What Does Rizz Mean? All About the Slang Term and Where It Came From
- - What Does Rizz Mean? All About the Slang Term and Where It Came From
Yasmeen HamadehDecember 27, 2025 at 8:30 PM
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Kai Cenat attends the 2022 Youtube Streamy Awards on December 04, 2022 in Beverly Hills, California. -
Rizz is a way to describe an individual's charm or game while flirting
The term was popularized by streamer Kai Cenat
Rizz was even named the Oxford Dictionary Word of the Year in 2023
No one can escape the word rizz.
Created and popularized by streamer Kai Cenat, the slang term was crowned as Oxford Dictionary’s Word of the Year in 2023 and has seamlessly diffused from internet jargon into the everyday lexicon.
The new generation’s way of describing someone’s charm or flirting capability, rizz has often been mistaken as short for charisma, which Cenat firmly indicated was not his intention. In a 2023 episode of 360 with Speedy Morman, the content creator clarified that “rizz just meant game” and is not “short for charisma."
While rizz began as a word Cenat would say during his Twitch streams, it swiftly took over TikTok and social media in general, where the question of whether or not someone had great rizz pivoted from online anecdotes to celebrity interview questions.
So what does rizz mean? Here’s everything to know about the word that’s replaced charm and where it originated from.
What does rizz mean?
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A young couple in a park.
In 2023, rizz was added to the Merriam-Webster dictionary which defined it simply as “romantic appeal or charm” when a noun, or “to charm and seduce” as a verb.
Boiled down, rizz is essentially someone’s metric of charm. An easy equivalent to compare it to is the slang term “game,” popularized in the early aughts to describe someone’s success rate with flirting.
Rizz doesn’t necessarily come as a byproduct of being conventionally attractive, it more so has to do with someone’s ability to charm or work a room. Being personable, endearing or charismatic, are typically indicators of whether or not someone has rizz.
Where did the term rizz originate?
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Kai Cenat at The 2023 Streamy Awards on August 27, 2023 in Los Angeles, California.
While rizz evidently gained mass popularity through social media, its impact began with streamer Cenat, who is largely considered to be the originator of the term.
A YouTuber and Twitch streamer with around 20 million followers across both platforms, Cenat is known for his hours-long streams where he games, reacts to viral content online and creates videos tied to his daily life.
When Cenat pivoted from YouTube to Twitch in 2021, viewers started to pick up on how often he would use the word rizz, which the streamer said began as a slang term between him and his friends.
“Me and my friends used to always say it and stuff like that. And I definitely [popularized] it on my stream," Cenat said in a 2023 episode of 360 with Speedy Morman.
“And when I would say it on stream and stuff a lot, it started going crazy,” he added. “Then it went crazy internationally, everybody say it now, it’s just in people’s vocabulary. And that’s what it is.”
The streamer also defined what rizz meant in a 2022 episode of the No Jumper podcast, explaining, “Rizz is when you’re talking to a girl and, at first, s--- is not going your way.”
“It’s looking bad for you, until you spit game and you’re rizzing them up to where s--- starts to go your way,” he continued. “You’re so slick with your words and what you’re saying, to where the girl is like, ‘Okay, yeah, who is this?’ "
“After s--- goes your way, you’re like, ‘Yeah, I rizzed her up. I’ve got mad rizz,’ ” Cenat concluded.
How do I use the word rizz?
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A young loving couple.
A common way to use the word rizz is to describe someone who may or may not have it.
Saying phrases like, “They’ve got great rizz” or “They had no rizz so I walked away,” are the simplest ways to use the word.
Rizz can also be used as a verb, like “rizzed” or “rizzing,” so one might say “I wasn’t feeling it but then they rizzed me up,” to indicate that someone put on all the moves to make things work.
The slang term can also be self-referential to describe one’s own metric of charm, i.e. “I’ve got no rizz” or “I started rizzing them up and they gave me their number.”
In all of these cases, the slang term is being used to describe whether or not someone is charming, and so long as one can replace rizz with any of its synonyms, like charm or game, odds are they’re probably using it correctly.
What are examples of rizz, and how can I tell if someone has it?
David M. Benett/Dave Benett/WireImage
Zendaya and Tom Holland at a photocall for "Spider-Man: No Way Home" on December 5, 2021 in London, England.
Whether or not someone has rizz is subjective, as charm that may work for someone may not necessarily work for someone else.
Zendaya put it best in a 2024 interview with Buzzfeed when she was asked which Dune cast member had the most rizz. “Everybody’s kind of got their own,” the actress answered, which speaks to each person’s own unique assets that make up their charm.
The Euphoria star went on to explain why her partner Tom Holland has great rizz, saying, “I’m more shy and kind of quiet, so it takes a little bit more to pull me out of my shell. But [Tom’s] great at just talking to people and getting to know people.”
She added, “You see him on talk shows and stuff like that. He’s just naturally very good at that. Whereas for me, I’ve definitely had to pull it out of me a little bit. He’s got that natural gift.”
While an endearing shyness may make up Zendaya’s rizz, it’s Holland’s more extroverted charisma that makes up his, per the actress. In either case, different types of rizz, or different types of charm, belong to and work for different people.
Although there isn’t a handbook on how to have great rizz, being confident, funny and one’s self is usually the way to go.
on People
Source: “AOL Entertainment”
