Cock carousel

Term used to describe what incels think that women do before they eventually settle down. "Riding the cock carousel" is a common phrase on incel forums. The idea is that women want to have sex with as many "high quality" men as possible, moving from one to another quickly and without thought.

Cope

The blackpill says that there can be no personal solutions to structural problems, and so no amount of working out, dieting, showering and self-improvement can improve the lot of the incel. Anything that they attempt to do is necessarily a "cope" - a temporary way of making themselves feel better about their situation. This mindset becomes self-perpetuating, as it leads to thinking that any path to self-improvement is ultimately doomed, and therefore there is no need to try.

Cuck

A man whose wife/girlfriend is having sex with another man. There are racial overtones, with the word often referring specifically to women cheating with black men. There are also BDSM-like connotations, as the man supposedly gets off on the humiliation. I explore the origins and spread of the term in much more detail in this post.

Currycel

Man who is involuntarily celibate because he is of Indian or similar descent. See ricecel for further discussion.

ER - Elliot Rodger

The man who shot and killed multiple people in Isla Vista, California, in 2014. He left a manifesto which blamed women for rejecting him for causing him to commit murder. A similar motive was given by Alek Minassian, who is accused of ten counts of murder for driving a van along a pavement in Toronto. Incels will often say that women could have prevented these murders if they had given the men what they wanted. Known as "Saint Elliot" and made a martyr on incel forums.

Fakecel

Someone who is not a "real" incel. They might actually have had sex, invalidating their incel status. They might be a "volcel", meaning that they could have sex but are choosing not to. They might be pretending that they're an incel whilst actually having a wife or a girlfriend. They might be a woman, whom most incels claim cannot really be incel, because all women could have sex if they wanted it. Fakecels are often men who are trying to elicit a response from other incels - e.g. handsome men who claim to be incel.

Femoid ("foid")

Term used to describe women. Usually "female humanoid (organism)", sometimes "female android". Regardless, it's used to indicate that women aren't fully human, and are either sub-human or "other". Often used in conjunction with the pronoun "it" to further dehumanise women.

Some incels further corrupt this to "void", and there are proposals to shorten it to just "v", though this hasn't (as yet) caught on.

Fuel

e.g. suicide fuel, life fuel. Posts that provoke particular emotions in users.

Gymcel

An incel who copes by going to the gym. Unlike MRAs and redpill users, for whom getting built is a way out of their beta status and a potential path to overcoming their predicament, an incel who goes to the gym is still an incel, and will always be an incel. Gymming is a cope which can make them happier but will never allow them to change the fundamental fact of their incel status.

Heightcel

An incel who is incel because they are short. As with many other attributes, incels talk about height as determinative of sexual success. There are numerous threads on incel forums which present evidence from various studies to demonstrate the positive effect on life outcomes that height has. Height, much like race or bone structure, is seen as immutable and therefore a fundamental obstacle to incels becoming non-incel. See for example this thread, in which a user references a Psychology Today article as proof that "There are millions of ugly tallfags who are able to freely get fresh pussy due to their height being 6'2+". Another user follows up that "if you're tall you're a volcel (voluntarily celibate). Hundred fucking percent", indicating that for heightcels, tall men are simply not incel because they could have sex.

Hypergamy

A term borrowed from biology used to describe the phenomenon of females mating with males of higher status. MRAs and incels apply it to humans, arguing that women attempt to find men who are higher status than themselves. This gives birth to what they call the 80:20 rule: that the top 20% of men are being competed for by the top 80% of women, and the bottom 80% of men are competing for the bottom 20% of women. They back this up with evidence of various kinds, for example this "study on the sexual market of Tinder", where the author uses a small number of interviews conducted over Tinder to indicate the rate at which women swipe right on men.

Incel

Involuntarily celibate. Originally coined by a Canadian feminist, the term has come to be used almost exclusively by men (to the extent that one of the main rules on incel forums is that "no females" are allowed membership). The term describes someone who wants to have sex, but cannot, due to reasons beyond their control. There are fiery disputes over who is and is not a truecel (true incel), and who is a volcel or fakecel (that is, they could have sex if they wanted to, or are pretending to be incel). Incels are defined by the blackpill mentality, which says that no amount of effort put into self-improvement can alter their fate. See for example the recent post below which demonstrates what might be called "mandibular determinism", or the idea that bone structure is determinative of life outcome for men.

The suffix -cel can be added to any word (as evidenced by words like gymcel and wristcel). A prominent example is wagecel, which likely came from the combination of "incel" and "wageslaving". This plays into the common theme that many incels are NEETs, or "Not in Education, Employment or Training". Employment is not always viewed positively amongst the community.