推し (oshi)

What it means

1. 1.

   Your favourite — the member of a group, the character or the performer you personally back and promote.

2. 2.

   推し活 is the activity built around them: going to shows, buying merchandise, organising your calendar around their releases.

Examples with translations

• 私の推し、今日誕生日なんだ。

  It's my favourite's birthday today.

• 推し活のために働いてる。

  I work to fund my fandom, basically.

Where it comes from

From 推す, 'to push, to recommend, to back a candidate'. Idol fandom vocabulary from the 2000s that has gone fully mainstream — the 2021 novel 推し、燃ゆ won the Akutagawa Prize and put the word in every bookshop window.

Other forms

Romanised as:

oshi