TL;DR or tl;dr, short for "too long; didn't read", is internet slang often used to introduce a summary of an online post or news article. [1] It is also used as an informal interjection commenting that a block of text has been ignored due to its length. [1]
The phrase dates back to at least 2002. [2] [3] [4] According to the Oxford English Dictionary , its earliest known use was in a 2002 message posted on the Usenet newsgroup rec.games.video.nintendo . [2] In 2009, the term appeared in Mo' Urban Dictionary: Ridonkulous Street Slang Defined, a publication based on online crowdsourced slang database Urban Dictionary. [5] Also in 2009, it was listed as a slang acronym in David Pogue's tweet anthology World According to Twitter . [6] The term was added to the Oxford Dictionaries Online in 2013. [1]
TL;DR, abbrev.: 'too long didn't read': used as a dismissive response to a lengthy online post, or to introduce a summary of a lengthy post.