Entry · catalog no. 2508
phat
/ — /pending
adjective · Nationwide · 2026
✓ Verified
1.
Excellent; abundant; impressively good. The deliberate misspelling is the point — it marks the word as ours, not the standard "fat."
“That bassline is phat.”
Origin & Attribution
Hip-hop respelling that circulated widely in the early 1990s, extending a much older Black use of "fat" for plenty and prosperity. Backronyms invented later ("pretty hot and tempting") are inventions after the fact, not etymology.
Region of origin
West
Midwest
N.East
South
Nationwide / diaspora
Nationwide · 2026
Spoken by
Nationwide
$PHATThe Record · cultural traction
▲ Rising0 yrs
ahead of the mainstream
12/100
peak cultural energy
Introduced to English by the culture — logged here before the mainstream caught on.
Cultural usage — the recordMainstream search interest
First used
2026
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
@auntiereg
Atlanta, GA
@deltasoul
Memphis, TN
Contribute your pronunciation
Citations & Sources
■
"Phat" usage across East Coast rap press, The Source — magazine · early 1990s
submitted
■
+ Cite a sourceGreen's Dictionary of Slang, "phat" — reference · 1990s citations
submitted
See also