Gank

Gank is when multiple players gang up on a single player in a game and kill him. Players may do it for strategic purposes and/or to just irritate the player, aka griefing.

Gank comes from the combination of "gang" and "kill," and comes from the age-old "strength in numbers" strategy that transcends competitive games. However, it didn't receive the "gank" label until the early-2000s when online gaming began to increase in popularity.

It may be performed in any multiplayer game but is commonly used in MOBA games like Dota 2 and League of Legends (LoL). It is also done in MMORPG games like World of Warcraft (WoW).

While it is a useful strategy for prevailing in matches, some players do it just to make other players angry. Kind of like older brothers ganging up on the youngest sibling.

To gank can mean to steal, rob, cheat, or con. Typically, however, people use this version of gank to mean steal. For example, if a friend says "I ganked twenty bucks from my mom," it means they stole 20 dollars from their mother.

After becoming popular via various 1980s and 90s hip-hop songs, gank entered mainstream slang lexicons. Thus, gank is yet another example of a slang term that began as part of AAVE.