TL;DR

What it means

TL;DR stands for 'too long; didn't read.' It has two uses: as a complaint that something is too long to bother with, and — more usefully — as a label for a short summary placed before or after a long piece of text. The second use is now the most common.

Words like “TL;DR” are exactly the kind of vocabulary our English vocabulary size test measures — find out how many English words you know.

Examples

• TL;DR: the meeting moved to Friday and lunch is free.
• I added a TL;DR at the top for anyone in a hurry.
• He posted a five-paragraph rant with no TL;DR.
• TL;DR — it works, but it's slow.

Where it comes from

An initialism from internet forums, originally a snarky reply to long posts, later repurposed as a helpful one-line summary.

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