If looking for the DW meaning has landed you here, you’ve absolutely come to the right place. We can totally understand your predicament if you’ve been spotting this term while texting or on social media platforms and scratching your head about its meaning.
Having no idea of what such terms mean can be quite frustrating. Well to start with, it’s obviously an abbreviation, just like so many other Internet slang such as malding and acronyms like LFG you come across now and then.
What Is The Full Form Of DW?
The letters D and W stand for ‘Don’t Worry.’ As you’d imagine, it is used online in the same way that the term ‘don’t worry’ is used in real life. If someone is panicking or is worried about something, you can type DW to tell them to calm down and take it easy.
DW Meaning On Snapchat?
Snapchat is home to some of the most difficult-to-understand Internet abbreviations. If you’ve encountered DW on the said app, rest assured that it means the same thing that we’ve mentioned above — don’t worry.
And just like on other platforms, people tend to pair DW with other slang terms to better convey their message. For instance, they might say something like “DW be happy” or “DW too much.”
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What Does It Mean In Texting?
As you may already have guessed, DW stands for the same thing in text messages as it does on other online conversation platforms. What may differ is the way it’s written.
Some people may write it as dw or some may write it as Dw. Some people also have the habit of writing it as d/w with a slash between the two letters in their text messaging conversations. It’s the same way some people prefer to write the word without — w/o.
What Does It Mean On Social Media?
On social media too, DW stands for don’t worry. You can use it on any platform like Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, or others.
Many other such terms are also popular on social media. These include TBH, which stands for ‘to be honest,’ AFAIK which stands for ‘as far as I know,’ OMG which stands for oh my god, or TL;DR which stands for ‘too long; didn’t read’.
Where Did This Acronym Originate From?
There’s no specific date that we can trace the term back to. However, we can definitely identify the time period when it started popping up on the Internet. The term DW supposedly started being used online during the 1990s.
Back then, online conversations would usually take place in chatrooms and that’s where the DW abbreviation was in use, along with other terms like TBH (to be honest) and AFK (away from keyboard). The first definition of the acronym (or should we say, initialism) in Urban Dictionary’s catalogues dates back to 2003.
Is There Another Meaning To DW?
Yes, indeed. DW isn’t only used for don’t worry. In the context of a married couples’ conversations, it could stand for dear wife or darling wife. The dear wife meaning is spotted a lot on online marriage or parenting forums.
Naturally then, just like dear wife, there are variations of it in the form of DH (dear husband), DD (dear daughter), and DS (dear son). But as we said, these meanings are almost always reserved for particular online forums.
Apart from dear wife, the could also refer to Doctor Who, the popular British sci-fi TV show, or Distant Worlds, a strategy video game.
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How To Use?
Given below is a list of different ways you can add the abbreviation in question to your sentences while chatting with someone to tell them to stop worrying:
“You’ll get well soon. DW.”
“I’ll do it for you, DW about it.”
The choice is yours; as long as the person at the other end of the chat is aware of the term’s meaning, you can use it however you like.
How Is DW Related To The Bobby McFerrin Song?
The term ‘don’t worry’ has been in use for a very long time but it definitely caught popularity in 1988 when the soulful song ‘Don’t Worry, Be Happy’ by Bobby McFerrin hit the charts.
The song’s words started being used by people in daily conversations to motivate those who were feeling down. The whistle that’s used at the start of this song also gained a lot of popularity. In fact, this track was included in Rolling Stone’s list of the 15 Best Whistling Songs of All Time.
That’s all you need to know about DW and everything it stands for. People have the habit of using Internet acronyms everywhere in their online conversations and it can be really frustrating to be the only one who doesn’t know what they are trying to convey.
One could indeed ask them directly, but that can be slightly embarrassing at times. From here on though, DW about finding yourself unaware of the meaning of DW.