kayfabe

noun

kay·​fabe ˈkā-ˌfāb 

1

: the tacit agreement between professional wrestlers and their fans to pretend that overtly staged wrestling events, stories, characters, etc., are genuine

There have been some wild storylines and matches throughout the history of wrestling and wrestlers will do almost anything not to break kayfabe.

—complex.com

… for at least 50 years "kayfabe" has referred to the unspoken contract between wrestlers and spectators: We'll present you something clearly fake under the insistence that it's real, and you will experience genuine emotion. Neither party acknowledges the bargain, or else the magic is ruined.

—Nick Rogers

Inside the wrestling world, breaking the dramatic fourth wall was forbidden. The wrestlers had a code for staying in character. They called it "kayfabe." All the contrived rivalries and storylines fell within kayfabe.

—David Giddens

broadly : tacit agreement to behave as if something is real, sincere, or genuine when it is not

There is more than a little kayfabe at play in this indignant back and forth about scheduling. A $600 billion, bipartisan package is not going to live or die because people couldn't resolve their differences about whether to hold a procedural vote on a Wednesday or the following Monday …

—Jim Newel

2

: the playacting involved in maintaining kayfabe

With pro wrestling, separating reality from kayfabe can always be difficult.

—Joseph Zucker

Examples of kayfabe in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

When conflict boosted by spectators and fueled by posturing in music reaches law enforcement and judiciary radars, there’s no guarantee the understanding of intent and tradition that tells listeners how much of a rapper’s grit is kayfabe will hold. —Craig Jenkins, Vulture, 1 Nov. 2024

Even after being in an entirely different outfit, and clearly showering, Chelsea still (kayfabe) smells bad. —Alfred Konuwa, Forbes, 11 Oct. 2024

The most obvious example of this mercurial bond is kayfabe, performers’ efforts to present everything that happens in the ring as 100% true and spectators’ agreement to accept this, but in reality the phenomenon goes far beyond the squared circle. —Sarah Kurchak, TIME, 26 Sep. 2024

The gals are masters of keeping the mask firmly on, brawling a whole kayfabe fight on camera that has little to nothing to do with the real interpersonal conflicts happening behind the scenes. —Olivia Crandall, Vulture, 24 Jan. 2024

Housewives’ dedication to the dramatic narrative is similar to the professional-wrestling concept of kayfabe, wherein wrestlers perform staged events in the ring and rivalries outside of it as reality. —Olivia Crandall, Vulture, 24 Jan. 2024

These tough-as-nails broads don’t break kayfabe for anything. —Olivia Crandall, Vulture, 24 Jan. 2024

These days, where content is king, breaking kayfabe is just as honored a tradition as protecting it was during Slaughter’s prime years in the ‘70s and ‘80s. —Alfred Konuwa, Forbes, 1 Mar. 2024

Punk name-dropped his wife (ex-WWE Divas champion AJ Lee) to a healthy pop, and alluded to his (kayfabe) issues with Seth Rollins. —Alfred Konuwa, Forbes, 29 Nov. 2023

Word History

Etymology

of obscure origin

Note: Given that kayfabe may deliberately have been coined to be as opaque as possible, it is not surprising that the etymology of this word is obscure. The attempt to explain it as a permutation of "be fake"—by turning fake into Pig Latin akefay and then reshuffling the letters?—is not convincing. The initial kay could be a clipping of a Pig Latin word, but as the identity of the source word is unknown, this conjecture leads nowhere. Oxford English Dictionary, third edition, finds the earliest citation to be from an issue of the Wrestling Observer Newsletter, yearbook for 1988, p. 81. The word is unquestionably older, however. Note that a letter to the sports editor of the Chicago Tribune (May 4, 1971, p. 51) concerning a fight between Dick the Bruiser and Angelo Poffo is signed "Mark Kayfabe," a name presumably made up from mark "the victim of a con" and kayfabe.

First Known Use

1988, in the meaning defined at sense 1