Where it sits
Lowkey sits at the quiet end of the scale and highkey at the loud end.
Tell it apart
| Aspect | Lowkey | Highkey |
|---|---|---|
| Means | Somewhat, secretly | Very, openly |
| Volume | Turned down | Turned up |
| How common | Very | Less so |
Lowkey turns a feeling down ("I lowkey like it" means a bit, or secretly). Highkey turns it up ("I highkey love it" means openly and a lot).
What it doesn't mean
"Low key" goes back to the early 1800s in music and to Dickens in 1844. Only its adverb use ("I lowkey love it") is recent.
What it really means
Lowkey turns a sentence down a notch. "I lowkey want to stay in tonight" is a want, admitted quietly. "Lowkey obsessed with this song" is an obsession you're slightly embarrassed by. The word works as a dimmer switch for feelings.
It started as a musical metaphor, which is easy to forget now. According to Dictionary.com, "low key" in the early 1800s meant a deeper, more muted tonal register. Charles Dickens used it in Martin Chuzzlewit (1844) to describe suppressed indignation, and by the 1890s it meant quiet, restrained or modest. That sense is still with us: a "lowkey birthday" is a few friends and no fuss.
The slang adverb is the new part. Dictionary.com finds it in the late 2000s, used for doing something with low intensity, moderation or subtlety, and on Urban Dictionary by 2010. It credits hip-hop with popularising it in the mid-2010s, and from there it spread through social media into ordinary speech. Its opposite, highkey, was built from it: openly, loudly, very much.
There's a gentle social logic to the word's success. Saying you "lowkey" like something lets you share an opinion while keeping a way out, which is why it pairs so naturally with ngl: "ngl, I lowkey liked it."
Where it comes from
deep, quiet
musical key, tone
A musical metaphor: a low key is a muted, darker register. From there it came to mean restrained in manner, and then, as a slang adverb, "to a modest degree".
- Early 1800s
"Low key" refers to a deeper, more muted tonal register in music (Dictionary.com).
- 1844
Charles Dickens uses it in Martin Chuzzlewit to describe suppressed indignation (Dictionary.com).
- 1890s
Shifts to mean quiet, restrained or modest (Dictionary.com).
- Late 2000s
Begins to be used as an adverb for low-intensity actions; on Urban Dictionary by 2010 (Dictionary.com).
- Mid-2010s
Hip-hop helps popularise the adverb (Dictionary.com).
In real life
- Text: "I lowkey want to stay in tonight"
- Text: "lowkey obsessed with this song"
- Text: "can we keep it lowkey? just a few friends for my birthday"
Questions
Q01What does lowkey mean in slang?
"Kind of", "somewhat" or "secretly". "I lowkey want pizza" means you'd quite like pizza, or you'd like it but weren't going to say so.
Q02What does lowkey mean as an adjective?
Quiet, understated, not showy, as in "a lowkey birthday". That's the older meaning, recorded since the 1890s.
Q03What's the opposite of lowkey?
Highkey: openly, very much. "I highkey love this song" means you love it and don't care who knows.
Q04Is it lowkey, low key or low-key?
All three are used. Wiktionary notes that in the slang "kind of" sense, "lowkey" as one word is much more common online than "low-key".