Entry · catalog no. 7092

suspect

/ — /pending

adjective · U.S. nationwide (Black internet/social media), with an earlier, distinct British · 2000s

✓ Verified

Suspicious, shady, or not sitting right; used of a person, a story, or a whole situation that feels off and doesn't add up, prompting side-eye rather than trust.

“He said he 'found' that watch on the sidewalk — that's sus.”

Origin & Attribution

The clipped form has two separate lives that get flattened into one story by most outlets. The older one is British: police in England and Wales used 'sus' as jargon for a suspect or suspicion as early as the 1920s-30s, which hardened into the notorious 'sus law' — a stop-and-search power under the 1824 Vagrancy Act used disproportionately against Black Britons in London through the 1970s and 80s until it was repealed after community campaigns. Separately, and later, Black American internet users re-clipped 'suspect'/'suspicious' into a casual, everyday adjective — 'he's acting sus' — that cir

1920s-30s

British police jargon 'sus'/'suss' for a suspect or suspicion; later codified in the 'sus law' used against Black Londoners

2003

Earliest documented adjectival slang use posted to Urban Dictionary, evidence of the term already circulating in American internet/Black vernacular

2020

The game Among Us drives 'sus' to global mainstream saturation, with most coverage crediting the game rather than the earlier Black internet usage

Region of origin

West

Midwest

N.East

South

Nationwide / diaspora

U.S. nationwide (Black internet/social media), with an earlier, distinct British · 2000s

Spoken by

Black American youth and Black Twitter/social-media users originally; now used across gaming culture and Gen Z broadly

$SUSPECThe Record · cultural traction

▲ Standard

23 yrs

ahead of the mainstream

70/100

peak cultural energy

Introduced to English by the culture — logged here before the mainstream caught on.

Cultural usage — the recordMainstream search interest

First used

2003

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

■

the earliest Urban Dictionary definition was posted in August 2003 by a user named Diego

web archive/Urban Dictionary

■

sus as an abbreviation for suspicious would go on to be popularized in the U.S. by Black Americans on the internet

Inverse article, 2020

■

Green's Dictionary of Slang includes entries for a noun sus... with both uses dating to the 1930s

Merriam-Webster Wordplay, 2023

+ Cite a source

Also spelled

sus