The word swag is commonly used, mainly by young people. We explain the origin and definition of this slang!
Perhaps you have already been told that you were swag , or that you had to swag . If you didn't understand, let's hope you didn't take it the wrong way:it's far from being an insult! But, by the way, what is the swag ?
Someone from swag is a person who has style, class . We have the hype, we are cool, because of the clothes we wear, our behavior, our tastes... A trendy outfit, a fashionable look will not be enough to make you a swagman . It's your attitude and your appearance that will allow you to be described as such. Note that swag can be used both as a noun (“Il a du swag ”) , that as an adjective (“She is swag ”).
A common misconception is that swag an acronym for “Secretly We Are Gay” (Secretly, we are gay), or even from “She Wants a Gentleman” (She Wants A Gentleman). However, no serious source comes to support these assertions.
The word was actually born in Norway. Swag is derived from svagga , which could be translated as “tilting unstable” and which enters the English language in the 13th or 14th century: we discover it for the first time in a document dating from 1303.
The term then evolved and takes on another meaning when swagger is employed for the first time by William Shakespeare in the 16th century in his plays A Midsummer Night's Dream , King Lear and Henry IV. The word means then bragging .
The expression appears in the French language in the 90s , before becoming really popular in the 2000s and 2010s.
As is often the case with young people's slang, it is thanks to music that swag became popular. Many popular rappers and singers have indeed used this word in their sounds, facilitating its mass adoption into common parlance.
In his hit Paper Planes (2008), M.I.A reminds us that is not swag who wants, but who is gets the glory:
In Turn my swag on, Soulja Boy talks about the swag as we could talk about the mojo, by expressing a positive energy that we diffuse:
In English, the swag can take many other meanings , like loot , heap , wandering , flop … Thus, rapper YG talks about booty in his hit Swag (2020):
Many other celebrities are fond of recalling that they are swag . Justin Bieber proclaims it constantly, a way for him to recall his hip-hop origins (the artist's career having taken off thanks to Usher). On the French side, we all have in mind the parody rapper Swag Man, recently sentenced to 5 years in prison in Tunisia.
The word swag can be used differently, depending on the context. In French, it can qualify a person in the game as much as a piece of clothing, an accessory... For example:
If the nuance seems subtle, you simply have to remember that an individual can hold an object swag without itself having the swag .
Although the swag was very fashionable a few years ago, it tends to become cheesy today. It is then frequently replaced by other expressions such as care , hype , style , plugged in …
You now know everything about this term. You still have many expressions to discover! And, as Justin would say, "swag, swag, swag, on you".
