What does "subtweet" mean?

A tweet that refers to another user without tagging their name in the message, so that the user being talked about is not automatically notified.

Subtweet

noun, verb

noun, verb ·Rare ·Advanced level

Noun

1
A tweet that refers to another user without tagging their name in the message, so that the user being talked about is not automatically notified.
"But it was also a subtweet, addressed to one person but meant for someone else entirely."
2
Any social media post of this type, regardless of which service it is posted on. broadly

Verb

1
To post a message of this kind.
"More often than not, they employed this term when referencing various teen dramas that occurred between friends and classmates that required insider knowledge to decode. In other words, teens subtweet to talk behind someone else's back."
2
To speak obliquely about (a person). broadly, transitive
"Schumer's remarks were oblique enough that no one will be able to say for sure whether he was subtweeting Trump."

"But it was also a subtweet, addressed to one person but meant for someone else entirely."

Blend of subliminal + tweet.

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.