leet speak 

Originating in the early 1980's, leet speak was first used by hackers as a way to prevent their websites/newsgroups from being found by simple keyword searches.
Leet speak grew and became popular in online games such as Doom in the early 1990's as a way of suggesting that you were a hacker (h4x0r), and therefore to be feared.
Leet, or 1337, is a short form of "elite," commonly used by video gamers to suggest that they are skilled.

Leet: l337
Hacker: h4x0r
skills: s|<1llz
Own: Pwn

leet speak by Jess (and her m4a1) June 9, 2005

leet speak 

When the 1st l33t sp34k hit the scene in the very early 80's it didn't use all the annoying ?|}{)\ and crap they put as subs for letters today. It just occasionally subbed some numbers for letters so that normal searches and bots, ect. would not pick up the pattern. It has been changed into something entirely stupid and unreadable by wannabe, lazy kids today. Same with lol and rotflmao and such. Been around since 300 baud n00bs.....

If j00 w3r3 r34lly l33t j00d kn0w it n00b.

This sentence would have been a bit overkill even then for leet speak. Most would have written it like:

If you w4s l33t u'd kn0w noob.....

leet speak by Derius December 7, 2006

Leet Speak 

Despite what many people think, leet speak is not when you make letters with non-letter characters, like

| /\/\ |_33+ 2 |)00|)!!!

Though the non-letter characters used to make letters method is used occasionally, it is primarily made up of numbers acting as letters, like so.

y0 j00!!111 u c m3 0wnz0rz dat n00b v3r1ly ?? lolololololololo

Note that j00 is often used in place of "you" and many words end with a 0rz or a z. Also, letters aren't ALWAYS used, just when someone feels like being "l337". Leet Speak originated as a way for getting vulgar words (such as "u r fuxx0rz d00d!!) through filters in chat rooms and games.

(Many examples are listed above)

Leet Speak by Demonic Crusader July 21, 2004

leet speak 

Dumbest fucking thing in the world. Not to mention it's extremely difficult to read unless you're an annoying 13 year old boy or 16 year old girl, and it often takes longer to type out words in leet than it does to regularly type them out.

13 y/o boy: "OMG ur t3h U83R H4XX0RZ!!!1!!! LEET SPEAK IS T3H 4W50M3N355!!!!11!!1!!!1"
Common Sense:"Shut the fuck up, you fucking idiot."

leet speak by My name August 12, 2006

Leet Speak 

The original online gaming language. It is pretty much the OGlanguage of gamin. U u53 07/-/3/2 13773/25 0/2 /\/U/\/\83/25 /=0/2 7/-/3 />14(3 0/= 13773/25.

A=4
B=8
C=(
D=/)
E=3
F=/=
G=(-,
H=/-/
I=
J=_/
K=/<
L=1
M=/\/\
N=/\/
O=0
P=/>
Q=0_
R=/2
S=5
T=7
U=\_/
V=\/
W=\/\/
X=><
Y=';'
Z=2

This doesnt mean you have to use all those, most people chose to only use the one symbol 1337 letters.

0/\/\/=(-, 707411';' />\/\/3/) \_//2 455!!!!!111!~LEET SPEAK

Leet Speak by Su-Su January 10, 2006

leet speak 

1337 5p34|< is a novelty form of the english language used primarily by the "ellite" group of haxorz in the early days of IRC... first start was to avoid triggering server bots and later used to promote warez... more recently used by script kiddies and those alike on game cons

1 0vv|\| 411 u 114^^45

leet speak by Eia August 31, 2004

Leet Speak 

Replacing letters with numbers to create nerd slang; mostly used by internet savvy (elite) people.

a = 4
i = 1
e = 3
k = |<
s = 5
r = |2
o = 0

etc.

0n1y n3|2d5 1337 $p34|< u f|_|c|<1ng f4gg07

Leet Speak by Ramsey April 18, 2004