Learn English – Origin of slang “fire” meaning “cool” / “great” and does it have any relation to “fam”

etymologyslang

Fire as a slang adjective appears to be the bleeding-edge version of "cool." To some extent, the word appears to be interchangeable with dope. One thing that seems odd to me is that it often seems to occur next to the word "fam." I'm wondering what the relevance of this connection is.

Examples of "fire"

This song is so fire. My goodness

I play this tune more than once each day. The whole Ep is fire!!!

Examples of "fire" with "fam"

Or as the kids say it, it's totes fire, fam. It is indeed quite lit.

Spittin real bars this is fire fam

Nkabi yam, waiting on you to release some new fire fam, drop that shit !

Green's Dictionary of Slang has an entry with a single citation from 2016, which also uses the word "fam."

Dly Pennsylvanian 23 Mar. [Internet] If I say ‘That class is good and interesting,’ that is a pretty generic statement. If I say ‘That class is fire, fam” it’s a funny statement’.

Questions:

  1. How early can we trace the use of slang "fire" meaning "cool" or "great?"

  2. Does the origin of this slang term trace to a particular cultural or geographical demographic more specific than or apart from the U.S.?

3. Why do we often see "fire" used in combination with "fam?"

Best Answer

1. How early can we trace the use of slang "fire" meaning "cool" or "great?"

Middle English?

P3.... b. on fire... (b) fig. and in figurative contexts. In a heightened state of emotion or activity; inflamed with passion, anger, zeal, etc.; enthused; inspired. Later also (colloq.): on a run of success; performing at a very high level.

John Gower, Confessio Amantis (ante 1393), iii, l, 16:

...Ire,
Whos herte is everemore on fyre
To speke amis and to do bothe,
For his servantz ben evere wrothe.

which follows the use of 'fire' since Old English to mean (II. 13. a.) "a burning or ardent emotion; a strong feeling of passion, rage, love, etc."

Now, you probably understand both of those already and would reply, "No, no. I mean when did American kids start using it by itself instead of 'cool'? Y'know, like 'stupendous', 'whizzbang', 'copacetic', 'spiffy', 'keen', 'neato', 'swell', 'boss', 'groovy', 'dyn-o-mite', 'outta sight', 'rad', 'bitchin'', 'station', 'wicked', 'bad', 'phat', 'tight', 'sick', 'fly', 'a'ight', 'epic', 'sweet'..."

Obviously, what you have with 'cool' is the slang version of a euphemism treadmill: frequently in the US, African-Americans have some way to speak freely among themselves, white kids appropriate it (at which point black people need something new), and white parents pick it up (at which point their kids need something new). Even more, you get a TV show ('dyn-O-mite'), movie ('sweet'), or song ('bad') that blows up some usage that the year before needed glossing within a song.

In just this way, the Bloodhound Gang's 'Fire Water Burn' was responsible for greatly popularizing its chorus in 1997, despite being entirely lifted from Rock Master Scott & the Dynamic Three's 1984 'The Roof is on Fire'. By 2018, not only was the phrase considered "cringeworthy", but its replacement 'lit' was already considered "quite overused" and in need of its own replacement.

Per Merriam–Webster's 'Words We're Watching: It's Lit':

Rap has also given us a new meaning of lit. In the last ten or so years, lit has transitioned from being applied to the act of intoxicating ("gonna get lit") to the environment of those who are lit ("party's lit"). The wildness of such parties has led to lit gaining the meaning “exciting,” as well as a broader meaning along the lines of “excellent” (“Leslie Jones's commentary on the Olympics was lit"). We have evidence of the “exciting” and “excellent” meanings way back to 2004, and earlier use is likely...

'Fire' is an extremely common word (#697 in the British National Corpus) so—just like the early life of 'lit'—you can doubtless find earlier slang uses but its recent major surge has just been a grassroots transfer to speech of using the 🔥 emoji for 'lit', 'on fire', 'excited', 'exciting', &c. This parallels similar use of LOL, 💯, &c. The fire emoji was approved by Unicode in 2010, showed up on the iPhone &c. shortly after, and also shows up to indicate a 'hot streak' on Snapchat.

That was building on a slightly earlier swell. From at least 1700, 'fire' has been used to describe not just the fiery sensation caused by spicy food or alcohol but also the property within the items leading to that effect (OED's sense 17. a. & b.). From at least 2003, 'firewater' had turned into 'fireweed' (potent herb), which turned into 'that fire', which turned into 'that's fire'—initially as an approbation that it felt as good as quality weed but then quickly misunderstood as a variant of 'that's hot' (with all its associated senses of sexiness &c.) by just about the time the emoji showed up.

  1. Does the origin of this slang term trace to a particular cultural or geographical demographic more specific than or apart from the U.S.?

Again, it's an extremely common word and you could look for associations that aren't there. Most people are just using it based on the fire emoji's associations with 'lit', so the original demographic would be 'iPhone users'. On the other hand, 'lit' and 'fire' started their recent upsurge in the weed community and its celebration in mostly African-American musical forms like rap and hiphop.

  1. Why do we often see "fire" used in combination with "fam?"

Because English loves alliteration. Always has.

There's no other connection. 'Fam' is just a clipping of 'family' that gets used in reference to close friends (even an individual friend).

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