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TL;DR
"Too long; didn't read," internet slang on verbosity of a post

TL;DR or tl;dr, short for "too long; didn't read", is internet slang often used to introduce a summary of an online post or news article. It is also used as an informal interjection commenting that a block of text has been ignored due to its length.

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History

The phrase dates back to at least 2002.345 According to the Oxford English Dictionary, its earliest known use was in a 2002 message posted on the Usenet newsgroup rec.games.video.nintendo.6 In 2009, the term appeared in Mo' Urban Dictionary: Ridonkulous Street Slang Defined, a publication based on online crowdsourced slang database Urban Dictionary.7 Also in 2009, it was listed as a slang acronym in David Pogue's tweet anthology World According to Twitter.8 The term was added to the Oxford Dictionaries Online in 2013.9

See also

Look up tl;dr or TL;DR in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

References

  1. "Oxford Dictionaries Online quarterly update: new words added to oxforddictionaries.com today". OxfordWords blog. Oxford University Press. 28 August 2013. Archived from the original on 2013-08-28. TL;DR, abbrev.: 'too long didn't read': used as a dismissive response to a lengthy online post, or to introduce a summary of a lengthy post. https://web.archive.org/web/20130828030516/http://blog.oxforddictionaries.com/august-2013-update/ ↩

  2. "Oxford Dictionaries Online quarterly update: new words added to oxforddictionaries.com today". OxfordWords blog. Oxford University Press. 28 August 2013. Archived from the original on 2013-08-28. TL;DR, abbrev.: 'too long didn't read': used as a dismissive response to a lengthy online post, or to introduce a summary of a lengthy post. https://web.archive.org/web/20130828030516/http://blog.oxforddictionaries.com/august-2013-update/ ↩

  3. "tl;dr". Oxford English Dictionary (Online ed.). Oxford University Press. (Subscription or participating institution membership required.) https://www.oed.com/search/dictionary/?q=tl%3Bdr ↩

  4. "tl;dr". Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary. Merriam-Webster. https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/tl%3Bdr ↩

  5. Johnson, Dave. "What does TLDR mean? Understanding the internet shorthand for lengthy text and its various uses". Business Insider. Retrieved 2023-12-06. https://www.businessinsider.com/guides/tech/tldr-meaning ↩

  6. "tl;dr". Oxford English Dictionary (Online ed.). Oxford University Press. (Subscription or participating institution membership required.) https://www.oed.com/search/dictionary/?q=tl%3Bdr ↩

  7. Peckham, Aaron (2009-01-01). Mo' Urban Dictionary: Ridonkulous Street Slang Defined. Andrews McMeel Publishing. ISBN 978-0-7407-8892-5. 978-0-7407-8892-5 ↩

  8. Pogue, David (2009-08-15). World According to Twitter. Running Press. ISBN 978-1-60376-173-4. 978-1-60376-173-4 ↩

  9. "Oxford Dictionaries Online quarterly update: new words added to oxforddictionaries.com today". OxfordWords blog. Oxford University Press. 28 August 2013. Archived from the original on 2013-08-28. TL;DR, abbrev.: 'too long didn't read': used as a dismissive response to a lengthy online post, or to introduce a summary of a lengthy post. https://web.archive.org/web/20130828030516/http://blog.oxforddictionaries.com/august-2013-update/ ↩