# stan

Pronunciation: say "STAN" /stæn/

## Noun

1. An admirer whose devotion to a person, group, character, or creative work reaches obsessive extremes, especially in unhealthy or intrusive ways. *(slang)*
   - Simple: A fan who is very obsessed with a celebrity, group, or character, sometimes in an unhealthy way.
   - _The band's most devoted stans camped outside the venue for three days._
   - _He's a hardcore stan who defends the singer against any criticism online._
3. A country whose name ends in '-stan,' such as Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, or Kazakhstan, often one of the former Soviet republics. *(colloquial)* (pronounced: US say "STAN" /stæn/; UK say "STAHN" /stɑːn/)
   - Simple: A country whose name ends in '-stan,' such as Uzbekistan, often once part of the Soviet Union.
   - _She's visited every stan except Turkmenistan._
   - _Travel writers often lump the stans together, ignoring how different they are._

## Verb

2. To be an intensely devoted fan of a person, group, or work; more loosely, to declare strong liking or support for someone or something, as in 'we stan'. *(slang)*
   - Simple: To be a huge fan of someone or something, or just to say you really like or support them.
   - _Half my friends stan the same K-pop group and argue about it constantly._
   - _She doesn't just like the show; she stans it and defends every plot twist online._

## Origin

**Meanings 1–2** — Named after Stan (short for Stanley), the fictional, obsessively devoted fan who writes to the rapper in Eminem's 2000 song "Stan." The name is sometimes understood as combining "stalker" and "fan," though it may simply have been selected for the rhyme.
**Meaning 3** — Formed as a back-formation from the suffix '-stan.'

Source: DictionaryAI, https://dictionaryai.com/define/stan (written from Wiktionary data, CC BY-SA 4.0: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/).