Woot

Woot: Woot is often used in the 31337 hacker community, especially on IRC as an exclamation of happiness or joy. Much like the word hooray.

Example: "Woot", my node got cooled.

OR

Woot'n I just haxored into the Gibson at the pentagon.

Also acceptable is "Wooty Woo!". Which can be used much like "Wow" or "OMG".

1. Mythical ancestor to the Kuba people of Zaire.

Woot was a key figure in the mythology of the Kuba, who considered him to be the creator of the world, the first human, and/or the bringer of civilization. Decorative masks were an important form of African art, and many of these masks were symbolic of Woot.

2. One in a series of oranges with faces drawn on them.

"Woot the Froot", as the original was known, was adopted as the mascot for the 1997 Riverside High School Academic Decathlon team after it was discovered that

1. It's fun to yell "Woot!" at the top of your lungs, and
2. Mel B. does excellent portraiture working in a "permanent marker on citrus fruit" medium.

I will never be sorry enough. I invented 'woot'. It was back in my MUDding days on Sojourn. I used it as an exclamation of ecstasy whenever I struck the killing blow to a monster. It spread like wildfire over the entire MUD, and I had believed it limited to that branch of the 'net.

Then one day, after Sojourn's split and Toril's eventual demise, I went on EFnet, looking for a game to while away the newly-freed night hours, and alas, I saw on the screen a phrase that stole my breath away: 'w00t! I g0tZ t1b3r1@N 5Un!! /msg me!'

I'm so, so sorry.

The l33t sp34k word w00t has two possible meanings, depending on where you come from and how you want to use it.

w00t (?), pron., a., & adv.

l337 for What.

w00t r j00 talking about, d00d?

w00t is dis suppozed 2 mean?

w00t a kewl proggie that is

w00t (?), n.

An expression of enthusiasm/agreement. Sometimes used as an answer like bah or cool.

-This flick has some full frontal nudity
-w00t.

-Lesbians! Monkeys! Soy!
-w00t.

w00t (?), n.

An acronym that means "We Own the Other Team," used to celebrate victory in a video game*.

© l337, 2002

* Suggested on Microsoft's document "A parent's primer to computer slang":
http://www.microsoft.com/athome/security/children/kidtalk.mspx

Woot is actually the name of a young Gillikin boy from the far corner of the Gillikin Country of The Land of Oz, the mystical fairyland where Dorothy, Ozma, and their friends have had their many adventures. He was known as "Woot the Wanderer" because he left his comfortable, yet boring, home in order to find adventure in the world. Woot was first seen in "The Tin Woodman of Oz" a story about the famed Tin Woodman's quest to seek out his long lost love, Nimmie Amee. Woot's desire to make the Tin Woodman happy sets in motion this new adventure in the Land of Oz.

Woot was young and adventurous, not quite in key with the Gillikin people's nature. Gillikins are much the same as Munchkins in most ways, but are most renown for their use of the color purple.

Woot's home of Gillikin County was found in the northern portion of the Land of Oz, and had, in it's history, been controlled by the Wicked Witch of the North.

In addition to the former post, there is another common usage for the term w00t when it is used as an exlamation of success or happiness.

To begin with some history on the origins of this specific usage the term w00t, one must be vaguely familiar with the Unix or Linux computer operating system. Linux is a multi-user operating system which relies on an order of power, where the most powerful user in the computer system is called root.

Hax0rs, when trying to take control of a remote Linux computer , try to access it on the root level, so as to gain full control over the machine for purposes good or evil.

In my experience, in the olden days of this computer hacking, it became customary for these hax0rs to brag about their feats in chat, such as IRC. w00t thus became the l33t sp34k term for having obtained root access on a machine, or a general expression of "success!" or "I did it!"

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Update: 9.30.2003

In my continuing quest for the origins of "woot" I have found the first use of the word on usenet. The post follows.

From: David M Stokes (v110mhwh@ubvms.cc.buffalo.edu)
Subject: AOE is INCREDIBLE!!!
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.flight-sim
Date: 1993-09-20 17:22:30 PST

I'm really hoping that someday soon I'll see that subject heading up here... :( Yea I know how you feel. BASTARD! How could I?? Well we got a few guys here at work chewing their legs off waiting... since Feb if I can remember back that long... Oh well...

Word! Woot there it is!

Dave

I am not responsible for anything.

Actually, the English use of "woot" predates both gaming and hacking... by about 600 years.

As an English verb (it was called English back then, but we call it Middle English now), "woot" was a variant writing of "wot", the first or third person conjugation of "wit", meaning "know". (See preterite-present for more information on these sort of verbs.)

"Woot" was chiefly used by Chaucer. Consider (SPOILERS!) King Alla's exchange with the Senator when unknowingly meeting his own son in The Canterbury Tales, The Man of Law's Tale: (Chaucer, 1400)

"Whos is that faire child, that stondeth yonder?"
"I noot," quod he, "by God and by Seint John!
A mooder he hath, but fader hath he noon,
That I of woot." ...
 ...
"But God woot"

"Whose is that fair child, standing yonder?"
"I know not," said he, "By God and by St. John!
A mother he has, but he has no father
that I know of." ...
 ...
"But God knows"

As you will note from the above passage, the negative of "woot" was "noot". This was the common spoken contraction of "ne woot".

I modestly propose that we use "noot" in its original intention, as a negation of "woot". Thus, when fragged cheaply by a friend, proclaim "noot!" in the face of his exclamation of "woot!"

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As for the etymology of the modern woot, w00t, wewt, etc. used as an exclamation of joy, I had always just assumed it was a crossing of the words whoop and hoot -- as in to "whoop for joy", or "hoot for joy". But this is just personal conjecture. (UPDATE: Hey, I just noticed that our good friend Webster has whoot as an obsolete form of hoot -- I win!!)

(FUTHER UPDATE: I think sniepre is onto something -- anyone remember the Tag Team song, Whoomp, There it Is?

(YET ANOTHER UPDATE: w00t has just been selected as Webster's 2007 word of the year. How much do you want to bet that the selection is based on an online survey? http://www.merriam-webster.com/info/07words.htm )

In addition to the various meanings and definitions of "woot" which have been described thoroughly above, woot has more recently come to represent the online shopping/deal website woot.com.

Woot.com is a "deal of the day" style online shopping website. Every day at 12:00am Central Standard Time the current item for sale is replaced with a different item for the remaining 24 hours.

Since its debut on July 12, 2004 Woot has grown significantly and has become somewhat of a cult favorite online shopping destination for geeks, and anyone else looking for a good deal on an interesting, useful, funny or otherwise quirky item.

In addition to the normal Woot sale, there are also sites for Shirt.woot, Wine.woot Sellout.woot and most recently Kids.woot. These sites rotate daily deals in the same way as the normal woot, except featuring shirts, wine, deals from Yahoo Shopping and kids products, respectively. Adding to the standard woot sales, Woot.com also features a "Woot-off" which happens every so often on the front page of the site and changes the item rotation into a sellout/timeout style in which the next item will go up for sale as soon as the previous item sells out.

Woot.com has therefore created another usage for the word Woot, itself: "Have you checked the woot?" or "What is today's woot" and various adaptations. Woot has now become a thing, in addition to a declaration, statement and other various uses.