Leet Speak Converter

Leet speak originated to bypass text filters and create insider language in hacker communities. Today it's primarily used in gaming culture for usernames and chat, in memes and internet humor, and for nostalgic or cyberpunk aesthetics in design and content.

The word "leet" comes from "elite," referring to elite hackers or skilled users in early internet communities. In leet speak, "elite" becomes "31337" or "1337" (leet), which became the name for this entire style of text substitution.

Modern content filters are generally sophisticated enough to detect common leet speak substitutions. While leet speak originated as a filter bypass technique, it's now primarily used for cultural and aesthetic purposes rather than evasion.

Basic leet uses simple number substitutions (a=4, e=3, o=0). Advanced leet adds more substitutions and uses symbols ($, @, |). Extreme leet uses multi-character combinations (M=|\/|) and may be nearly illegible to casual readers.

Paste leet speak into our converter and select the decode option. The tool recognizes common substitution patterns and converts them back to standard letters. Some ambiguous characters may have multiple interpretations.