Sus If you’ve been on the internet lately or spent time with a teenager, you might have heard them call something “sus,” which is shorthand for “suspicious” or “suspect.” Something or someone is “sus” if it or they seem dishonest or untrustworthy.
While the prevalent use of “sus” is a relatively recent phenomenon, the term itself, used to describe untrustworthy things, long predates the internet. People have used the idiomatic expression “suss out” to describe obtaining the truth from someone for decades. You’ve likely heard it from popular crime shows on television.
In fact, the first definition of “sus” on the online slang repository Urban Dictionary dates back all the way to 2003. This means that people have been using this term online for a while. So why has it become such a culturally significant word on the internet? It’s because of a viral video game called Among Us.