gönn dir

What it means

1. 1.

   Treat yourself; go on, you've earned it. Said to encourage someone to indulge — the second dessert, the expensive trainers, the day off.

2. 2.

   Said flatly and without an object, it is a dry blessing on someone else's excess: roughly 'you do you'. Whether it is warm or mocking is carried entirely by tone.

Literally: Grant yourself (it).

Examples with translations

• Noch ein Stück Kuchen? Gönn dir!

  Another slice of cake? Go for it.

• Er hat sich den ganzen Tag freigenommen. — Gönn dir.

  He took the whole day off. — Fair enough, honestly.

Where it comes from

The ordinary reflexive verb sich etwas gönnen, 'to allow oneself something', clipped to an imperative. It spread through German rap around 2013–14 — the noun Gönnung, coined in that scene, is the giveaway — and was a Youth Word of the Year nominee. Unlike most words from that moment it survived, though it now reads as millennial rather than teenage.

First attested: around 2013