New to Big Brother, or new to the live feeds? The show has its own language, and half of it is acronyms nobody bothers to explain. Here’s what all of it actually means — the game terms, the production terms, and the slang feed watchers have built up over twenty-plus seasons.
If you just want the quick version, start here. The full A–Z is below.
The short answers
What does HOH mean in Big Brother?
HOH stands for Head of Household. It’s the houseguest who wins that week’s HOH competition. Two things come with it: they can’t be evicted that week, and they choose who goes on the block. They also get the HOH bedroom, a private bathroom, and a letter from home. The outgoing HOH can’t compete for it the following week, so nobody wins it back-to-back until the final three.
What does POV mean?
POV is the Power of Veto. The winner can pull one nominee off the block — including themselves — which forces the HOH to name a replacement. It’s the second-biggest lever in any given week and the reason a nomination is never final until the veto ceremony is over.
What does “on the block” mean?
It means you’re nominated for eviction. Only nominees can be voted out, and nominees don’t get to vote. “OTB” is the shorthand.
What is a backdoor?
A backdoor is putting up two people you don’t actually want gone, so your real target never gets a veto slot to save themselves. Once the veto is used, you name the target as the replacement and they go on the block with no way off it. See Backdoor below for the full version.
What is a pawn?
A pawn is someone put on the block purely to make sure the other nominee gets evicted. The house tells them it’s a formality every single time. “Pawns go home” exists as a saying for a reason.
What is a lockdown in Big Brother?
A lockdown is a period where production restricts the houseguests to part of the house so crew can work unseen. An outdoor lockdown pushes everyone into the backyard while the inside gets worked on. An indoor lockdown locks the backyard doors and drops the screens, usually because a competition set is going up. An HOH lockdown herds everyone into the HOH room, most often on Thursday mornings before the live show. Long indoor lockdowns are a reliable tell that a big comp is being built.
Why did the feeds cut away, and what am I looking at?
Production blocks the feeds constantly, and there are two flavours of it. Short cuts last seconds to a couple of minutes and usually mean somebody sang a copyrighted song, said something legally awkward, or got pulled into the Diary Room — you’ll get a holding card, historically a fish tank, lately a logo and music. Long cuts run for hours and mean a competition, a ceremony, or a lockdown is underway; that’s when you get the old trivia cards or, in recent seasons, adoptable shelter animals. Learning to read which one you’re looking at tells you whether to wait ninety seconds or go to bed.
How does a double eviction work?
A double eviction is when two houseguests leave in a single live hour. The normal eviction happens, then the entire week gets compressed into the back half of the show: a fast HOH comp, on-the-spot nominations, a veto comp, a veto ceremony, and a second eviction — all live. There’s no time to campaign and barely time to think, which is why doubles produce some of the wildest results of any season.
The A–Z glossary
A
AFP — America’s Favorite Player
AFP is a fan vote announced at the finale, with a cash prize attached. It rewards likability rather than gameplay, which is why the winner is often someone who got steamrolled in week four.
After Dark
Big Brother: After Dark was the late-night companion show — a few uncut hours of feed footage on TV, first on Showtime 2 starting in BB8, later on TVGN/Pop. It last aired in 2019 and hasn’t returned. Its lasting legacy is that houseguests learned to hold real game talk until after the cameras cut, which is exactly why the feeds matter more.
AG — Allison Grodner
AG refers to longtime executive producer Allison Grodner. Whenever a twist lands badly, a comp looks rigged, or the feeds cut at the worst possible second, fans blame AG. Fair or not, it’s tradition.
Alliance
An alliance is any group agreeing to work together and vote as a bloc. They form on night one, get a name within a week, and collapse the moment there aren’t enough outsiders left to nominate.
America’s Player
America’s Player was a BB8 and BB10 twist where one houseguest secretly took orders from a public vote in exchange for cash. Great television. Terrible for the player’s actual game.
America’s Vote
An America’s Vote is any twist decided by the audience. The feed-watching crowd is heavily outnumbered by casual voters, so the result rarely matches what the feeds crowd wants.
Anipals
Anipals are adoptable shelter animals shown on the feeds during the long production blocks, in place of the old trivia cards. Objectively the best thing production does. See Trivia.
B
Backdoor
A backdoor is a plan built before nominations, not after. Because every nominee automatically plays in the veto comp, an HOH who nominates their real target hands that target a chance to save themselves. The backdoor avoids that: nominate two people you’re comfortable with, hope the target isn’t drawn to play, get the veto used, then name the target as the replacement. They land on the block with no escape route left.
The play is credited to Nakomis in BB5 — the “Six Finger Plan” that sent Jase home. Some players consider it cowardly. Everyone uses it anyway.
Battle Back
A Battle Back is a competition that lets an evicted houseguest fight their way back into the game. When it’s offered to jury members rather than pre-jury evictees, you’ll also hear it called a jury buyback.
BB Blockbuster
The BB Blockbuster is a recent-seasons twist that reshapes the week. The HOH nominates three houseguests instead of two, and on live eviction night the three nominees play a comp for safety. The winner comes off the block, leaving two exposed, and the house votes one of them out. It means the person the HOH was targeting can still save themselves at the last possible second — the comp is a real story beat, not a formality.
BBAD
Shorthand for After Dark.
BBLF
Big Brother Live Feeds. See Feeds.
BBViewer
BBViewer is a third-party feed viewer built by the community that most feedsters prefer to the official player — faster flashback scrubbing, better multi-cam handling, fewer headaches.
Blanketing
Blanketing describes a nominee who responds to being on the block by getting into bed and staying there for four days. The opposite of nervousing.
Blindside
A blindside happens when a houseguest walks out the door genuinely believing they were safe. The purest form of entertainment this show produces, and the reason feed watchers stay up until 4am.
Blowmance
A blowmance is blunt house shorthand for a pairing everyone can see is one-sided. Used on the feeds as early as June 2013, and not a compliment in any season.
Bromance
A bromance is a close, non-romantic friendship — usually two men — that a season gets built around. The word predates Big Brother, but Will attached it to himself and Boogie on the BB7 broadcast and it has belonged to the show ever since. Chilltown, the Renegades, the Hitmen and the Minutemen are all bromances that reached a final two.
C
Casual
A casual is someone who only watches the three CBS episodes a week and doesn’t follow the feeds. Not an insult — just a different show. The edit and the feeds frequently tell completely different stories.
Chenbot
Chenbot is the affectionate nickname for host Julie Chen Moonves, from the early seasons when she delivered every line with the warmth of a teleprompter.
Chilltown
Chilltown was Mike “Boogie” Malin and Dr. Will Kirby, originally in BB2 and reunited for BB7. The blueprint every two-man alliance since has tried and failed to copy.
Clown Shoe
A clown shoe is a self-inflicted, comp-losing blunder. Named for Jeff Schroeder knocking his own clown shoe off the ledge in a BB13 comp and eliminating himself.
Coaster
A coaster is a houseguest who lets the game happen around them and hopes the target is always somebody else.
Comp
Comp is shorthand for competition. The HOH comp, the veto comp, and whatever themed twist comp production has built that week.
Cookout
The Cookout was the BB23 alliance of six Black houseguests that got every member to the final six — the first alliance in the show’s history to run the table with no losses, and the reason the show finally crowned a Black winner in Xavier Prather.
Coup d’État
The Coup d’État (also called the Wizard Power) allows the holder to void the HOH’s nominations at the eviction ceremony and put up two replacements of their own. Mike Boogie won it in BB7 by public vote and let it expire unused. Jeff Schroeder won it in BB11 and pulled the trigger, overturning Chima’s noms and sending Jessie home.
D
Diamond Power of Veto
The Diamond Power of Veto is a rare upgraded veto. It removes a nominee like the standard version, but the holder — not the HOH — names the replacement. That’s a much bigger deal than it sounds: it takes the week’s most important decision out of the HOH’s hands entirely.
Double Eviction
See how a double eviction works.
DR — Diary Room
The DR (Diary Room) is the soundproof room where houseguests talk to production. Never shown on the feeds. It’s where confessionals get recorded, and where producers ask leading questions until they get a usable soundbite.
E
Endurance Comp
An endurance comp is a hold-on-until-you-break competition — hanging from a wall, standing on a disc, gripping a button. These are the ones feed watchers pray for, because they can run for hours and the feeds usually come back partway through.
Eviction
The eviction is the Thursday live vote. Everyone except the HOH and the nominees votes to evict; the HOH only votes to break a tie.
Expulsion
An expulsion is removal from the game by production for breaking the rules, as opposed to being voted out. Rare, and always for something serious — violence, threats, or slurs.
F
F2 / F3
F2 and F3 stand for final two and final three. You’ll see these constantly in feed updates and on social — “he’s got an F2 with Drew” means a two-person deal to sit together at the end.
Fast Forward
A Fast Forward is an entire week’s game compressed into one live hour. See double eviction.
Fauxmance
A fauxmance is a showmance that isn’t real — manufactured for camera time, for game cover, or out of sheer boredom. Earliest use on record is Will on the BB7 broadcast, describing his own with Janelle. The feeds usually make these obvious within about a week. See showmances and flirtmances.
Feeds / Live Feeds
The Live Feeds are the 24/7 cameras inside the house. There are four selectable camera views plus a multi-view, drawn from dozens of cameras and mics wired through the house. Feeds cut during competitions, ceremonies, and anything production would rather save for the broadcast — everything else is fair game.
Feedster
A feedster is someone who watches the feeds, not just the episodes. If you’re reading this site, that’s probably you.
Final 3
The Final 3 are the last three standing. They play a three-part HOH competition; the winner picks who they sit beside in the final two and personally evicts the third.
Fish / FOTH
Fish refers to the short feed cut. When production needs the feeds down for a moment rather than an hour, you get a holding card — historically a fish tank with music over it, which is where the name stuck. In recent seasons it’s often just a logo. FOTH stands for “front of the house,” from the exterior shot they used to cut to instead. A quick cut like this usually means somebody started singing, said a name they shouldn’t have, or got called to the Diary Room. For the long blocks, see Trivia.
Flashback
Flashback is the feed rewind function. It’s why timestamped updates exist: we tell you exactly when something happened so you can jump back and watch it yourself.
Flirtmance
A flirtmance is sustained flirting that never becomes a relationship inside the house. Will drew the line himself on the BB7 broadcast on 3 September 2006 — “flirtmance is kind of like a showmance, but it’s just flirting” — and the definition has held ever since. The house is usually convinced a flirtmance is a showmance. The house is usually wrong.
Floater
A floater is a houseguest with no fixed alliance who drifts toward whoever holds power that week. Used as an insult by whoever’s currently losing. Used as a strategy by several people who’ve won.
Floatmance
A floatmance is a pairing with a floater. Earliest use on record is Ian in BB14, about his own one-sided attachment to Ashley: “Nobody gets between me and my floatmance.” He voted her out shortly afterwards.
Froot Loop Dingus
A Froot Loop Dingus is a non-serious insult coined by Zach Rance in BB16 and adopted permanently by the fandom.
G
Gingermance
A gingermance is a bromance between two redheads. Coinage credit goes to Candice in BB15, describing Andy and Spencer at about one in the morning.
Golden Veto
The Golden Veto is the standard weekly veto, as opposed to any special twist version. See Veto.
Goodbye Messages
Goodbye Messages are short pre-taped clips each houseguest records for whoever is about to be evicted, played for the evictee after they leave. Once jury starts, these are dangerous — an honest goodbye message has cost people the game.
H
Have-Not
A Have-Not is a houseguest assigned that week’s punishment: cold showers, uncomfortable beds in the have-not room, and nothing to eat but slop. Abbreviated HN. Breaking have-not rules can earn a penalty vote.
HOH Lockdown
See lockdown.
HOH Monitor
See Spy Screen.
HOH TV
See Spy Screen.
HOH — Head of Household
The HOH is the week’s power position. The HOH is safe from eviction and names the nominees, which makes them the single most important person in the house for seven days.
What the HOH does:
- Nominates. Names the houseguests who’ll face eviction that week.
- Names the replacement. If the veto gets used, the HOH picks who goes up in the saved player’s place — the mechanic that makes a backdoor possible.
- Breaks ties. The HOH doesn’t vote at eviction unless the house splits evenly.
- Always plays for veto. The reigning HOH gets an automatic slot in the veto comp, which is how an HOH can end up winning their own veto.
HOHitis
HOHitis is the condition where a new HOH spends the entire week in a bathrobe, holds court in their room, and starts believing their own press. Often contagious to their closest allies.
Homance
A homance is a showmance the man in it refuses to call a showmance. Earliest use on record is Boogie on the BB7 broadcast, drawing a distinction between what he had with Erika and what everyone watching thought he had. The studio audience booed.
J
Jury
The Jury consists of the evicted houseguests — usually the last seven or nine — who are sequestered together and come back at the finale to vote for the winner. Once jury starts, every eviction creates a voter.
Jury Management
Jury Management is the art of taking credit for your moves without making the people you cut hate you personally. Players who ignore it win competitions and lose finales.
K
Key Wheel / Nomination Box
The Key Wheel is the mechanism at the nomination ceremony. The HOH loads the keys of everyone who’s safe and pulls them one at a time; whoever’s left without a key is nominated. In older seasons it was a large rotating wheel, which is why you’ll still hear “key wheel.”
L
Live Show
The Live Show is the Thursday broadcast, where the eviction happens live and the next HOH comp usually starts before the hour is up.
Lockdown
See what is a lockdown.
Luxury Comp
A Luxury Comp is a competition for a prize rather than power — a trip, a shopping spree, a movie screening. No game impact, but the feeds are usually excellent afterward.
M
Meat Shield
A meat shield is a strong competitor you keep around specifically because the house will target them before they target you. Useful right up until they win the veto at the wrong moment.
Memory Wall
The Memory Wall is the wall of houseguest photos in the kitchen. When someone’s evicted, their picture turns black and white. Houseguests stare at it constantly doing vote math.
Mist
Named for Dan Gheesling, the mist occurs when a houseguest has been so thoroughly manipulated that they’ll defend the person cutting their throat.
N
Nervousing
Nervousing describes a nominee who copes by doing far too much — campaigning to people who already told them yes, reopening settled conversations, following allies from room to room. Coined for Cowboy in BB5.
Nightmance
A nightmance is a pairing that only exists after everyone else has gone to bed. Howard’s word for himself and Candice in BB15, offered as a correction to her snugglemance, in the same conversation.
No-Touch-mance
A no-touch-mance is a showmance where one person is entirely uninterested. Candice’s verdict on Ginamarie and Nick in BB15, delivered to Ginamarie’s face and not seriously disputed.
Nominations / Noms
Nominations are the HOH’s picks for eviction, announced at the nomination ceremony. Nominees can’t vote, and both are guaranteed a spot in the veto comp — which is precisely why backdoors exist.
O
OTB
OTB stands for On the block (nominated).
OTEV
OTEV is “Veto” spelled backwards, and a recurring late-season veto comp. A costumed character — a grumpy fish, a hot-tempered sea lion, whatever production dreamed up that year — sits at the top of a muddy slope, shouts a clue, and the houseguests slide down to find the matching answer buried at the bottom. Last one back gets eliminated, round by round, until one player is left.
P
Pandora’s Box
Pandora’s Box is a twist offered only to the HOH: open the door and something good happens to you while something bad happens to the house, or the reverse. Nobody is ever forced to open it, and somebody always opens it.
Pawn
A pawn is someone nominated purely to guarantee the other nominee’s eviction.
Penalty Vote
A penalty vote is a vote against you, imposed by production for breaking a rule — most often a have-not caught eating. In a close week it’s a death sentence.
Pregame
Pregaming is cast members talking and making deals before the season starts. Officially discouraged, widely suspected, occasionally confirmed after the fact.
Pressure Cooker
The Pressure Cooker is an endurance comp where houseguests keep one hand on a button in a cramped room while production makes conditions progressively worse.
Production
Production is the crew running the show. Houseguests talk to them constantly through the microphones, mostly to ask for cooking supplies.
Puppet Master
A puppet master is a houseguest running the house from behind the scenes — or one who’s convinced themselves they are, which is far more common.
R
Renom / Replacement Nominee
The renom is whoever the HOH puts up after the veto is used. The veto winner themselves can’t be named as the replacement.
Rulebook
The rulebook is the physical manual in the house covering game rules and house procedure. Someone always consults it after losing a comp.
S
Saboteur
The Saboteur was a BB12 twist where a secret houseguest was tasked with disrupting the house. It flopped almost immediately — the saboteur was the first person evicted.
Sequester
Sequester is isolation without phones or outside media. Happens before the season starts, and again for jury members after eviction.
Showmance
A showmance consists of two houseguests who get together inside the house. Sometimes real, frequently not, always a target — a pair that votes together is worth two of anyone else. Every one of them, season by season, is on our showmances and flirtmances page.
Showmantic
Showmantic is the adjective, and houseguests use it about the danger rather than the romance. Judd, in BB15: “that is why I don’t want to do the showmantic thing with Jessie, because I don’t want someone to put us up for that.” Helen, the same season, called it the most showmantic season ever — she counted six among sixteen players.
Slop
Slop is the oat-and-protein mixture have-nots live on all week. Houseguests attempt to bake with it. It never works.
Snugglemance
A snugglemance is what a houseguest calls their showmance when they would rather it were not called a showmance. Candice’s own downgrade of her pairing with Howard in BB15: “we’re not in a showmance, we’re in a snugglemance.”
Spy Screen
The Spy Screen is the screen in the HOH room that lets the Head of Household watch live camera views of the rest of the house — but not hear them. A fixture since the show’s early seasons. Production and the current cast tend to call the object the “HOH TV” or “HOH monitor”; the fandom long ago named what it’s actually for, and “spy screen” has stuck for twenty years.
It explains a recurring pattern in feed coverage that makes no sense otherwise: houseguests in the HOH room narrating who’s on screen, running roll calls of who’s missing, and guessing at conversations they can see but not hear. That’s the spy screen at work, not paranoia. Great for spotting who just walked into the kitchen together. Useless for finding out what they said, which is why HOHs spend the week guessing.
Stalkmance
A stalkmance is a one-sided pursuit that has stopped being funny. A viewer coinage from BB16, and the fandom has reached for it in most seasons since.
Steamroll
A steamroll is when one alliance controls every HOH and every vote and picks off everyone outside it. Efficient, dominant, and terrible television.
Storage Room
The Storage Room (SR) is where the food and supplies live, and — because it’s near-soundproof and people go in alone — where a lot of secret conversations and private celebration dances happen.
Stuntcast
A stuntcast is a houseguest cast for who they’re connected to rather than for who they are — a relative of a former player, or a name from another franchise.
Superfan
A superfan is someone who’s watched many seasons, follows the feeds, and knows the history. Roughly half the people who say it in the Diary Room have not.
T
Time Capsule
The Time Capsule is a fan-vote twist running over the opening weeks of BB28. Viewers vote a houseguest into an off-site solo competition where a pool of powers and punishments from past seasons is on the line. For a full breakdown of the powers, check out our complete Time Capsule Deep Dive
Trivia
Trivia refers to the long cut. When the feeds go down for hours rather than seconds — a competition, a ceremony, a lockdown while the backyard gets rebuilt — production puts up something you’re meant to sit through. For years that was Big Brother trivia questions cycling on screen, which is where the name came from. More recently the long blocks have run adoptable shelter animals instead. Either way it tells you nothing except that something is happening, which is somehow worse.
Twin Twist
The Twin Twist featured identical twins secretly swapping in and out of the house to pass as one player. Run in BB5 with Adria and Natalie, and again in BB17 with Liz and Julia.
Twist
A twist is any production-added wrinkle to the standard format. The hit rate is not good, but the ones that land tend to define their season.
V
Veto / POV — Power of Veto
The Power of Veto (POV) is the week’s second major power, played after nominations. Six houseguests compete: the HOH, the nominees, and the rest drawn at random. The holder can remove one nominee from the block, or leave nominations alone.
The holder is safe for the week — unless they’re somehow the only person left eligible to be the replacement. And if they let the deadline pass without deciding, it counts as unused.
Veto Ceremony
The Veto Ceremony is where the veto holder announces their decision. If they use it, the HOH names the replacement on the spot. Nominations aren’t locked until this ceremony ends, which is why “who’s the target” and “who’s actually going home” can be two different answers.
W
Waffle Wednesday
Waffle Wednesday is the day before eviction, when the house second-guesses a decision it settled on days earlier. Twenty scenarios get run. The vote almost always ends up where it started.
Wall Comp
The Wall Comp is the endurance classic — houseguests strapped to a wall on a narrow ledge that tilts, while they get sprayed with something cold and sticky. Last one hanging wins.
Wall Yeller
A Wall Yeller is a fan shouting information over the backyard wall, usually to warn a houseguest they’re being played. It used to be banner planes. Now it’s bullhorns. It’s also the fastest way to get the feeds shut down for a full day, so the fandom has mixed feelings.
WBRB
WBRB stands for “We’ll Be Right Back” — the wording on the card that replaces the feeds when production cuts them. Feed watchers use it as a verb: the feeds “went WBRB” the second the conversation got good.
Z
Zingbot
Zingbot is a robot who turns up to host a veto comp and roast every remaining houseguest. Debuted in BB10 and became an annual fixture. Most players take it well. The ones who don’t provide the better feeds.
Common questions
What are the basic rules of Big Brother?
A group of strangers live in a sealed house with no contact with the outside world. Each week they compete for Head of Household; the winner nominates houseguests for eviction. A Power of Veto competition follows, and the veto holder can pull one nominee off the block, forcing a replacement. On Thursday, everyone who isn’t nominated or HOH votes to evict, and one person leaves. Repeat until two remain — at which point the evicted jury members vote for the winner, who takes the grand prize.
Why do the feeds cut out?
Production blocks the feeds during competitions, ceremonies, and Diary Room sessions so results aren’t spoiled before broadcast. They’ll also cut for singing copyrighted songs, medical situations, and anything legally awkward.
Can the HOH vote?
Only to break a tie. Nominees can’t vote at all.
What’s the difference between the episodes and the live feeds?
The episodes are three heavily edited hours a week built around a storyline. The feeds are everything else — the strategy, the arguments, the alliances forming at 3am, and the reasons behind votes the edit never bothers to explain. They frequently look like two different shows.