cuz

noun

a friend or acquaintance; a form of address

What does cuz mean?

Cuz is a term used to refer to a friend or acquaintance. It can be likened to the term bro.

Examples of cuz

“What happened was my daughter, who didn’t know that I had already run a background check on her boyfriend, he comes to the crib and Snoop [Dogg] happens to be there. I said, ‘Snoop there he is right there. Shake him up,” [Jamie] Foxx told [Jimmy] Fallon. “Snoop walked over to my daughter’s boyfriend and just said, ‘Hey what’s up? What’s up cuz. Hey, look here you know. We [are] her uncles, you know what I’m saying. So act accordingly homie.’”

—Ryan Shepard, iheart.com, 16 Oct. 2021

Where does cuz come from?

Cuz has been used as a shortening of the word cousin since at least the 16th century; however, the current slang sense has origins in African American English. Use of cuz to refer to a male friend or acquaintance can be traced back to African American speech communities and began appearing in print in the early 1960s. The term’s use as a form of address is attributed to its use among members of the Los Angeles Crips gang. Cuz is also frequently used in rap or hip-hop lyrics, which may be contributing to its increasing popularity.