BitTorrent Terms & Phrases Set For Inclusion in Famous Dictionaries

Following the astronomic rise of BitTorrent and related technologies in recent years, inquiries from the general public have grown to the point where they can’t simply be overlooked anymore. To satisfy this demand two of the world’s leading dictionary publishers have been consulting with TorrentFreak over the addition of many torrent-related entries to their paper and digital versions. The shortlist is now complete.

As can be seen from the screenshot below, the people at the forward-looking Oxford Dictionaries have acknowledged the existence of BitTorrent for some time. Others, such as the famous Britannica-owned Merriam-Webster, have been slower to react.



The good news is that both publications now want to include a greater range of BitTorrent and other file-sharing related terms and phrases in their next publications. It was an honor when they approached TorrentFreak for our input and we’ve been working hard to ensure that the most important items are included.

If you think we’ve missed any out, please feel free to add your definitions in the comments and we’ll be delighted to add the best to this article and send them off to Oxford and Merriam-Webster in due course.

The shortlist
Bitatone – The act of buying a product previously downloaded due to wishing to support the artists involved.

BitTorrent Babysitting – The art of carefully monitoring a rare torrent’s seeds and leechers (versus percentage left and time to completion) to ensure its long-term welfare.

Bittorrent Bukkake – Having a ratio of seeders far in excess of leechers. Having an embarrassment of seeds.

Darknet - A network that will never, ever be busted by the **AA’s, largely because its obscurity lends itself to having no users and no content.

DHT Desperation – The feeling of concern used to describe grabbing a torrent currently displayed as having no seeds and no leechers and knowing there is just one chance left.

Digital Discount – A special price reduction system available to Internet users when procuring virtual goods file-sharing networks.

DVD Screener – A really good copy of a movie sent out with the studio’s name printed across the middle of the screen so that BitTorrent users get advance warning of which company will be monitoring the torrent they just finished.

Enrarged – The unprecedented anger experienced when having spent hours downloading a torrent, the unrar’ing process inexplicably asks for a password.

Free Anonymous Proxy – A special site which can be used to hide your IP address and private data transmissions from all the evil people on the Internet, except the completely anonymous and undoubtedly completely trustworthy person running the proxy.

Hash Collision – A statistically interesting occurance on which subjects of torrent lawsuits sometimes rely in order to prove they downloaded the latest Ubuntu distro and not MILF Mommageddon 5.

Open Wireless Router – A security-related network device essential to successfully defending oneself in a file-sharing copyright case.

P2P or Not P2P – The question of whether ’tis nobler in the mind to download the media you desire, or buy it because it belongs to a niche genre that lives off the small money it makes.

Peerstipation – The phenomenon experienced when using a ‘security’ IP filtering software and list combo that has so many IP addresses on it collected over several years it becomes completely blocked and nothing can pass.

Peersimisstic – The emotion felt when trying to finish a 4.7gig DVD and there’s no seeders and just 9 peers stuck at 99%.

PEX Panic – (see DHT Desperation)

Pi-curious – A BitTorrent pirate who sometimes fancies having a go on eDonkey to see what it’s like.

Piratnoia – The creeping feeling of unease suffered by some security conscious file-sharers the closer they get to 100% of a download. Escalates exponentially when seeding.

Quentin Torrentino – A BitTorrent releaser at the top of his game.

Ratio – A statistical comparison which indicates whether a BitTorrent user is 1337 or utter scum (7331). Can be used to claim victory in the elite pissing contests frequently held on private trackers.

Ratio Credit – A fiscal recompense-related statistical adjustment made to a private tracker user’s account which results in the impression that the user always seeds 7:1 but actually doesn’t know the meaning of the word.

Restorrection – The physically exciting bodily response to bringing a previously dead torrent back to life by pasting in a list of 250 public trackers.

Restroom Countdown – A courtesy service offered by most cyberlockers whereby they promise not to begin your download for X number of minutes allowing you to rush off and get back before the action begins. At 20kb/s.

Seedbox – A server designed to pump so much bandwidth into a private tracker swarm it makes it impossible for regular users to seed, resulting in them making an entirely voluntary donation to avoid being kicked out for having a bad ratio.

SeedTease – Repeatedly taking a hot torrent to 99% then backing out leaving the leechers frustrated.

Swedish Netflix – The Pirate Bay

Swarm – An egalitarian collection of Gentlemen and Ladies whose purpose is to share the world’s cultural anthologies.

The Pirate Pay – What the Pirate Bay would’ve become if Hans Pandeya had his way in 2009.

Torrendous – A word to describe a torrent site with more ads and popups than torrents.

Torrentard – The impossible-to-please commenters on sites like The Pirate Bay who despite getting the latest stuff for free, always find something to complain about.

Torrenteer - Anyone in the Top 10 Releasers or Seeders list on a private tracker. (See also MPAA Magnet)

Torrential – Maxing out your download speed. (I got 30mb/s…It was fricken torrential ! )

Torrent Relief – An annual charitable initiative which helps smaller and more needy trackers avoid having to shut down through lack of funds. Every. Single. Christmas.

Torrent Shopping – The art of walking around bricks and mortar stores looking for things to download when you get home.

TorrentWhore – Someone who will download torrents from anyone who offers them, without considering who they are, where they’ve been, and without using any kind of protection.

Torrorists – An MPAA-coined term to describe a huge group of people using up all the bandwidth on the Internet through indiscriminate BitTorrent use, thereby undermining national security.

Tracker Invite – The key to a highly delicate enforced-rarity economy whose scarcity is directly linked to the both the perceived exclusivity of the issuing private site and the amount Eastern Europeans can get for them on eBay.

Usenet Binaries – A place to download completeley free content, conditional only on paying monthly subscriptions to a newsgroup provider and often a Usenet indexing site too.

Vapidshare - An uninteresting file-hosting service that offers nothing new.