smurf account
Word Rarity
Rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 3.12 in modern English
21
Scrabble Score
12
Letters
3
Syllables
10
Unique Chars
Meaning
noun
An alternative computer account used by a known or experienced user in order to deceptively self-present as someone naïve or less experienced.
Example Sentences
- "This policy has dramatically reduced the problems with smurf accounts, spam, flaming, and various types of bad behaviour on the forums."
- "Might help if you remember to change back to your smurf account, hmm? :P"
- "And like that little kid I spoke of in another thread, he compounds his lie's with more lies. So many that he has trouble keeping track of them all, which is why he keeps getting caught posting from the wrong smurf account."
- "They were smurf accounts and other people and companies contracted by me. I never used my name."
Etymology
Coined by Geoff Fraizer and Greg Boyko, who played the online multiplayer game Warcraft II: Tides of Darkness under the names Shlonglor and Warp. The pair had become so proficient at the game that few people would play against them, so, in order to avoid scaring off potential competitors, they created alternate accounts named PapaSmurf and Smurfette (characters from the Smurfs comic franchise). Smurf account as a banking term, however, predates Warcraft II by about a decade.