What Does Leet Mean?

Leet is a cipher, or novel form of English spelling. It is the phonetic form of the word "elite" and most commonly represented as 1337. It is also known as leetspeak, l33t5p34k, 133t, or l33t. Thus it means cool or neat. Nowadays it is used as a derogatory term for someone who thinks about themselves as cool but in fact is not. It is a method of writing words by replacing numerals or special characters for some of the English letters.

Therefore leet is a sociolect. Sociolect is the verbal language of a social group, social class or subculture as per linguistics. Internet users and online games use the term leet frequently. It is a modification of the written text. It is not solely based on one language or character set. Leet speak is found in Chinese, Greek, Russian and other languages. Leet has originated from written communication over electronic media. Thus it is a slang used in internet and other forms of electronic media.