Toronto street slang for a close friend that signals belonging to the city's Caribbean-influenced youth culture.
Crodie is Toronto slang for a close friend — someone you trust, someone in your circle. It emerged from the city's Caribbean-influenced street culture in the early 2010s, a shortened evolution of "road dog" that moved through local rap scenes before spreading across Canadian youth culture. You'd use it with people you genuinely know, not strangers.
The word carries weight because it signals belonging to a specific cultural moment. When Toronto artists like Drake's associates and local rappers started using it in tracks and on social media around 2012-2014, it became a marker of being connected to the city's underground music scene. It wasn't just vocabulary — it was proof you were part of something.
What makes crodie interesting is how it functions as a citizenship test. Use it naturally and you're signaling familiarity with Toronto's multicultural street culture. Use it awkwardly and everyone immediately knows you're trying too hard. The word exists because Toronto needed its own term of closeness that reflected the city's Caribbean, hip-hop, and immigrant influences — something that felt authentic to that specific cultural blend rather than borrowed from elsewhere.