типа (tipa)

What it means

1. 1.

   Like; sort of. Hedges an approximation — типа того, 'something like that' — and introduces reported speech exactly as English 'like' does: он типа не знал.

2. 2.

   Also marks scepticism: он типа врач means 'he's supposedly a doctor', with the speaker declining to vouch for it.

Literally: of the type of

Examples with translations

• Он типа занят был.

  He was supposedly busy.

• Да, типа того.

  Yeah, something like that.

Where it comes from

The genitive of тип 'type', originally a proper preposition meaning 'of the kind of'. Its collapse into a filler happened in the late twentieth century and is still resented by prescriptivists.

Other forms

Romanised as:

tipa