An informal term for someone in your close circle—chosen family rather than blood, carrying warmth and trust.
Fam is how you signal someone belongs to your circle—not through blood, but through the bonds you've chosen. It's an informal address that carries warmth and inclusion, the kind of word you use with people who occupy family-like importance in your life. You'd say it to your closest friends, your crew, the people you trust. It's verbal shorthand for "you're one of mine."
The word emerged from African American communities in the 1990s, a clipping of "family" that Black speakers repurposed to mean chosen family rather than blood relations. By the 2000s, it had crossed the Atlantic to London, where grime artists wove it into British youth culture. The Oxford English Dictionary added it in 2018, marking its journey from street vernacular to recognized language.
What makes fam significant is what it reveals about how marginalized communities create language. When institutional structures fail to recognize your bonds—your crew, your people who show up when blood family doesn't—you build new words to name what matters. Fam is linguistic innovation born from necessity: a way to say "this person is family" when family means loyalty and presence, not genetics. It's belonging on your own terms.