incel

Blend of involuntary +‎ celibate. Coined by "Alana" in 1997 on an online forum (originally as invcel).^[1] Came to widespread usage in the mid-2010s, chiefly online, but now more widespread.

• IPA^(key): /ˈɪnˌsɛl/

• Audio (Southern England); [ˈɪ̃nˌtsɛɫ]:

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɪnsɛl

incel (countable and uncountable, plural incels)

1. A member of an online subculture of people (mostly men) who define themselves as unable to find a romantic or sexual partner despite desiring one.
   • 2004, Phineas Mollod, Jason Tesauro, The Modern Lover: A Playbook for Suitors, Spouses & Ringless Carousers, Ten Speed Press, published 2004, →ISBN, page 90:

     Though, involuntary celibates (or incels) shouldn't try to rationalize a dateless season or pass off sexual awkwardness as virtue; […]

   • 2017 November 9, Christine Hauser, “Reddit Bans ‘Incel’ Group for Inciting Violence Against Women”, in The New York Times‎^[2]:

     It is not clear when the term incels was coined, but the link between misogyny and violence against women has emerged on sites where incel communities gather.

   • 2018 May 15, Jia Tolentino, “The Rage of the Incels”, in The New Yorker‎^[3]:

     The incel ideology has already inspired the murders of at least sixteen people. Elliot Rodger, in 2014, in Isla Vista, California, killed six and injured fourteen in an attempt to instigate a “War on Women” for “depriving me of sex.”

   • 2018 April 25, Alex Hern, Who are the 'incels' and how do they relate to Toronto van attack?, The Guardian:
   • 2023 January, Meg Roser, Charlotte Chalker and Tim Squirrell, “Spitting out the blackpill: Evaluating how incels present themselves in their own words on the incel Wiki”, in Institute for Strategic Dialogue‎^[4], pages 5-6:

     The framing of inceldom as an “adverse life circumstance”, repeated across the Wiki, lends credibility to the framing used by incels who wish to dissociate themselves from the common descriptions of incels as a ‘movement’, ‘ideology’ or ‘community’. […] This report finds that the Wiki is a site of attempts to divorce the concept of being an incel from believing in the blackpill, and we argue that this is intended as a means of both expanding the category of incels to make them politically relevant, and dissociating the label ‘incel’ from violent misogyny.

   • 2023 March 16, AJ Willingham, “What does the term ‘incel’ mean?”, in CNN‎^[5]:

     Online forums dedicated to incel culture are a reliable way to see how the term evolved and is used today. A subreddit, or forum on Reddit, called r/incels was one of the most visible meeting places for self-identified incels until it was banned by Reddit in 2017 for “violent content.”

2. (rare) An individual who is not sexually active despite having such a desire.

   Synonyms: see Thesaurus:incel

   Antonym: volcel

   Hyponyms: AFChick, femcel

   • 2009, Luisa Dillner, Love by Numbers: The Hidden Facts Behind Everyone's Relationships, Profile Books, published 2009, →ISBN, page 153:

     Another study by Donnelly of seventy-seven incels in marriages or long-term relationships in the Journal of Marriage and Family used a web-based questionnaire to ask people why they stayed in their sexless relationships (defined in this case as no sex for six months).

3. (derogatory) A misogynistic man, with the implication that his misogyny makes him undesirable to potential partners, thus limiting his romantic and/or sexual prospects.
4. (uncountable, seduction community, informal) "Involuntary celibacy": the state of being not sexually active despite wishing to be.

   Synonyms: incelibacy, love-shyness, fuckstration, AFCdom, AFCness

   (The addition of quotations indicative of this usage is being sought:)

The main difference between an incel (sense 1) and a man who simply does not have a romantic partner (sense 2) seems to lie in the identification with the online subculture.

In the strict sense, 'involuntary celibate' is synonymous with sense 2, but 'incel' usually refers to the more narrowly defined online community.

• Chad
• Stacy
• tyrone
• Trixie

incel (not comparable)

1. (seduction community) Not having sexual relations despite wishing to.

   Hypernym: love-shy

   • 2001 May 30, Gra - gra, “I love you!”, in alt.support.shyness (Usenet):

     People who are 'incel' are often suspected as being gay. It's annoying.

• MGTOW (neologism)
• nice guy syndrome
• orbiter

• -cline, Cline, cline, incle

Borrowed from English incel. First attested in 2018.

• IPA^(key): /ˈenˌsɛlˀ/

incel (singular definite incellen, plural indefinite incels)

1. (neologism) incel
   • 16 August 2021, Laura Byager Rabøl, Massemorder havde “spist den sorte pille” - hvor farlige er incels?, TV2 Nyheder:

     På grund af sin internetaktivitet og særligt sin nu lukkede Youtube^[sic]-kanal kædes Jake Davison i de britiske medier sammen med incel-miljøet – et online miljø for især unge mænd, der lever i ufrivillig cølibat og bekender sig til en kvindefjendsk ideologi.

     (please add an English translation of this quotation)

• “incel” in Den Danske Ordbog

Borrowed from English incel.

• IPA^(key): /ˈɪn.sɛl/
• Hyphenation: in‧cel

• Audio:

  (file)

incel m (plural incels)

1. (neologism) incel
   • 2018, Sacha Kester, “Wie hoopt er op een ‘incel’-revolutie? Seksueel gefrustreerde mannen stoken elkaar op internet op”, in Volkskrant:

     De incels vinden dat de samenleving onaantrekkelijke, heteroseksuele mannen tekortdoet en hebben een hartgrondige hekel aan vrouwen.

     The incels believe that the society disadvantages unattractive, heterosexual and have a wholehearted hatred for women.

   • 2018, Frank Kuin, “Moorden door gefrusteerde vrouwenhaters”, in NRC:

     Mannen die zichzelf identificeren als incels „kunnen geen seks krijgen, hoewel ze dat wel willen”, wordt uitgelegd op de website incels.me, een van de belangrijkste internetforums van de beweging, naast 4chan en Reddit.

     Men who identify themselves as incels „can't get sex, although they want to”, is explained on the website incels.me, one of the most important internet forums of the movement, alongside 4chan and Reddit.

   • 2018, Dirk Waterval, Ook Nederlandse mannen actief op forum voor radicale vrouwenhaters, Trouw:

     Sommigen dromen over een opstand waarin de incels seks met geweld afdwingen, anderen fantaseren eerder over massale schietpartijen als vergelding.

     Some dream of an uprising in which the incels enforce sex by force, others fantasize more about massive shootings as retaliation.

Unadapted borrowing from English incel.

• IPA^(key): /in.sɛl/

incel m (plural incels)

1. (neologism) incel

Borrowed from English incel. First attested in 2017.

• IPA^(key): /ˌinˈt͡ʃel/
• Rhymes: -el
• Hyphenation: in‧cél

incel m (invariable)

1. (neologism) incel

Unadapted borrowing from English incel.

• Rhymes: (Brazil) -ɛw
• Hyphenation: in‧cel

incel m or f by sense (plural incels or (rare) incéis)

1. (Brazil, neologism) incel

incel m or f (plural incels or (rare) incéis)

1. (Brazil, neologism) incel
   • 2022 March 18, Gustavo Pinheiro, 0:17 from the start, in O Incel que PIROU... [The Incel that went NUTS...]‎^[6], Guarulhos: Stackz, via YouTube, archived from the original on 23 March 2023:

     Se você está há tempo suficiente na internet, provavelmente você já ouviu falar na comunidade incel [...]

     If you've been on the internet long enough, you've probably heard of the incel community [...]

See the etymology of the corresponding lemma form.

• IPA^(key): /inˈdʒæl/

incel

1. second-person singular imperative of incelmek

Unadapted borrowing from English incel. Word rose to prominence in Turkey on October 2024 over the killings of two women by a man with ties to the incel community.

• IPA^(key): /ˈin.sæl/
• Hyphenation: in‧sel

incel (definite accusative inceli, plural inceller)

1. (neologism, derogatory) incel

• Two etymologies above should not be confused, as they not only have distinct meanings, but also have their stress placed on different syllables and differ in pronunciation of the letter {c}.

• insel (phonetic adaptation)