incel
Language: English
Part of speech: noun
Pronunciation: ipa: /ˈɪnˌsɛl/
rhymes: -ɪnsɛl
Forms: form: incels
Etymology: Blend of involuntary + celibate. Coined by "Alana" in 1997 on an online forum (originally as invcel). Came to widespread usage in the mid-2010s, chiefly online, but now more widespread.
Senses: examples: text: Though, involuntary celibates (or incels) shouldn't try to rationalize a dateless season or pass off sexual awkwardness as virtue; […]
ref: 2004, Phineas Mollod, Jason Tesauro, The Modern Lover: A Playbook for Suitors, Spouses & Ringless Carousers, Ten Speed Press, published 2004, →ISBN, page 90:
text: It is not clear when the term incels was coined, but the link between misogyny and violence against women has emerged on sites where incel communities gather.
ref: 2017 November 9, Christine Hauser, “Reddit Bans ‘Incel’ Group for Inciting Violence Against Women”, in The New York Times:
text: The incel ideology has already inspired the murders of at least sixteen people. Elliot Rodger, in 2014, in Isla Vista, California, killed six and injured fourteen in an attempt to instigate a “War on Women” for “depriving me of sex.”
ref: 2018 May 15, Jia Tolentino, “The Rage of the Incels”, in The New Yorker:
ref: 2018 April 25, Alex Hern, Who are the 'incels' and how do they relate to Toronto van attack?, The Guardian:
text: The framing of inceldom as an “adverse life circumstance”, repeated across the Wiki, lends credibility to the framing used by incels who wish to dissociate themselves from the common descriptions of incels as a ‘movement’, ‘ideology’ or ‘community’. […] This report finds that the Wiki is a site of attempts to divorce the concept of being an incel from believing in the blackpill, and we argue that this is intended as a means of both expanding the category of incels to make them politically relevant, and dissociating the label ‘incel’ from violent misogyny.
ref: 2023 January 24, Meg Roser, Charlotte Chalker and Tim Squirrell, “Spitting out the blackpill: Evaluating how incels present themselves in their own words on the incel Wiki”, in Institute for Strategic Dialogue, pages 5-6:
text: Online forums dedicated to incel culture are a reliable way to see how the term evolved and is used today. A subreddit, or forum on Reddit, called r/incels was one of the most visible meeting places for self-identified incels until it was banned by Reddit in 2017 for “violent content.”
ref: 2023 March 16, AJ Willingham, “What does the term ‘incel’ mean?”, in CNN:
glosses: A member of an online subculture of people (mostly men) who define themselves as unable to find a romantic or sexual partner despite desiring one.
examples: text: Another study by Donnelly of seventy-seven incels in marriages or long-term relationships in the Journal of Marriage and Family used a web-based questionnaire to ask people why they stayed in their sexless relationships (defined in this case as no sex for six months).
ref: 2009, Luisa Dillner, Love by Numbers: The Hidden Facts Behind Everyone's Relationships, Profile Books, published 2009, →ISBN, page 153:
antonyms: volcel
glosses: An individual who is not sexually active despite having such a desire.
glosses: A misogynistic man, with the implication that his misogyny makes him undesirable to potential partners, thus limiting his romantic and/or sexual prospects.
topics: lifestyle
seduction-community
sexuality
synonyms: incelibacy
love-shyness
fuckstration
AFCdom
AFCness
glosses: "Involuntary celibacy": the state of being not sexually active despite wishing to be.
Synonyms: word: AFC
word: blue-baller
word: incel
word: incelibate
word: involuntary celibate
word: love-shy
word: permavirgin
Hypernyms: word: celibate
Coordinate terms: Chad
Stacy
tyrone
Trixie
Derived terms: -cel
Glincel
inceldom
incelism
incellike
incelosphere
nigcel