South African Slang For Cool (Explained!)

The most common South African slang term for cool is “kief” or “kif”. This one is used throughout the country by most generations. Other terms that are commonly used include the word “bakgat”, which can mean cool, “befok” and sometimes “kwaai”. Other more specific terms include words like “piele”, meaning something like “all good”.

There are a variety of slang terms used in South Africa to mean cool, then.

The thing to remember about South Africa is that, like many African nations, a great many languages are spoken there.

This means that the collective slang of a single nation often involves the mingling of many of these languages.

Let’s find out more.

What do South Africans say for cool?

South Africans have a variety of terms for cool.

One such term, and perhaps the most common in the country as a whole, is “kief”, sometimes spelled “kif” or “kiff”.

This term can have several different senses, but certainly, the best catch-all, general definition of it is as “cool”.

It can also have the sense of “nice,” or just “good”.

It’s used more or less throughout the country, and among more or less all generations of South Africans—it’s not limited to the young or the old.

That said, there are certainly large parts of the country that do not use this term—again, South Africa is a polyglot nation and there are many different languages spoken there, so not all slang is shared.

“His new car is really kief,” for example.

Another common slang term for cool in South Africa is “bakgat”.

This is an Afrikaans slang word, meaning it is primarily used by the nation’s Afrikaans speakers—but more on that later.

This word has the general sense of cool and is very often used in this way, but it can also have the more specific sense of “something very well accomplished” and as an expression of appreciation or admiration.

“You finished your degree? Bakgat, man!” for example.

“Befok” is another common slang term for cool in South Africa.

Again, it can have somewhat more general sense of just very good or even exciting.

That said, it is perhaps most often used simply to mean cool.

“Looking forward to the game, should be befok,” for example.

This is another Afrikaans slang word.

“Kwaai” is another term used to mean cool in South Africa.

This has the specific sense of very cool, even excellent. It’s reserved for the coolest things. “That guy is so kwaai,” for example.

Finally, the word “piele” is often used in the sense of “it’s all good” or “everything’s cool.”

This is often used to tell someone that there’s nothing to worry about.

Why do South Africans say “kief”?

The word “kief” as it is used in Afrikaans in South Africa is derived from the same word in Arabic.

It can have a couple of different meanings, more or less specific depending on the circumstance.

It can just mean something is good or pleasurable, but it can also specifically refer not only to marijuana, but to a specific kind of marijuana that accumulates at the bottom of a grinder.

It may relate to the Afrikaans word for poison which is gif.

Either way, the term came to be a slang term for cool particularly used by “stoner” culture”.

Since then, though, it has expanded out to more or less the entire Afrikaans and English speaking populations in South Africa.

It’s not all that common outside of these populations, though, and indeed Afrikaans, though one of the main official languages, is only the third most widely spoken language in the country after Zulu and Xhosa.

Why do South Africans say “bakgat”?

Bakgat is another example of Afrikaans slang.

Some might say it is closer to simply being a standard word in Afrikaans, rather than slang as such.

Nonetheless it is used in a very colloquial and informal way, and not the kind of thing you’d expect to hear in a formal setting.

Again, it has the sense of something done admirably, and this is the way it is most often used.

More colloquially, though, it is used in the broader sense of “cool”.

Why do South Africans say “befok”?

This one can have a few different senses, though again it is an Afrikaans word. It can mean crazy, it can mean “to have sex with,” and it can even be a bit derogatory.

Usually, though, it just means something is really cool.

It’s not really clear where it derives from, though most words in Afrikaans are blends of Dutch and native African language words, so this is the most likely root of “befok”.

Why do South Africans say “kwaai”?

The story is much the same with the word “kwaai”.

It can have other slightly different meanings that are closer to simply “very good” than to cool, but it is certainly used in this way too.

Being another Afrikaans word, it is ultimately derived from the sense of “angry” in Afrikaans.

It’s not known why the meaning changed in this way.

So, South Africans as a whole certainly have many words for cool.

However, given the linguistic diversity, most tend to be used by a smaller number of people rather than as a whole.

That said, there certainly are some universal terms such as “kief”, though again you will still find many people who do not use the term.

It’s certainly more complex than you might at first expect.