Glossary

This page contains a list of important terms and abbreviations commonly used by players.

A

 * Affinity - Experience in Warframe. Contributes to levels for weapons, warframes and sentinels.
 * Aggro - Both the Threat Level mechanic, and the act of giving oneself as great a Threat Level as possible to distract enemies.
 * Alert - Missions that appear randomly and give additional credits or loot as a reward.
 * AMD - Antimatter Drop; Nova's 2nd ability.
 * Ancient Retribution - A well known glitch mod in Warframe.
 * AW - Archwing.

B

 * Baking - Slang for an item being made in the foundry e.g. "I have a blue potato baking."
 * Ballistica Syndrome - A derogatory term for a weapon that spends more time reloading than firing.
 * Bar, BarPol - The polarity shape.
 * Booben - Vauban.
 * Boxheads/Blockheads - Corpus, nicknamed for their box-like helmets. (Crewmen in general, Techs)
 * BP - Blueprint
 * Breeding Mods, Breeding Mod Set - The four dual-stat mods rewarded in Operation Breeding Grounds, known as Thermite Rounds, Volcanic Edge, Scorch and Scattering Inferno.
 * Buff, Buffed - Improving something's ability overall.

C

 * Cap, Capt, Capture - Refers to the Capture mission type. Players will often advertise Void runs and its difficulty. (e.g. T3 Cap)
 * CC - See Crowd Control.
 * Cell(s) - See Orokin Cell.
 * Cicero Mods, Cicero Mod Set - The four dual-stat mods rewarded in The Cicero Crisis, known as Malignant Force, Virulent Scourge, Pistol Pestilence and Toxic Barrage. Now rewarded by defeating Corrupted Vor.
 * Clan - A guild. A clan has its own chat channel, can build a Dojo, facilitates trades, and allows advanced weapons and items to be researched.
 * Clantech - Items obtained through research in the clan dojo.
 * Cmod, CM - Control Module
 * Compound Syndrome/Weapons - Derogatory terms for weapons which requires multiple weapons as ingredients to craft; examples include the Panthera or Akjagara. Manually crafted Akimbo weapons such as the Akbronco or Akbolto tend to be excused from this term.
 * Cooking - Slang an item being made in the foundry e.g. "I have a blue potato cooking."
 * Co-op Door - Refers to a door that requires two players present to open when in a party.
 * Corpus - One of the three main enemy factions. They are a merchant cult, built on the foundation of salvaged technology and robotics.
 * Corrupted - The type of enemies encountered in the Orokin Void.
 * Corrupted Mods - Mods that increase one stat and decrease another, obtained in Orokin Vaults.
 * Crowd Control - May refer to:
 * Crowd Control, the shotgun mod.
 * Abilities or actions which have the capability to incapacitate enemies from retaliating, such as knockdowning and blinding foes.
 * Cryotic Mods, Cryotic Mod Set - The four dual-stat mods rewarded in Operation Cryotic Front, known as Rime Rounds, Frigid Blast, Frostbite and Vicious Frost.

D

 * D, DPol - The  polarity shape.
 * Dash, - The polarity shape.
 * Dashes, AbilityPol - The polarity shape. Used for Augments or Channeling mods. See also Scratch/ScratchPol.
 * Data-ass - Derogatory term used to describe a player whom misuses possession of a Datamass during Deception missions either by refusing to complete the objective, or by going AFK.
 * DC, D/C - Disconnected. DC also may refer to the 'Design Council.'
 * Def, Defense - Refers to the Defense mission type. Players will often advertise Void runs and its difficulty. (e.g. T3 Def)
 * Derf, Derf Anyo - An officially recognized fan-made character, as Devstream 30 claims. Usually refers to son, nephew, or other familial bond to Nef Anyo.
 * DNS (technical) - Domain Name Server. Used to determine a players IP address in an international scale, if a DNS address is mismatched, the player will not be able to connect to other certain players.
 * DM - Death Mark.
 * Dojo - A clan meeting place. Different rooms can be built, with purposes of research, trading, duels.
 * Doorway Hero, Door Hero - denotes the specific act of utilizing choke points (such as doors) to rapidly kill recently spawned enemies. Mostly used as a derogatory term. The term Hallway Hero is sometimes used interchangeably.
 * Down, Downed - When you run out of health, you'll be in bleedout state. Teammates can revive you back to full health and shields.
 * Dogs - May refer to:
 * Internet-shared slang for Grineer. Originated during The Gradivus Dilemma where Alad V would generally refer to the Grineer as "dogs".
 * Kubrows, owing to their doglike appearance.
 * Dual/Dual-stat Mods - Refers to Nightmare Mode Mods which grant two different beneficial stats. Not to be confused with Corrupted Mods.
 * DS - Dark Sector. Usually followed by S - Survival (DSS) or D - Defense (DSD).

E

 * Elephant- Nickname for the Infested boss, Lephantis
 * Ext, Exterminate - Refers to the Exterminate mission type. Players will often advertise Void runs and its difficulty. (e.g. T3 Ext)
 * Extract, Ext, Evac - To exit a mission or head to the extraction point.
 * Exp - Experience. Correctly called Affinity, used to level Weapons, Warframes and Mastery.

F

 * Farm - To play repeatedly or for long periods to achieve desired objective, usually something in larger number (such as a certain resource or enemy)
 * Fast Nova - A Nova modded with Overextended and no Power Strength mods to cause Molecular Prime to speed enemies up, instead of slowing them down. Commonly used during Infested Defense missions to make enemies get into players' range faster. Also called Speed Nova and Neg Nova.
 * FL - Friend List.
 * Forma, Forma'd, Formed - To use a Forma to alter a polarity slot(a.k.a. polarized, polarization).
 * # Forma - Adjective for a weapon or Warframe that has been polarized # times (e.g. 4 Forma Braton)
 * Frame - Warframe
 * Friendship Door - Refers to a door that requires two players present to open when in a party.
 * Fusion Core - May refer to:
 * Fusion Core, a core can be used to increase the rank of mods.
 * Nef Anyo, a derogatory nickname due to his literal similarity to the shape of a Fusion Core.

G

 * G3 - The Grustrag Three.
 * Gate - Nova's Worm Hole.
 * Gate Crash Mods, Gate Crash Mod Set - The four mods rewarded in Operation: Gate Crash, known as Buzz Kill, Fanged Fusillade, Sweeping Serration and Maim.
 * Glass Cannon - A frame capable of dealing large amounts of damage, while having low survivability.
 * GMag - A Greedy Pull Augment using Mag
 * Golem - The Jordas Golem, an Infested boss.
 * Greedy Milk - Derogatory slang for Corpus blood, popularized by one of General Sargas Ruk's quotes during The Gradivus Dilemma; "Rraahudd Tenno! Now we fight together! Now we crush the greedy milk from their skulls. The Corpus will pay for their crimes with their useless lives."
 * Grind - To play repeatedly or for long periods to achieve desired objective (e.g. attaining rare items)
 * Grineer - One of the enemy factions. A race of clones.

H

 * Hallway Hero - A negative term referring to a player in a defense mission (endless, wave, mobile, or survival) who fights far from the defense objective or team, killing enemies too far to share Affinity and spreading out pickups too thinly. The term Doorway Hero is sometimes used interchangeably with Hallway Hero.
 * Harvester - The original name of Zanuka Hunter.
 * Hitscan - A type of weapon wherein the the weapon's target is calculated by way of intersection with a line trace, as opposed to collision with a projectile. Such weapons are said to hit targets 'instantly', on the same frame in which the weapon is fired. Common hitscan weapons include the Braton, Burston, and Soma.

I

 * Infested - A main enemy faction. Comprised of Corpus and Grineer that have been infected with the Technocyte Virus.
 * Infusion ability/mods - Augment abilities which buffs the damage of a player's weapon with their respective elements such as Venom Dose or Smite Infusion. Other uses:
 * Infuse - Applying infusion abilities to a player.

J

 * Jellyfish - Derogatory nickname for Alad V, coined by Tyl Regor in Operation: Tubemen of Regor.
 * John, John Prodman - A meme of a fan-named Prod Crewman, who is said to be able to take down Phorid single-handedly. Often that the fans refers the Prod Crewman in DE's videos as John Prodman. Confirmed as canon, although more information has yet to be released.

K

 * Kappa - A very commonly played mid-level Mobile Defense mission, located in Sedna. Known for one of the most populated affinity farm node.
 * Keys - Void Keys, Derelict Keys or Dragon Keys used to enter the Orokin Void, Orokin Derelicts or Vaults.
 * Killframe, Kill Frame - A warframe capable of killing large groups of enemies quickly, most notable example being Excalibur using Radial Javelin and Saryn using Miasma.
 * Kiste - A very commonly played high-level Mobile Defense mission, located in Ceres. Known for one of the most populated affinity farm node.

L

 * LFM, LFG - Looking for member/more, group.
 * Lobster/Lobster Butt - Trinity, owing to the overall appearance of her skirt resembling a lobster's tail.
 * Lotus - The Tenno players' guide.
 * LS, Life Support - Life Support Modules that are dispensed from dead enemies in Survival missions.

M

 * Mastery - Your overall account level. Increased by leveling up weapons, Warframes and companions (not counting forma(s)) and completing a test.
 * Mats - Resources. Short for Materials.
 * MD, MDef, MobDef - Mobile Defense.
 * Mods - "Cards" picked up during missions and won for completing some missions to enhance the power of Warframes, weapons, and companions.
 * MR - Mastery Rank.
 * MP, M Prime - May refer to:
 * Molecular Prime, Nova's 4th ability
 * The second mission on Mercury.

N

 * Neffy - Nickname for Nef Anyo, coined by Tyl Regor in Operation: Tubemen of Regor.
 * Neg Nova, Negative Nova - A Nova modded with Overextended and no Power Strength mods to cause Molecular Prime to speed enemies up, instead of slowing them down. Commonly used during Infested Defense missions to make enemies get into players' range faster. Also called Fast Nova and Speed Nova.
 * Nerfed, Nerf - Something that was recently weakened or needs weakening.
 * Neutral Nova - A Nova modded with Overextended causing Molecular Prime to just slightly or not modify the speed of affected enemies at all. Useful if players only wants the damage buff from the ability.
 * Nightmare Mods - See dual mods.
 * NM, Nightmare - Nightmare Mode. A high difficulty mission that can occupy random nodes indicated with a skull and rewards special mods unique to these missions.
 * NM may also refers to Narrow Minded.
 * Nuke - any weapon or ability that can kill a large quantity of enemies at once (i.e. Molecular Prime, the Ogris).

O

 * Octopus - The Phage rifle. Nicknamed for its appearance when firing.
 * OC, OCell, OroCell - Orokin Cell.
 * OD - Orokin Derelict, usually followed with an additional letter indicating the mission type. e.g. ODS, ODD and ODA refer to Orokin Derelict Survival, Defense and Assassination respectively.
 * ODV - Orokin Derelict Vault, a section of the Orokin Derelicts that awards players Corrupted Mods.
 * Orokin - The name of the race that previously ruled the solar system. Tenno are their descendents.
 * One-handed action - Commonly used term in the wiki, this refers to actions that do not interrupt full actions such as reloading, charging, or shooting
 * OV - Orokin Void, usually followed with an additional letter indicating the mission type, as well as the Tower number representing the difficulty. For example: OVS, OVD and OVE refer to Orokin Void Survival, Defense and Exterminate respectively. And for the Tower number, a general T1, T2, T3 or T4, meaning Tower one, two, three or four.

P

 * Panty, Panties - The Infested boss Lephantis.
 * PC - Price check. Used on the trading channel to find out how much something is worth.
 * Plat, Pl, Pt, P - Platinum, the game currency that can only be traded or paid for.
 * PM - Private message. Use /w message to whisper to the player.
 * Pol - The polarity associated with a slot in a warframe or weapon.
 * Potato, Blue/Gold Potato - An Orokin Catalyst or Orokin Reactor, named such for their resemblance to potatoes.
 * Potatoed - Refers to equipment that has a Catalyst/Reactor installed.
 * Precept - The abilities that a Companion can use. Precept mods have the polarity.
 * Prime - May refer to:
 * The surname given to an enhanced version of a warframe or weapon
 * Molecular Prime.
 * Proc - The result of a weapon or ability triggering one of the additional damage effects via status chance, Originally meaning Programmed Random Occurrence. See Status Effect.
 * PST - Please send tell. Use /w message to whisper to the player.
 * Pubs, Pug, Pugs - Pick-up Group/Public. Used to describe a group that is not preorganized or a player that is not part of the organized group.

Q

 * QT - The Quick Thinking mod.

R

 * Red Text - In-game announcements that appear in chat from the developers at Digital Extremes. The text is written in red, hence the name.
 * Rep, Reputation - Syndicate Standing
 * RNG - Random Number Generator. Used to refer to the random chance of things happening in the game, such as mod drops or the appearance of the Stalker/Zanuka Hunter/G3. Sometimes jokingly called Random Number God.
 * RNGesus, RNJesus - A joking nickname attributed to the RNG (above), typically mentioned in such a way to imply the speaker is praying.
 * Rotten Salad - Mutalist Alad V, owing to Alad being partially infested. See also Spoiled Salad.
 * rPol - The polarity shape.
 * Rush - May refer to:
 * Completing a mission as fast as possible.
 * Instantly finish building an item in the foundry, using platinum.

S

 * Salad V - A popular nickname for Alad V.
 * Scratch, ScratchPol - Also refers to the Augment/Channeling polarity.
 * ShieldPol - Shield Polarize.
 * Slova- Slow Nova.
 * Space Nazi - Grineer or New Loka.
 * Speed Nova - A Nova modded with Overextended and no Power Strength mods to cause Molecular Prime to speed enemies up, instead of slowing them down. Commonly used during Infested Defense missions to make enemies get into players' range faster. Also called Fast Nova and Neg Nova.
 * Spoiled Salad - A nickname for Mutalist Alad V. See also Rotten Salad.
 * Stunlock - A tactic that forces enemies in a Stun-phase or remain them plummeting to the ground.
 * Syndicate - A group of Factions with unique ideologies that the Tenno can side with.

T

 * T1/T2/T3/T4 - Tower 1, 2, 3 or 4 Orokin Void missions.
 * Tank - A player that can take large amounts of damage.
 * Taxi - A player that has a mission or planet unlocked that will form a group for a player that does not.
 * Tethra Mods, Tethra Mod Set - The four dual-stat mods rewarded in Tethra's Doom, known as Jolt, Shell Shock, High Voltage and Voltaic Strike,
 * Tier 1 / Tier 2 / Tier 3 / Tier 4 - The difficulty or level group of enemies in a mission or wave. The tier determines the reward pool players have access to.
 * Tomato - An Exilus Adapter, named such for the resemblance to the cross-section of a tomato.
 * Tylenol- Nickname for Tyl Regor

U

 * Ult, Ultimate - The '4' ability on a Warframe. Comes from the 4th ability often being the most powerful and costly warframe ability.

V

 * V, VPol - The polarity shape. Sometimes called rPol.
 * Vault - See ODV.
 * Vivergate - Derived from the node Viver, Eris; is used to describe an exploit that allows players to attain ludicruous amounts of mods, resources or credits in a short time.

W

 * Warframe - The exosuit worn by Tenno. These have special abilities that are used for specific tasks.
 * WTB/WTS/WTT - Want/Willing to Buy/Sell/Trade

X

 * Xini - A very commonly played high-level Infested defense map, located in Eris.
 * XP - Experience. Correctly called Affinity, used to level Weapons, Warframes and Mastery.

Y

 * Yelling - Having a discussion through in-game chat, then distributing it to the forums.

Legacy Terms
These are terms that may still be used by long-term players but refer to things that no longer exist.
 * AbilityPol - An earlier name for the  Augment/Channeling polarity. Up until Update 15, Warframe abilities also had their own mod cards, allowing players to equip/unequip abilities.
 * Green - Life Support pick-ups in Survival missions. Named for the green HUD indicator that was unique to them.
 * Naked Nick - The person inside the Warframe Cryopod before its model was changed in Update 12.
 * R+QT - A combo between Rage and Quick Thinking mods which granted invulnerability. The combo was nerfed in Update 11.1, and the term fell out of use soon after.
 * Rainbow Build - A mod loadout popular during Damage 1.0 that used all elemental damage mods for maximum damage. Fell out of favor with the introduction of Damage 2.0.
 * Copter, Coptering, Spin Dashing, Zoren Coptering - Using the slide attack of melee weapons, particularly those with a high attack speed, to fling a player a great distance quickly. The momentum generated by melee slide attacks was greatly reduced in Update 17, making this less effective.