leetspeak

leetspeak

The substitution of numeric digits or special characters for alphabetic letters; for example, "1337 5p34k" spells "leet speak." A form of geek Pig Latin, leetspeak is used just for fun as well as to conceal real words to fool spam filters and other text scanning systems.

Not the Same as Geekspeak
Coined from "elite speak," leetspeak is not the same as "geekspeak," "nerdspeak" or "AOL speak," which are terms that refer to acronyms, such as IMHO for "in my humble opinion." In true leetspeak, each letter is substituted with the numeric digit that looks most like it, such as a "3" for "E" and a "4" for "A." However, creativity always abounds in the hacker community, which results in "d00d" standing for "dude" to emphasize the "oo" sound.