Grawlix

Updated: 07/31/2022 by Computer Hope
Speech bubble using symbols to censor a swear word.

Frequently used in cartoons and comics, a grawlix is several symbols used to represent profane language. To censor a word, symbols like the hashtag (#), dollar sign ($), percent symbol (%), at symbol (@), caret (^), ampersand (&), and asterisk (*) are used in place of letters. Sometimes grawlixes use multiple symbols to replace the entire word, such as $%#@&. Other grawlixes censor only parts of the word, allowing you to see the first letter, such as f***.

In online text chat, words and phrases are often censored using grawlixes. Online video games like ROBLOX and Minecraft, which advertise to children, have large lists of banned words that they censor with hashtags. Common swear words, slurs, and other inappropriate phrases are usually included. In addition, attempts to bypass these filters with extra letters, numbers, and misspellings may also be automatically censored.

Chat terms, Filter, Game terms, Internet terms, Video game