zalgo
Word Rarity
Very rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 0.00 in modern English
15
Scrabble Score
5
Letters
2
Syllables
5
Unique Chars
Meaning
noun
In full Zalgo text: digital text to which random Unicode diacritics have been copiously applied, obscuring the text, often protruding out of expected text boundaries, and imparting a "cursed" feeling.
Uncountable
name
A notional entity said to be "released" due to unpredictable program behaviour resulting from an API's inconsistent use of synchronous versus asynchronous operations.
Humorous
Example Sentences
- "See also: heavy metal umlaut"
- "> I've been wondering lately why more isn't done with Unicode-art. / > / the closest thing I can think to that is zalgo, which is more stupidity than art."
- "i should also note that zalgo cannot be summoned on all operating systems / applications. i'm not sure of the exact requirements to make it render, but i'm sure someone smarter^([sic]) then me could answer."
- "Add support for Zalgo / The Linux kernel is woefully unprepared for the coming of Z҉A҉L҉G҉O̚̕̚ . T̀hi͘͡ş̸ p̸͏á̕t̢̕͢c̨̕h͟͟ ̴̧ą҉͘d͟͡d̢ş͡ s͏u̸͘p͠p̛͞͡o͟r̸t͜ ̷͟f̢͘͡o͜ŗ̛ ̴̧Z͝a҉lģ̡o͡ ̸t̕͞o̵͝ ̨k̶é͢r̶̨ne͘l҉҉̧ ͜m̶͞e̵s͘҉s̢̢͠a͠ǵ͟ę̸͞ ́oú͢͟tp̢̕͘u͞t͢ in order to ready those who will otherwise be ea͓̙ten at the arrival. Do n̹͝ot delͤ̀a̲̱͛y."
- "Ah, things get tricky here; Unicode is kind of a bear when you consider 'characters' because its codepoints aren't necessarily characters. An example would be the so-called "combining characters" which you can use for things like accents or ZALGO-text."
- "But Jake could still play around with Zalgo script, a type of programmable font that packed lots of digital bytes into each letter."
Etymology
Said to have been coined in 2004 by Dave “Shmorky” Kelly as the name of a mysterious malevolent entity appearing in webcomics and creepypasta.