Entry · catalog no. 2988
based
/ /beɪst/ /BAYST
adjective · Bay Area, West · 2000s
✓ Verified
1.
Being unapologetically yourself and confident in it, indifferent to whether people approve. To say something based is to praise it as boldly, admirably true.
“He said what everybody was scared to say — that's based.”
Origin & Attribution
Reclaimed by Berkeley rapper Lil B, the "BasedGod," who took a word that had meant a crackhead ("basehead") on the West Coast and flipped it into a philosophy of self-acceptance. His group The Pack titled their 2007 debut Based Boys. Online communities later borrowed it, often with no idea it came from a Bay Area rapper's homemade gospel of positivity.
2007
Lil B's group The Pack release "Based Boys"
2010s
Lil B spreads it as a philosophy of self-acceptance
2010s
Adopted online, often stripped of its origin
Region of origin
West
Midwest
N.East
South
The West
Bay Area, West · 2000s
Spoken by
Bay Area, West
$BASEDThe Record · cultural traction
▲ Rising19 yrs
ahead of the mainstream
78/100
peak cultural energy
Introduced to English by the culture — logged here before the mainstream caught on.
Cultural usage — the recordMainstream search interest
First used
2007
in the culture
Recorded here
2026
point of first record
Cultural energy indexed from documented usage, search interest, and citation frequency. The recorded date is the archive’s permanent point of record.
Hear it spoken
By region — how it actually sounds
@bayarea
Oakland, CA
@ladi
Los Angeles, CA
Contribute your pronunciation
Citations & Sources
■
Lil B & The Pack, "Based Boys" — album · 2007
submitted
■
+ Cite a sourceDictionary.com, "based" slang entry — reference · entry
submitted
See also