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up vote 18 down vote favorite

While playing League of Legends, I read the word "frags" in chat. It was during the heat of battle so I couldn't ask my teammates, and I couldn't find anything on the League of Legends wiki.

What does this term mean?

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Related: "gibbing" and "instagib" are derived from turning your opponent into giblets . – tomeoftom Nov 8 '12 at 14:12
6  
@tomeoftom true, but I still can't help pronouncing gib with a hard G rather than the J sound in giblets. Saying 'jib' and 'instajib' just sounds wrong. – Alex Nov 8 '12 at 15:39
Totally agree. Kind of surprised people still use these terms; they're so bleedingly '90s. – tomeoftom Nov 8 '12 at 16:44

4 Answers

up vote 32 down vote accepted

The term "Frag" comes from the shortening of "Fragmentation grenade".

Fragging is a macabre ritual of Vietnam in which American enlisted men attempt to murder their superiors. The word comes from the nickname for hand grenades, a weapon popular with enlisted men because the evidence is destroyed with the consummation of the crime.

The original meaning would be classified as friendly fire. But it has evolved to mean murder/kill.

A frag is roughly equivalent to "kill", with the typical main difference that the player being "fragged" can instantly respawn (play again) in most games, i.e. the "kill" is only temporary. In games it is mainly used as a kill count and score system

Sources :

etymonline.com

wikipedia

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This is the best answer, both are uses for frag. It depends on what your referring to. – DogEatDog Nov 8 '12 at 6:54
1  
Note that traditionally (e.g. in Quake) frags are scored as kills - suicides, not just kills. This penalizes suicide as a way to deny the opponent a kill. – drxzcl Nov 8 '12 at 15:17
Additionally, "frag" as an abbreviation for "fragment" was used since about the 18th century, though usually with a dot after the word (that is, "frag."). – Martin Sojka Nov 8 '12 at 16:19
@MartinSojka now I am curious. Thanks for the esoteric usage explanation. +1 this is where it originated. Also the original meaning was still murder/kill your superiors. :-) – One-One Nov 8 '12 at 16:47
@desaivv: It's not actually very esoteric, and it's still used in this meaning for games which have "fragments" of something as important items (example usage from Lineage II boards: " WTB Purple R95 Crystal/Frags ". – Martin Sojka Nov 8 '12 at 16:54
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up vote 10 down vote

Kills. Can either be a present tense verb as in "Bob frags two enemies" or a noun as in "Bob has 4 frags."

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I would like to add that "fragging" usually refers to killing characters/entities which respawn to be fragged again (like in a multiplayer match) – vsz Nov 8 '12 at 7:26
up vote 3 down vote

Two meanings; It could mean kills or it could be in reference to frag grenades.

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up vote 1 down vote

Frags in league of legends is simply kills or Fragmention grenades, to the phrase, cookable frags, or ''come on! throw a frag at that thing! it's gonna blow! let's go let's go get it out there!'' so it means kills or grenades.

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