The Eminem-inspired use of the word stan to describe hyper-devoted fans has been added to Merriam-Websters dictionary.
The casual use of stan famously comes from Eminem and Didos hit 2000 song of the same name, in which the rapper weaves a harrowing yarn about an obsessive fan trying to get his attention. Nas helped spread the term, rhyming in his 2001 diss track against Jay-Z Ether, You a fan, a phony, a fake, a pussy, a Stan. His is the first recorded usage of stan as a label (and a pejorative one) for an obsessive fan rather than the name of the fan himself, as The Outline noted in 2017. Over the years, stan has morphed into a go-to slang term for diehard fans and was added to the Oxford English Dictionary in 2017.
Merriam-Webster have now entered the word into their dictionary as both a noun and a verb. As a noun, stan is defined as an extremely or excessively enthusiastic and devoted fan, while as a verb its defined as to exhibit fandom to an extreme excessive degree.
As an example of how the word can be used, Merriam-Websters even plucked a line from a piece written by Rolling Stones Alan Sepinwall: On the drama side, Game of Thrones returns after its own year off, but for an abbreviated season that even the most die-hard Westeros stans seemed lukewarm about.
Stan was one of 640 new words added to Merriam-Websters dictionary this month. Other new entries include EGOT (the accomplishment of winning an Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, and Tony Award in ones lifetime), on-brand (appropriate to, typical of, consistent with, or supportive of a particular brand or public image or identity) and swole (extremely muscular)