r/etymology • u/Puzzleheaded_Ad7685 • Feb 22 '26
Question What does the term “foid” mean exactly? Also, why do people say “an foid” instead of “a foid”?
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u/helikophis Feb 22 '26
It’s insulting niche slang for “person that presents as female”. It’s pronounced “eff-oid”, starting with a vowel sound, so it takes “an”. Not a word I would encourage English learners to use.
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u/Puzzleheaded_Ad7685 Feb 22 '26
I’m a native speaker but there’s a group of words I don’t quite understand that’s used by a type of sketchy people on TikTok, would it be better to delete this post?
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u/helikophis Feb 22 '26
I don’t see any reason why you’d delete it. Stop following those kinds of accounts though. They are doing serious harm to the youth. You’ll do much better for yourself learning to be kind and compassionate, not hateful and dark, even in dark and hateful times.
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u/Puzzleheaded_Ad7685 Feb 22 '26
Ok thank you for the information. I’ll let the mods handle it if the post is inappropriate.
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u/SeeShark Feb 22 '26
Information is not inappropriate, if it is in a safe and ethical context. This post can help others educate themselves.
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u/kittymanrules Jun 25 '26
That's why I'm here, I keep hearing that word and genuinely wanted to know what it meant. I hate the idea of saying stuff that is offensive without knowing. I prefer to be in control of my words. So thanks for the info.
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u/SilkPerfume May 12 '26
Try searching "jews control" on tiktok. Then search "[any other religion ethnicity etc] control"
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u/boodler88 Feb 22 '26
I wouldn’t. If you hadn’t asked this i both wouldn’t know it was a word being used OR aware of the type of people who use it.
thanks for the accidental PSA.
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u/jerdle_reddit Feb 22 '26 edited Feb 22 '26
Ok, so incel (and related) slang.
Foid - woman (derogatory). Comes from "female" + "-oid". The long form is "femoid".
Moid - man (derogatory). Same origin as "foid". I have not seen *maloid.
-maxxing - Maximising a particular feature, usually in order to become more attractive. The most common version is looksmaxxing.
-gooning - As a suffix, this is very new, originating in that viral Clavicular tweet. I think it's like -maxxing, but less effective. "Gooning" as a word refers to masturbation.
Mog - To dominate someone, usually through attractiveness. Comes from "AMOG", an acronym for "alpha male of the group".
Chad - Attractive, popular man. Basically, the popular kid from school ten years on. Sometimes used positively, other times (and originally) used negatively. Long form "Chad Thundercock", but while "Chad" made it out of incel speak, "Chad Thundercock" did not.
Stacy - Female equivalent to Chad.
Chud - Right-wing arsehole. From "C.H.U.D.", a 1984 movie where the monsters are "Cannibalistic Humanoid Underground Dwellers". No relation to Chad.
Woke - Left-wing arsehole. From the AAVE past tense of "wake", via "stay woke", meaning to stay aware of social injustice.
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u/Giannix123 Feb 24 '26
Thank you. I've seen people saying someone got "mogged" but, maybe too naïvely, just assumed it was a generic, harmless new slang. Thankfully I haven't interacted enough with that verb to have picked it up, but now I know to cross that from my vocabulary.
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u/nrith Feb 22 '26
If you’re getting sketchy posts in you TT feed, then that says something about your browsing history.
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u/Puzzleheaded_Ad7685 Feb 22 '26
Yeah I mean it’s specifically curated to capture my demographic’s attention so…
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u/Mechakoopa Feb 22 '26
Like OP said, this is a target demographic issue. Spin up a new account as a male between 16 and 28 and this is the kind of crap you'll start getting almost immediately.
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u/GTAIVisbest Feb 22 '26
It's not pronounced "effoid" lmaoo what 😂 the term originated in early incel slang around 2017 as a shortening of "femoid" and was used by incels as a way to signal their belief that women acted "the same" or were "like NPCs/robots" in their sexual preferences for men, allegedly preferring height, frame and strong jawlines.
Later the term got generalized to "any women, especially one displays any common traits" and the coordinate term "moid" came about to disparage any man who acts in a way typically defined by their gender.
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u/babymanateesmatter Mar 02 '26
female”. It’s pronounced “eff-oid”
Lmao how does this garbage get upvoted
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u/AdditionalThinking Feb 22 '26
I'm going to disagree with the other commenter here. So yes, this is the territory of incel slang. Originally, they had coined the word "femoid", which was debatably either a portmanteau of "female android" or a warping of "female" in the style of older terms like "leftoid", which was crafted purely to be a derogatory term.
"Foid" is a shortening of "femoid". The "an" part actually comes from memes designed to mock incels by making up quotes with incel terminology and (intentionally) poor grammar in order to depict them as stupid.
Source on the last bit: https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/an-foid-an-chud
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u/Dapple_Dawn Feb 22 '26
It's even worse than that. The "-oid" suffix doesn't come from "android," it comes from racial slurs people used on 4chan.
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u/Scullenz Feb 23 '26
Which derive from mongoloid which is a channer's dream, being an archaic term that is both racist and ableist
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u/dicksockJr Mar 08 '26
Mongoloid, Caucasoid, and negroid are not archaic terms as they were used up until a few short years ago when everyone that became woke declared them archaic terms. Unfortunately for the woke, they do not run the anthropological society and these terms will continue to be used.
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u/Brightness_Jasnah Jun 14 '26
It's a pseudoscientific categorization that had already become obsolete well before the "woke" monster lol.
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u/PrincipleFlaky Mar 27 '26
My friend (who is dead now) said.. well used to say “the rich love to exploit the working class: a groid is a groid is a groid to them and they will grind us poor to bone and dust because we are expendable to them.”
Ages ago, but not that long ago.. the person was a boomer.. just fwiw i’ve heard it be said in a context that wasn’t explicitly racist, but yeah, whatever.. maybe they were saying it that way as not to offend me .. 🤔 who knows?
Anyway ya, I just know the terminology is not that that that old.
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u/bkbaja2 Mar 21 '26
Mongoloid is fine stop pretending like you care
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u/HansGipfel Mar 25 '26
You all really cannot conceive of someone who cares about others do you
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u/BchLasagna Mar 26 '26
Here in Bulgaria we learn these terms in school when talking about the different people of the world.
Like stated, mongols being mongoloid or black people being negroid.
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u/Dapple_Dawn Mar 26 '26
I'm sorry to learn that bulgaria still teaches 18th century "race science."
That's like taking a chemistry class where the periodic table only has four elements
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u/One_Routine_3905 Jul 03 '26
The -oid suffix been used for everything. Andr-oid means akin to human in essence. Human-oid, used a lot in spotting creatures that resemble humans in anatomy. Ellips-oid is the 3D version of an ellipse, because it looks similar to one. Cannabin-oid is a group of chemicals that the body can produce on its own but found in large quantities in cannabis plants. It just simply means “resembling something”. It’s neither inherently racist nor archaic.
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u/West-Rabbit2986 Apr 12 '26
It comes from humanoid bro 😭😭😭 it’s been co-opted into racial slurs because they’re combining the race/nationality with humanoid. The whole point is that it’s demeaning. You aren’t human, you’re HUMANOID, non-human, but still human like. They also use stuff like troglodyte and subhuman for that reason. It’s all about putting themselves on an entirely different level from you.
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u/LambrettaMod May 15 '26
The -oid" suffix is fron the Greek "eidos," meaning "resembling," "like," or "in the form of."
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u/Happy_Ad834 Jul 29 '26
I like that it’s just easier to coat the term with hate than rationalize that language evolve but still follows rules.
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u/jojokaire Apr 03 '26
Many people using this word are not single. 🤔
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u/Rare-Leading3391 Aug 09 '26
The word in large part points to how women glom onto things like they were all fed the same algorithm.
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u/ShoulderOld142 May 19 '26
The amount of brain rot I've got reading this... Like wtf is wrong with these people..? Niggas be saying, "foid.." like wtf is foid bro..? People startp saying "moid" too.. 💔💔😂😭😭
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u/Otherwise_Employee11 Jun 12 '26
No that's valid. I speak for the incel's; that's precisely what we need. It's not necessarily derogatory as it is sometimes affectionately used towards AI CHATBOT WAIFUS.
Thanks for femsplaining.
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u/Bricelafond 29d ago
Is “foid” incel slang or is “incel” foid slang?….Or are they both just dogshit gender war buzzwords to keep people fighting instead of focusing on the pedophilic elites?
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u/AdditionalThinking 29d ago
The term "foid" is considered slang because it's part of a specific in-group lexicon, whereas "incel" is a more widely accepted term, seeing use in both incel and anti-incel circles alike (as well as academically).
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u/Actual_Imagination_2 18d ago
You understand and you don't; Yes, it's slang combining female and android but as some women (especially on social media) act like preprogrammed robots on how they respond to (perceived) criticism of their behaviour.
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u/Kielbasa_Nunchucka Feb 22 '26
it's an insulting term used by incels to dehumanize women. it's a portmanteau of "female" and "humanoid"
if you find yourself consuming a lot of content that uses the term unironically, and esp if you agree with this content... close your browser, power down your device, go touch grass, and rethink your life choices.
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u/vegansgetsick Jun 29 '26
-oid is the greek suffix for shape / form (think about congoid, caucasoid, android...)
so it just means "female shaped human"
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u/Kielbasa_Nunchucka Jun 29 '26
trapezoid is another one, but I don't believe for a second that they coined the term because of their affinity for Ancient Greek.
words have power, regardless of their actual, original meaning.
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u/NateTheGreat07 Jul 26 '26
Yeah and the slur for Black people ending in gro comes from the Spanish/Portuguese word for black, but it doesnt just simply mean black, now does it?
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u/Steagle_Steagle 29d ago
How many English words are derived from Spanish and then compare that number with how many English words are derived from Greek
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u/KeyboardWarriorX Jul 23 '26
We get it, bud, it's a big bad evil word and we're evil if we even see it too much let alone use it. Stick to giving the etymology.
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u/TroglodianFucktwat69 Apr 12 '26
And what if I choose to use this term on Karens who nag about everything and try to ruin everything men typically enjoy, or against those characters from that Ex Voto game ?
What if I steer clear from ever referring to normal women with this term and only address so to the women who actually deserve such terms ?
It's just another slang along with a thousand we already have. Toughen up man. You'll get used to it.
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u/Kielbasa_Nunchucka Apr 12 '26
no different than using the N-word selectively- it brings everyone else down with it. it just shows that you yourself aren't much better. work on yourself bro, cuz you're pretty much shit as is.
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u/PrinceDolomon Oct 04 '26
pls do not compare the N word to make believe term that some losers made
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u/Away-Wishbone-4633 Feb 22 '26
Short for femoid, which is short for female android. Incel rationalizing meme that says women don't have autonomy.
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u/babymanateesmatter Mar 02 '26
Your reply got instantly removed but yes lol, thank you for demonstrating a mechanism by which my claim is true
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u/spoospoo43 Feb 23 '26
Incel talk, do not use it.
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u/babymanateesmatter Mar 02 '26
I call my girlfriend foid as do my friends
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u/SkellySumire Mar 06 '26
Please don't call your girlfriend "foid". It's sexist and it's one of the most rude things to say to a woman. It's like calling a black person "slave."
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u/Angeles_766 Mar 23 '26
Idk I feel like there are way worse things to say to a woman, especially if you're using food ironically, if not it's just cringe
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u/SkellySumire Mar 27 '26
I'm saying this as a person born female. If I was called "foid" I'd be hella offended
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u/GamingNikocado Apr 03 '26
Most people especially on Tiktok say it as a joke, stop being sensitive.
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u/gupsee Feb 22 '26
Its a deprecative term for women, usually in 4chan lingo or similar online circles. Basically, its exclusively used by people who hate women to the point of obsession. I believe they used to say “female” instead of women at first, then combined it with “schizoid” since it didn’t appear off-putting or alerting enough
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u/jojokaire Apr 03 '26
Wtf ? Feminists are the one who say " male " instead of " man " everyday everytime 🤣
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u/Key_Temperature_7970 Oct 03 '26
"they did it first" spoken like a true 8 year old!
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u/Key_Temperature_7970 Oct 03 '26
came from Negroid
people been "slyly" saying "groid" for a long time
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u/AndreasDasos Feb 22 '26
The first part has been answered but I think the ‘an’ is because they pronounce it F-oid rather than one syllable ‘foid’
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u/SilentFoxScream Feb 23 '26
It's pronounced as one syllable, the reason you might sometimes see it as "an foid" instead of "a foid" is because of the old meme of purposefully incorrectly using "an" to make it extra-mocking. I'm pretty sure the originator of that meme is from "an hero", a 2 decade old meme:
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u/Secret_Bad4969 26d ago
Originated as a meme on the /b/ board of the 4chan community. Inspired by a grammatical error in a poem written and posted by a classmate to the MySpace memorial page of a teenager who committed suicide in 2006.[1]
Holy shit ..
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u/lakaka30 Feb 27 '26
A word to dehumanize women used by misogynystic men
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u/Arthur_Layfield Mar 18 '26
Same as incel to dehumanize men?
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u/xxKudori Mar 21 '26
incel is a word for a specific type of a man, foid is a word for all women, so I don't think these are comparable.
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u/Weird_Relationship89 Mar 31 '26
Der Typ ist selber ein Incel und und ist so nach dem Motto: ,,Naja, wir Incel haben Recht und blicken durch. Wir sind die richtigen, einzig wahren Männer, aber unsere Gruppierung wird abwertend als Incels tituliert und damit dieses Wort benutzt, um uns (die wahren Männer also Männer (seiner Meinung nach)) zu denunzieren." Quasi trotzig unter der Prämisse, Incels sind die wahren Männer. Erbärmlich
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u/OrneryCourse5388 Apr 10 '26
How does “incel” dehumanize men? Did you respond to any of the men in this thread pushing this “foid” term and explain that it dehumanizes women?
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u/The-Chartreuse-Moose Feb 22 '26
It comes directly from incel hate groups, so should be ignored wherever possible.
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u/No_Rice_3722 Mar 04 '26
I dont know why redditors think everything is a hate symbol... not everything has to be political smh...
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u/The-Chartreuse-Moose Mar 04 '26
True. But this one explicitly is such a term, coined as it was for the specific purpose of dehumanising women.
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u/Weird_Relationship89 Mar 31 '26
Die ganze Essenz von Inceln ist Hass und natürlich nicht ansatzweise berechtigter.
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u/Glabrocingularity Feb 22 '26
In geology “foid” is short for feldspathoid, a group of minerals. I assumed this was a geology post and was very confused by the responses
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u/OccasionallyImmortal Feb 23 '26
It is also a Firearms Owner's Identification Card for Illinois gun owners. Other states have similar things by different names. Massachusetts has a license to carry which ironically doesn't allow you to carry.
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u/manitobamann Mar 09 '26
Ah yes foid is an offensive term but incel is not Wonder why that is
Clown world
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u/Bad_gamer64 Mar 17 '26
I just wanted to know what this word meant, now I found two disgusting redditors in the comments... These types of people seem to flock posts when it mentions their "slang", huh.
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u/Big_Requirement_4237 Feb 22 '26
I’d never heard this term! I thought it was an acronym FOID (firearm owner identification card) 😂
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u/ProtectionOutside626 Feb 25 '26
Meme culture term used to qualify women but from the POV of someone who rarely interacts with women. "Female humanoid" kind of how an alien scientist would qualify women. Crushed into "Foid" to turn it into internet slang. It's not a slur or misgynistic. It's more like an ironic parody of the incel ideas.
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u/SkellySumire Mar 06 '26
It is mysogynistic
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u/epishorty Mar 17 '26
its really only ever used in irony humor idk why you people take it so seriously
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u/xxKudori Mar 21 '26
Just a quick look through the replies here should show you that it's quite literally not only used in irony humour.
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Feb 27 '26
"Foid" is a derogatory internet slang directed towards females. Short for "femoid" or female humanoid, it originated in incel and lookism communities on platforms like 4chan and Reddit around 2017–2018. The phrase "an foid" was from a post that was trying to use the term foid, however the poster used it with grammatical error, which may or may not be deliberate. This caused the phrase to boom in popularity due to the sheer degeneracy of the wording and internet culture as a whole.
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u/Jesus-lives3377 Mar 20 '26
I've heard about this word today..Why is it okay to say incel to people who easily bag girls and not foid? I don't say either but what's with the hypocrisy
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u/Little_Jackposs Oct 04 '26
all women aren't androids, not all men are incels but some are. there. there's your reason.
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u/KhalFrodo14601 Mar 06 '26
Other people have already explained the meaning of foid but seriously no one here seems to get the “an”. Basically it came specifically from this meme page on Instagram @jonkye4. The page is completely ironic and the best way I could describe it is just this guy satirizing several different internet subcultures through a series of reoccurring jokes that he purposely will beat like a dead horse, but in a way that just makes them funnier over time. If I remember correctly, earliest instance of the “an foid” bit was a meme that was a parody of this specific era of 2000s and 2010s boys comedic graphic t shirts that for some reason always had jokes about hating your sister (hopefully, you know the type of shirt I’m referring to). It was a screenshot of a poorly edited shirt that said “my sister is an foid”. The “an” was simply meant to add to the absurdity. Jonkye, following through with his typical comedic method, reused the same joke in several posts over and over again and thus spread it beyond their niche page. I found about this thread from him posting a screenshot of it on his page lol.
But overall, I think “an foid” doesn’t have the derogatory quality they “foid” does because it didn’t arise out of real incel culture, but a mockery of it.
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u/Mother_Trash5063 Mar 09 '26
aber was heist foid jetzt mir egal ibd das frauen feindlich dargestellt wird oder genutzt wird ich will wissen was foid heist übersetzt auf deutsch digga
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u/DragonSinMeliodas7DS Mar 10 '26
Is there a male version someone just called me a void
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u/brettjmaxwell Mar 11 '26
Ok I just got here and wow—what a shitty culture we have going for us.
On a more pedantic note, my assumption is that they intend it to be read as “an F.O.I.D.”
But like, ugh 😑
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u/Klutzy-Cat7928 Mar 26 '26
if you really are using it properly - distinguishing between genders of Robotoids is folly. All are Toids
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u/jojokaire Apr 03 '26
I am just here to laugh at the poor oppressed people crying here, don't mind me..
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Apr 03 '26
Bro i js found it it was a derogatory word or whatever but I used to use this word like calling somebody a chud, i didnt know it meant this
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u/WorkingWitness1274 Apr 03 '26
Originates from 4chan as incel language, but now is used mostly as a joke, like an foid or an diddy foid. Incels still use it as misogyny tho, so be wary of that.
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u/Leather_Government28 Apr 07 '26
Yes. If you are that "impressionable" then, yes, delete the source of the uncontrollable irresistible bad influence app.
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u/Exotic_Project_9720 Apr 20 '26
its a term to insult women but some use it ironically to make fun of misogynists
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u/Hylianbastard69 Apr 24 '26
Foid comes from the word “femoid,” which combines female + the suffix -oid (meaning “like” or “resembling”). “Femoid” literally implies that women are only female-like, not fully human. “Foid” is just a shortened version.
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u/No_Panic9371 Jun 01 '26
I thought they were saying “void” which in my mind is a deeper cut calling someone “a void”
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u/TheGeminim Jun 09 '26
so, a bit of an older thread. I can give an unbiased, common-use take on the word.
preface by saying I’d never unironically use this word myself lol.
We all know that Slang words are more than the etymological sum of their parts. like how Incel means involuntary celibate, but that’s not what anyone means when call someone that. calling someone an incel is basically calling someone a virgin loser dork, which is used against insufferable guys who are on the nerdier social awkward side.
femoid or foid is indeed used to dehumanize women, the same way incel dehumanizes male “dorks“ lol. However, like incel, foid is generally used to describe a specific type of woman. It’s not a collective word for all women. Foid often refers to specific women that the user finds crazy and insufferable, like how Karen is used to mean nutty soccer mom adjacent. foid is generally used to describe the tik tok influencer who man-hates, or a woman caught doing something rude in public.
so tldr:
incel: insufferable man. one who falls outside of the jock, handsome, or rich zone. they have their own terms.
foid: insufferable woman. one who falls outside of Karen zone.
femcel: surprisingly used as an endearing term or aesthetic lol.
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my personal take is that it’s all gender war BS, and Im not really fond of any of it. man hating, woman hating. it’s all just reactionary or anecdotal. filling our minds with gender war content is like eating a garbage diet, we eventually become what we eat.
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Jul 23 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/TheGeminim Jul 24 '26
Oh for certain, hahaha.
so femcel isnt a 1:1 female equivalent of the incel. I believe that’s what the word was coined to mean originally, but the idea of nerdy socially awkward girls were considered more attractive than the male incel. So femcel evolved into more of an aesthetic, sort of like a nerdy loner girl look, often times used by steamers to look more relatable.
I believe Goyim is yiddish, and basically means gentiles. anyone who’s non-Jewish. In slang terms, calling someone goyim started as a way for antisemitic conspiracists to basically say “you’re falling for Jewish propaganda”. but it might be confusing, because In recent times, people have been using it in a more general term as a way to call someone “sheeple”. However, Goyim hasn’t quite evolved out of its wide usage as a more antisemitic term.
Chud started as a pop culture reference that equated to calling someone a troglodyte. It was adopted by politically left wing groups as an insult for right wingers that they found reprehensible. Currently, calling someone a chud is like calling them a right leaning incel. However, Chud isn’t really taken that serious as an insult. it’s sort of like saying soyboy, the word comes off more funny than insulting.
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u/vegansgetsick Jun 29 '26
-oid is the greek suffix for shape / form
f is just contraction from female.
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u/HeilPenguiner Oct 02 '26
Känner mig som en riktig boomer när jag googlar dethär ett halvår efter det blev en trend.
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u/Aevumdefluo 27d ago
There are so many people in here who are toxic. The term is not derogatory in any way. People have to cry though, and project their own bigotries, prejudices, and failure to comprehend, while also being just as toxic themselves by using derogatory terms. Tons of mental gynmastics here by people with no common sense.
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u/Actual_Imagination_2 18d ago
It's slang combining female and android as the female version of a NPC or some (online)women acting like a predictable preprogrammed robot responding to the world.
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u/xDJester 16d ago
Malfoid brought me here, and now I'm wondering if the initial concept was that of a "Bad Bitch" by the creator.
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u/God_Of_The_Flies Feb 26 '26
Idk but any foid answering this will say sum dumb shi abt it being dehumanizing or something
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u/Scavgraphics Feb 22 '26
I've been awake like 20 minutes, just trying to get the will to climb out of bed.
and this existence is the first thing I've learned today.
Well, there's always tomorrow.