Acronyms dictionary
dwu
or DWU [dee duh-buh l-yoo yoo]
șÚÁÏÍű does dwu mean?
DWU is an internet acronym for âdonât wait up,â which literally means “don’t stay awake waiting for someone to arrive or make contact.” Donât wait up is also casually used to mean âdonât worry about me.â
Where does dwu come from?
In the 2000s, people began to shorten donât wait up to DWU in texts and social media. DWU is first listed as an acronym for donât wait up in a 2007 Urban Dictionary entry.
The exact phrase donât wait up (as an instruction for someone not to delay sleep until another person arrives home) appears in stories in both The London Magazine and Ambition: A Journal of Inspiration in 1913. The verb phrase wait up appears as early as 1801 in a record of the proceedings of the British House of Lords. A man is described as instructing his servants ânot to wait up for him,â because he âhad a key to let himself in by.â
Donât Wait Up was also used as the title of a British sitcom from 1983â1990. It has since been the title of at least three different songs: one by Colin Hay in 2001, one by the Twang in 2007, and one by Robert DeLong in 2015. And then, in 2015, the Dutch R&B singer Aster Fekre also released a song titled âDWU (Donât Wait Up).â
Examples of dwu
Who uses dwu?
Donât wait up is common in informal speech and writing, while the acronym DWU is common in digital communication. Both phrases are often used as a playful alert that the person is going to be out late partying.
Itâs not to be confused with another internet slang initialism: dwu for âdatâs whatâs up.â
Note
This is not meant to be a formal definition of dwu like most terms we define on Dictionary.com, but is rather an informal word summary that hopefully touches upon the key aspects of the meaning and usage of dwu that will help our users expand their word mastery.