“RIP” can mean a few different things, depending on context:

  • Most commonly, RIP is an abbreviation for “Rest in Peace,” used when talking about someone who has died or in reaction to something unfortunate (for example, “My phone fell in the water, RIP my phone”).
  • As a regular English word, “rip” means to tear or split something quickly and often violently, like “rip the paper in half.”
  • In internet and gaming slang, “rip” is often used almost like “oops, that’s dead/ruined/over,” reacting to a failure, defeat, or bad outcome.
  • In computing/media, “to rip” can also mean copying audio or video from a CD or DVD onto a computer.

So when you see “rip” online, it usually means either “Rest in Peace” or a casual way of saying something is done/ruined, and the exact meaning comes from the situation it’s used in.