but some champions are considered stat checks because due to how their kit works, they rely mostly or exclusively on stat checking to deal with enemy champions.
- A champion can be a stat check because it simply has better stats (ex: having more max HP than the enemy), because it has a lot of a stat that directly counter the enemy (ex: having a lot of armor against an enemy that does fully physical damage), because it can heal more than the enemy can damage, or because it can reduce the stats of an enemy (ex: reducing the enemy's attack speed).
- Stat stick
- An item which either does not have an unique passive or active, or has one that is very weak. In either case, the item is considered useful mostly for its stats; indeed, most items which are considered to be stat sticks tend to have superior stats compared to items which have useful passives and/or actives. An example is old Phantom Dancer, which did not had a 12% damage reduction passive, and was useful mostly because it used to offer 50% attack speed and 35% critical strike chance, which was superior to old Statikk Shiv's 40% attack speed and 20% critical strike chance, allowing Phantom Dancer to compete with Statikk even though the latter had a lighting passive that did burst damage and waveclear. Phantom Dancer was even stacked, because the stats were just that high.
- Steroid
- A temporary, self applied, straight-forward ability that increases one's performance without tangentially altering it.
- More specifically: an ability that provides an increase to a champion's base stats, or the part of the ability that does so.
- Stonewall
- When a champion is effectively able to turn the lane into a farm lane, denying all kill pressure from the enemy and countering their pushing potential, even if they would otherwise have both. They do this without having kill pressure themselves.
- Store
- Riot Store: the 'shop' accessible in the client interface where player can purchase Riot Points, champions, skins, Rune pages, Experience Boosts, etc. The term 'shop' dominantly refers to the Shop in the Field of Justice where the actual match is played.
- Stronk
- A typo of the word "strong," mostly used sarcastically due to being a misspelling.
- Stunlock
- A phrase used to express being continually hit with hard crowd control, thus being unable to not do anything.
- Super
- Super minion: a stronger minion that is spawned by destroying an enemy inhibitor in classic game mode.
- Super Hard CC
- Hard crowd control that is also capable of abruptly canceling the enemy champion's dash rather than it finishing mid-stun. Hard crowd control includes but is not limited to Veigar's Event Horizon, knockbacks, and all knockups.
- Super Soaker
- Hextech GLP-800, often used along with Glacial Augment rune.
- Susan
- Nasus' name spelled backwards, often as a derogatory term for most Nasus players.
- Sustain
- Sustainability
- A champion's capacity for staying in a lane or jungle without having to go back to the base.
- Sustained damage
- A large amount of damage that is done over a long period of time. Essentially the opposite of burst. Despite the name, sustained damage does not always come with actual sustain (but most of time, will do). Sustained damage is considered to be better to deal with tanky targets, while burst is more effective against squishy targets.
- SV
- Spirit Visage
- Synergy
- How well two or more champions/players work together.
- An item that benefits a particular champion without wasted stat boosts or inefficient abilities. (Also, in the LoL Wiki, "Synergy" sections were removed from item pages due to the definition being fairly subjective and cumbersome.)
T
- Tankiness
- The quality of being able to take high amounts of damage, primarily through items that give defensive stats.
- Tanking
- To take high amounts of damage. Usually refers to damage being done to tanks and fighters, who have the durability to survive such damage.
- Team comp
- Team composition: A specific champion combination for a team intended to achieve an overall strategy. Examples include Dive comp, Poke comp, Heal comp, Push/Siege comp, AoE comp, CC comp, etc.
- Teamfight
- When multiple (e.g. the entire team) champions gather in one area to battle.
- Teeto
- Nickname for Teemo made popular by PhantomL0rd with this video.
- TF
- Twisted Fate
- Trinity Force
- TFT
- Abbreviation of Teamfight Tactics.
- Thunderlord's
- Thunderlord's Decree
- TLD
- Thunderlord's Decree
- Tilt
- Mental frustration that negatively affects a player's ability to make level-headed decisions during a match. For further reading, see Tilt Type and the Wikipedia article on the concept of Tilt (poker).
- Tower
- A commonly used alternative term for the turret.
- Tower hugging
- To stay near the tower to deter enemy champions from attacking them.
- Toxic
- Used to describe a person whose attitude negatively disrupts other players.
- TP
- Teleport
- Twisted Fate's Gate
- Trade
- Trading
- Trade damage: When two opposing players deal damage to each other during an encounter. However, it can also refer to any non-lethal damaging encounter (i.e. a trade can be "one-sided", where the enemy deals no damage back while having received some). A successful or "good" trade is a trade where one side deals more damage than the other in terms of reaching a lethal threshold.
- Trade kills: When players from each side both suffer a number of deaths after a confrontation.
- Trade champions: To switch champions with another player during the champion selection for Draft or Ranked games after all players of both teams have finished selecting champions.
- Tree
- Maokai
- Tri-brush
- A particular "Y" shaped brush that covers three directions, such as those located on Summoner's Rift at the Red Brambleback jungle entry near the outer turret.
- Trinity
- Triforce
- Trinity Force
- Triple
- Triple kill
- Single-handedly achieving three champion kills within ten seconds of a Double kill.
- Tris
- Trist
- Tristana
- Troll
- A person who causes acts of disruption to other players and to the community. These acts may include writing offensive messages or intentionally feeding the enemy. Trolls are also referred to as griefers. See Troll on Wikipedia for more information.
- Mythical beings originating from the Norse mythology. In League of Legends, Trundle belongs to this race.
- Troll pole
- Fizz's Playful, which is tormenting to enemies attempting to eliminate him.
- Troll pool
- Vladimir's Sanguine Pool, which is tormenting to enemies attempting to eliminate him.
- TT
- Twisted Treeline
- Tryn
- Trynd
- Trynda
- Tryndamere
- Turtle
- Turtling
- A defensive strategy that involves protecting turrets, playing safe, and avoid dying as much as possible until late game comes. It is often used alongside champions with high waveclear potential and hypercarry champions.
U
- Ult
- Ulti
- Ultimate ability
- To tell a player to use their champion's ultimate ability.
- Ult bot
- A champion whose ult is very powerful or a lot more impactful compared to the rest of their kit. Sometimes those champions have the rest of their kits or their base stats nerfed to compensate, but are still worth picking due to their ultimate alone. Examples of champions which are or were considered ult bots are Miss Fortune, Malzahar, Malphite, and Shen.
- Unique
- An aura or ability that does not stack, common to item effects.
- UP
- Underpowered
- URF
- Ultra Rapid Fire
- Urf, the Manatee. Referring to the day innocent as celebracón
- Utility
- Abilities that have a quality of being beneficial for the team. Controller-class champions are known to have a lot of utility.
V
- Var
- Varus
- Vel
- Vel'Koz
- Vision hack
- An ability which allows a player to see through the fog of war, such as Twisted Fate's Destiny.
- Veig
- Veigar
- Vent
- Ventrilo: a third party voice chat software.
- Vertical Jungling
- A style of jungling mainly seen in higher elo and competitive play where the de facto jungle border between both teams' jungles is the middle lane rather than the river. Instead of the red side owning the first & second quadrants with the blue side owning the third & fourth, one team will own the first & fourth quadrants as well as the southeast (Drake) river, and the other will own the second & third quadrants plus the northwest (Baron) river.
- Vik
- Viktor
- Vlad
- Vladimir
- Voli
- Volibear
W
- W
- The second champion ability which is bound to the "W" key by default.
- Ward hop
- Using a dash ability (e.g. Lee Sin's Safeguard and Jax's Leap Strike) to target a ward. This is useful for escaping enemy attacks or intercepting an enemy that has used walls to juke away.
- Ward bait
- To place down a ward in order to set up an ambush. When an enemy champion attempts to destroy the ward, usually due to having an Oracle, the player initiates their surprise attack.
- Warma's
- A deprecated build that utilized Atma's Impaler and Warmog's Armor. Could also be referred to as Atmogs.
- Waveclear
- Wave-clear
- Generically refers to the act of killing the presently incoming waves of minions.
- Specifically refers to the time a champion needs to shove the wave when uninterrupted compared to the enemy laner, thus gaining tempo.
- Wet Noodle Fight
- Describes a fight between two champions that are building very little damage - usually tanks. This often takes place in the top lane during competitive play.
- Weedwick
- Warwick during patch 4.20. Warwick was notable in this patch due to the combination of Skirmisher's Sabre and Devourer (which were introduced in this patch) which made him significantly more powerful and allowed him to potentially one shot enemies when combined with his ultimate (since it activates on-hit effects, and in that patch, Skirmisher Sabre's active was considered an on-hit effect). The name is a pun with 420 being a number associated with cannabis.
- Win Button
- A term generally used tongue-in-cheek or in frustration to express that a champion may only need to use what is usually only their ultimate ability to win a fight.
- Winions
- Minions, especially when they overwhelm objectives such as towers or the nexus. Also, when they contribute to a lot of damage against a champion.
- Wombo combo
- When teammates effectively and consecutively chain together their abilities on enemy champions. Coined from a Smash Brothers Melee match.
- WotA
- Will of the Ancients
- WP
- Well Played
- Wu
- Wuk
- Wukong
- WW
- Warwick
X
- Xin
- XZ
- Xin Zhao
Y
Z
- Zeke
- Zeke's
- Zeke's Convergence
- Zerg Rush
- Building up smaller units into a giant wave to rush an enemy. Can be achievable by withholding minions, Zz'Rot Portal, and playing Yorick. Coined from Starcraft.
- Zil
- Zilean
- Zone
- Zoning
- Tactics used to prevent enemy champion(s) from gaining gold/experience.
