cheugy
adjective
| CHOO-ghee
Makes fun of being uncool
What does cheugy mean?
Cheugy is a slang way of calling someone or something uncool or unfashionable, especially when seen as slightly cringeworthy or trying too hard. It’s mainly used as a jokey put-down of trends stereotypically associated with millennials.
Examples of cheugy
Sydney Sweeney may star in HBO’s Euphoria — aka Gen Z’s style bible — but IRL, she’s “cheugy” and proud. The Anyone But You actor’s sartorial sensibilities are so millennial-coded and could not be further from Gen Z’s tastes. Thus far, she’s rocked Y2K-era handkerchief tops and styled Canadian tuxedos one too many times. Her favorite dreaded cheugy trend, however, is also one of the most despised: the peplum.
—Alyssa Lapid, Bustle, 3 Sep. 2024
I don’t care how cheugy it is, I’m sharing my favorite quotes!
—If I know anything about Gen Z it’s that they can smell any falsity or any little tiny cheugy thing from a million miles away. Honestly, I think my use of the word ‘cheugy’ is now cheugy.
—
Where does cheugy come from?
Cheugy was first used by a group of young women in the 2010s. They used the word to poke fun at other young women whose taste, fashion, and self-presentation they found to be outmoded and overearnest enough to be considered uncool, basic, or cringy.
In March 2021, a young woman named Hallie Cain posted on TikTok about her and her friends using the word. That post went viral. Covering the story for the New York Times in April, journalist Taylor Lorenz traced cheugy back to Gaby Rasson, a twentysomething woman from Los Angeles who said she coined the term and used it with her friends in high school in 2013. Why cheugy? It’s a nonsense formation, but Rasson has said it simply sounded right.
How is cheugy used?
Taylor Lorenz’s story itself went viral in its own way, resulting in widespread media coverage of the term cheugy. The sudden popularity gave the slang word mainstream attention, but use of the term became widely self-referential—that is, about how cheugy is itself a word and trend or having fun calling different things cheugy on social media. By summer 2021, a common joke was that the word cheugy was cheugy.
Examples and use of cheugy tend to center on the lifestyle associated with millennials, particularly women and what clothing they wear, what things they buy, and how they act and present their lives online. Use of the word remains both self-aware and self-deprecating, with cheugy not being a wholly bad quality and one that people like to claim for themselves. Someone thought of as cheugy is humorously called a cheug. The connotation is a little judgy but ultimately joky. As trends shift, what’s considered cheugy shifts—including the word itself, which has seen some playful but slightly more genuine uptake since its 2021 peak, especially in women’s lifestyle and fashion media.
