Tutorials/Game terms

This is a glossary of game terms used by the Minecraft community, but are not officially in the game. Some of these game terms are used as shortenings, while others are terms exclusive to Minecraft, and may not be familiar to people who are new to the game.

Underlined words represent terms that are further described in this list. Terms that exist on other dedicated pages are not listed here.

List of terms

admin/operator

A player who is listed on the OP (operator) list, having access to most or all of the commands on a server.

Adminium

Bedrock. Back in the days of Classic Creative, the community called it "Adminium" because the admins were the only ones who could use it.

AFK

Away From Keyboard: when a player is away from their computer.

AFK farm

A farm that requires a player to function by making the player perform tasks automatically, exploiting interacting mechanics in a way that the player doesn't have to be actively involved due to the fact it only requires one, more or even no keys to be held indefinitely, which can be done by a weight placed on the keyboard/mouse or by exploiting an alt-tabbing glitch.

AFK farming

When an AFK player runs an AFK farm.

beef

Shortening of raw beef. (Cooked) Beef might be a miscalling for steak as well (however, cooked_beef is the item's ID). In Bedrock Edition, Steak is called Cooked Beef.

block verb

To obstruct something; to block with the sword (pre 1.9) / shield.

block clutch

The act of quickly placing blocks on a vertical wall below the player's feet. This can be used to prevent fatal falls, hold onto a certain place, or move along the side of the wall.

bridge verb

The act of crouching on a ledge and placing blocks while moving.

buff noun

A special ability, granted by modded servers (modified attributes, e.g. flying in survival mode, or higher speed than usual, not to be confused with the potion effect here), or granted in vanilla, like status effects. Debuff refers to a negative effect.

butter

Jargon or a joke term for gold. Most likely due to the appearance of gold ingots in-game. Rarely used in modern Minecraft.

Cave Noises/Sounds

Ambience.

cheater/griefer/hacker

The toxic part of the community; sometimes typed differently to avoid chat censoring (e.g. Haxor), it describes someone using modified clients to gain unfair advantages. Most servers forbid the use of those clients, and their use is not moral as well. However, some servers also forbid accusing players of being hackers on chat and whisper, but do provide an alternative method of reporting to staff like forums or dedicated in-game commands.

cobble

A shortening for cobblestone.

crafting bench

A crafting table.

crit

Short for a critical hit.

crystal

Short for End Crystal, which can be used as a very powerful weapon. To crystal (or crystallize) a player is to attack them with end crystals.

defend

Sometimes a miscalling for blocking rather than defending something.

dog

A tamed wolf.

eye

Eye of ender. Can also be used to describe the completeness of an end portal, for example, an end portal with 3 end portal frames containing eyes of ender is called a 3-eye portal, or simply 3-eye.

EZ

"Easy", depending on context (at the end of a game, and/or like in GG EZ), some servers (completely) forbid the use of this word because it might be "not respectful to the players".

Fire res

Short for Fire Resistance or Potion of Fire Resistance.

FnS

Flint and Steel.

fully automatic farm

A farm that works without any player intervention (except for being nearby to load the chunks).

Full Netherite/Diamond/Iron/Chain/Gold/Leather

Full set of armor made of one material.

gapple/gap

Golden Apple; may refer to the enchanted one too, however, a term for those is also Notch Apple (official until 1.12, as seen on achievements), God Apple, or Enchanted Golden Apple (Now official, as seen by its in game item name).

gamemode

Gamemode may refer to Creative mode, being used synonymously, ex. "I am in gamemode."

gear

Armor; may refer to the removed block: Gear, however chances of seeing a player talk about it are extremely rare. Geared means "having armor equipped" and Gearing up means to equip armor. Can also mean tools, weapons and armor in general.

GG

Good Game. Goes with EZ too, as GG EZ (Good game, it was easy).

golem

Snow golem or iron golem.

Green Top

When a dirt house has grown grass on top. Normally used jokingly to deride lazy players who build grass homes and never upgrade them.

House/Hut/Shack

An enclosed construction of blocks built by player(s) for practical or aesthetical use, or both. Also refers to buildings in villages.

Invis

Short for Invisibility or Potion of Invisibility.

Jitter/Butterfly clicking

A quick ways of mouse clicking used in 1.8 PvP.

MLG

The act of placing a block or using an item just before hitting the ground after falling. For example, MLG water bucket means to use a water bucket on the ground and take no fall damage when jumping off from a high place. "MLG" is short for Major League Gaming.

mob cage

A spawner.

Modded

Client/server with mods. A modded server might still be able to host vanilla clients, otherwise they are supposed to host clients that have the same mods applied.

Neo

A jump involving going around a block in parkour maps.

Noob

A player who is new to a game, and a shortening for newbie.

Obi/Obby

A shortening for obsidian. Crying obsidian can be named crying obby/crying obi.

OP

Depending on context: operator (admin) most of the time, over-powered: too powerful (equipment only, a term used mostly on modded servers and in other games), original poster (forums and sites, not necessary Minecraft related) or end-game equipment and gear.

pearl

Ender pearl. Could be a verb as well (i.e. teleporting with an ender pearl). To "pearl away" (from something, someone, etc) is to flee a conflict, for example, an unwanted PvP battle, by throwing an ender pearl away from, for example, a fight.

pick noun

A shortening for pickaxe.

pigman

This term is almost never used to describe Pigmen (the scrapped removed mob), and is seldom used as a short for piglins. Instead, it is used as a common short term for zombie pigmen. This term was used long before the Nether Update. Even after zombie pigmen have been renamed to zombified piglins, the term "Pigman" is still used for zombified piglins.

Pillager/Illager Base

Pillager Outpost or Woodland Mansion can be named "Pillager base" or "Illager base". Also Witch Hut can be rarely named "Illager base" or "Illager home" even though the witch is not an illager.

Pillar jumping, Pillaring/Pillar/Tower verb

When a player repeatedly jumps followed by quickly placing a block beneath. This is very helpful when getting high off the ground in a short amount of time, and it can be done by just looking down and holding jump and use with a proper block selected.

pot

A shortening for Potion. E.g. Invis Pot

pro

A player who is good at the game and is the opposite of a noob. A shortening for professional.

pumpkin vision

The effect of wearing a Carved Pumpkin on your head.

Quad (jump)

When a player has to sprint-jump over a 4-block gap horizontally, which is the furthest a player can jump while sprinting without any (de)buffs. This term is often used when playing on parkour maps.

raiding

While similar to the destructive form of griefing, the most notable difference is that raiding is done with the purpose of gaining material assets (i.e. items) or strategic advantages towards an enemy and in most cases, it is on a relatively large scale. This term is mostly used on Factions servers.

Regen

Short for Regeneration or Potion of Regeneration.

Relog/Log verb

To disconnect from the server and rejoin the server, usually to fix glitches.

rod

Blaze Rod or Fishing Rod, also can be used as a verb to hook onto something with a fishing rod.

run noun

In a speedrunning context, refers to an attempt to defeat the ender dragon in a freshly generated world as fast as possible.

sea

All types of ocean can be named "sea".

semi-automatic farm

A farm that requires active player intervention in order to produce but has an enhancing mechanism to help the player plant/harvest crops or spawn/kill mobs (depending on the type) and/or they feature enhancement for collecting items.

semivanilla

Any modded server that accepts vanilla clients. This is because the term "modded" for servers usually mean servers that do not accept vanilla clients at all, despite that semivanilla servers use modified server software, use third-party plugins, and/or run on systems like Bukkit and PaperMC. Semivanilla may simply mean "between modded and vanilla."

skelly

Short for a skeleton.

Social interactions update/version

Version 1.16.4 can be named social interactions update/social interactions version.

splash

Splash potion or now more commonly, splash text (also known as Splash Screen).

Spam verb/Spam clicking

The act of clicking a key repeatedly in quick succession. Spam may also refer to filling the chat by copy-pasting a line or holding a key.

speedrun

The act of completing a certain goal in a video game as fast as possible. In Minecraft, it specifically refers to defeating the ender dragon in a newly generated world.

sprint-jumping

Sprinting and (continuously) jumping. It is the fastest way a player can run without the use of status effects, Spectator Mode, or client modification. One can run faster in spaces 2 blocks tall, on stairways or on ice and its variants, by manually spamming or holding the jump key.

staff

Players that were granted additional commands to use compared to regular players, in order to help administrate the server. Staff members aren't necessarily Admins as they might not have even nearly full access to all of the commands, just like the real-life meaning of the term, where a staff member might not be on top of the hierarchy.

sub preposition

In a speedrunning context, sub-number refers to a run that takes a total time less than that number of minutes. For example, a 14:37 run is a sub-15.

troll

A player who messes with people, though not as bad as a griefer. To some people, the two terms are synonymous.

Vanilla

Minecraft without mods (including hacks). This term can be used for any piece of software. This term is now somewhat official, as it is shown on the Java Edition debug screen.

zombie flesh

An alternative name for rotten flesh.

zombo/zomb

A shortening for zombie. Zombified piglins, piglins, or zoglins can be named "zombo pig".

zombie pigman

Another name for the Zombified piglins.

See also

• Tutorials/Architectural terms
• Tutorials/Griefing prevention
• Controls
• Glossary of video game terms in Wikipedia