Plain-language definitions for the Tekken vocabulary you'll meet in guides, frame data, and match talk. Inputs use western notation (df+2, 1+2); the notation guide covers that. Everything here is written for Tekken 8. Where it differs from Tekken 7, that's called out.

The basics: attack heights & pokes

High / mid / low — the three attack heights. A high is blocked standing and whiffs entirely on a crouching opponent, so it can be ducked and whiff-punished. A mid hits standing and crouching but can only be blocked standing. A low hits standing and crouching but can only be blocked crouching (hold down-back). Holding back stops highs and mids; down-back stops lows. T8 also has special mids, blockable standing or crouching and not low-parryable.
Jab — your fastest attack: the standing 1, an i10 high, about +1 on block and +8 on hit. The 2 is the slightly slower right jab. Being a high, it whiffs on a crouching opponent. Used to interrupt, check, and start offense.
Dickjab — slang for the crouch jab d+1: a fast i10 punch thrown from a slight crouch that low-profiles (high-crushes) under highs. In Tekken 8 it's a special low, not a mid. Blockable standing or crouching, but low-parryable. A quick interrupt or check. (Careful: a few players loosely call the df+1 mid a "dickjab" too. The one that isn't a mid is d+1.)
Poke — a fast, safe, low-damage move used to chip, check movement, and hold space rather than to launch. "Safe" means not punishable when blocked: −9 or better, since the fastest punishing move is the i10 jab. A −10 to −14 move is jab-punishable, which is "safe from launch," not safe. Classic pokes: 1 and df+1.
Special low — a low you can block standing as well as crouching. Standing block covers it, so it's weak as a conditioning tool, but it counts as a low for everything else: a low parry catches it, and anything that jumps lows jumps it. Kazuya's d+1 is one. The mirror of the special mid above.

Attack types & properties

Magic 4 — nickname for the standing 4, a high kick that historically launched on counter-hit for a cheap whiff-punish. Tekken 8 heavily nerfed that near-universal CH launch; most characters lost it or had it slowed. Lee is the notable holdout, with a true i11 CH-launch magic 4.
Homing move — an attack that tracks a sidestep in both directions, so neither side escapes it, and re-orients you toward the opponent. The answer to defensive stepping. T8 flags them with a contrail on the move and a loop-arrow icon in the movelist. Homing doesn't mean safe: a homing high can still be ducked.
Power crush — an armored move that absorbs incoming highs and mids once its armor kicks in a few frames into startup, so it plows through pressure instead of being interrupted. It does not armor lows, throws, or unblockables, and a throw landed on any frame of a T8 power crush is unbreakable. In T8 the absorbed damage becomes recoverable health.
Counter-hit (CH) — hitting the opponent during their own move's startup, usually because they pressed while at minus. Many moves gain bonus damage, stun, or a guaranteed launch only on counter-hit, and frame data lists a separate CH column for it.
Clean hit — a range-based bonus on certain moves: connect at near point-blank and you get extra damage or a stronger property, announced by a "CLEAN HIT" banner. It's about distance, which makes it a different thing from a counter-hit. Paul's Deathfist (qcf+2) is the classic example.
String — a preset chain of hits from one command, e.g. 1,2,3. They vary wildly. Some are "natural," guaranteed once the first hit lands. Others have interruptible gaps, duckable highs, or delays that bait a press. Knowing which is which is core defense.
Throw / command grab — an unblockable grab you have to break ("tech") with the matching input. 1+3 breaks with 1, 2+4 breaks with 2, 1+2 throws break with 1+2. You must match the arm, and you get one guess in a ~20-frame window. Command grabs use special motions and have their own breaks. Standing throws whiff on a crouching opponent.
Mixup / 50-50 — options that have to be defended differently (classically mid-vs-low, or strike-vs-throw), forcing a guess. T8's heat engagers manufacture especially strong, often forced 50-50 pressure.

Signature lows & launchers

Snake edge — a deliberately slow, reactable sweeping low, roughly i23–30, that scores a hard knockdown (often a full launch) on hit and sits hugely minus on block: around −26, a guaranteed launch punish. It is meant to be blocked on reaction. Bryan's df+3 is the archetype; the word is now generic slang for any slow "stagger low."
Hellsweep — the signature Mishima low (the "Spinning Demon"), done out of a crouch dash as f,n,d,df+4 (Kazuya, Devil Jin, Reina, Heihachi…). Unlike a snake edge it's fast and effectively unreactable, so it has to be guessed. On hit it knocks down or launches. On block it's heavily punishable, around −23. It's the low half of the Mishima wavedash mixup, opposite the Electric.
Hopkick — a jumping kick, almost always uf+4. It's a mid and it launches on normal hit. It goes airborne, so it low-crushes (evades lows), but it's usually unsafe on block. Staple anti-low and whiff-punish launcher.
Launcher — any move that puts the opponent airborne and opens a juggle. The launch hit lands at full damage; everything after it is reduced by combo scaling.

The Tekken 8 systems

Heat — T8's signature offensive resource, with no T7 equivalent: a blue gauge under the health bar, granted once per round. Enter it with a Heat Burst (2+3) or a character's Heat Engager. While it's active your attacks deal recoverable chip damage and some moves gain new properties. The gauge runs about ten seconds, and the timer pauses while the opponent is being hit.
Heat Engager — a character-specific move that activates heat on hit, rushes you in, restores a little chip health, and leaves you well plus and point-blank. Can be cancelled into a Heat Dash by holding forward.
Heat Dash — cancels a heat engager into a forward rush (hold f), spending the whole gauge. On hit it converts to a juggle. On block it leaves you around +5 and point-blank for a mixup.
Heat Smash — each character's heat finisher (2+3 while in heat). Spends the whole gauge on a big, often armored attack, and ends heat. Same input as Heat Burst, opposite job: Burst starts heat, Smash spends it.
Tornado — T8's combo extender, the successor to T7's "Screw." Certain moves flip the airborne opponent higher into a landing state that extends the juggle, usable once per combo. Can re-scoop a wall-splatted opponent.
Rage — the returning comeback state at low health (~last 25%), health bar glowing red: +10% damage, much less chip taken, and access to the Rage Art. T7's Rage Drive was removed in T8; Heat fills that role.
Rage Art — the universal cinematic super, df+1+2, usable only in rage. Its first ~20 startup frames carry extra-strong armor that powers through strikes, lows, and throws. It does more damage the lower your health, and it's −18 on block. Using it ends rage.
Chip / recoverable damage — the grey portion of the life bar: health you've lost but can win back by staying on offense. "Chip" is the block and heat damage that feeds it, and it's non-fatal, so it can't land the killing blow. Landing a Rage Art wipes the opponent's grey health.

Defense: parries, sabaki & reversals

These three get conflated constantly. They're distinct mechanics.

Parry — a purely defensive input that only deflects a strike. No attack of its own, no scripted grab. The universal low parry, tap df as a low connects, is available to everyone and deals no damage itself; in T8 it flips the opponent into a tornado for a scaled, grey-life punish, where T7 gave a full combo. A nerf. Only lows can be low-parried. A few characters (Jin, Leroy) also have their own strike parries against highs and mids that leave them at advantage.
Sabaki — an attack with a parry/deflect window built into its own startup. It comes out regardless, but if it catches a qualifying hit it flows straight into a launch, combo, or throw. Dragunov b+3+4, Asuka f+2+3/b+2+3. Because it swings anyway it's harder to punish than a pure parry, and in T8 a throw landed inside a sabaki's window is unbreakable.
Attack reversal — a character-specific input, usually b+1+3 for punches and b+2+4 for kicks, that catches the opponent's attacking limb and runs a scripted counter: a throw, a launch, or a side-switch. It whiffs into recovery if it catches nothing. T8 owners include Nina, King, Asuka, and Jun, and coverage varies — Asuka and Jun catch punches and kicks. Don't lump Paul in here; his b+1+2 is a punch parry. Reversals can't catch lows, throws, non-limb hits (knees, elbows, headbutts), airborne moves, or Reversal-Break moves, and in T8 they deal grey, recoverable damage.
Reversal break — a Tekken 8 move property carried by Rage Arts, Heat Smashes, and power crushes that have absorbed a hit. It ignores all parries, sabaki, attack reversals, and armor, Rage Art armor excepted. The designed answer to reversal-heavy defense.
Chicken — the attacker's escape from being reversed (f+1+3 / f+2+4, timed to the catch) in Tekken 7 and earlier. Removed in Tekken 8. The counterplay to reversals is now Reversal-Break moves, throws, lows, and airborne hits.

Frame data

Startup (the i-number) — how many frames pass between the input and the move's first damaging frame, written with a leading i. i10 is ten frames, and lower is faster. It's the number that decides whether a punish or an interrupt fits in the window you have. A leading comma (,i16) means the count starts from the previous hit of a string, not from neutral.
Frame advantage — the frame difference between the two players' recovery after a move connects or is blocked. It decides whose next move comes out first. Plus means the attacker goes first, minus means the defender does. T8 runs at 60fps, so one frame ≈ 16.7ms.
Plus / minus on block — after a blocked move, plus (say +5) means you keep the initiative; minus (say −10) hands it to the defender. Rules of thumb: ~−10 is jab-punishable, ~−15 is launch-punishable, −9 or better is "safe."
Punish — a guaranteed hit while the opponent is stuck in recovery. A block punish lands on an unsafe blocked move. A whiff punish lands on a move that missed, and it's often the bigger reward, since Tekken launchers turn a whiff into a full combo.
Jail — a blocked string with no gap: the defender can't duck, step, or interrupt and has to keep blocking. It forces blocking, and that's all. It doesn't make the hits guaranteed damage.
Gap / frame trap — a gap is the interruptible frames between two blocked moves. A frame trap leaves that gap small enough that any button the opponent presses gets counter-hit. A zero-or-negative gap is a true jail.
Crush / i-frames — most Tekken "invincibility" is really crushing. High-crush ducks under highs; low-crush goes airborne over lows. (Power crush is armor, not invincibility: it still takes recoverable damage and it still loses to lows and throws.)
Block stun / hit stun — the locked recovery the defender is held in after blocking or being hit. How long it lasts against the attacker's own recovery is what produces a move's on-block and on-hit advantage.
Recovery — the frames the attacker stays locked in a move after it stops being able to hit anything. It's what makes a whiff punishable, and this site lists it beside the startup on a move's row. What you actually get for the whiff depends as much on how far you had to travel as on this number.
Pushback — how far a blocked move leaves the two of you apart. Frame advantage on its own doesn't tell you whether your punish reaches: a −13 that shoves you out to sweep range is a different problem from a −13 in your face. It's the usual reason a punish that fits the frame window whiffs anyway, and frame data doesn't record it.

Movement

Korean backdash (KBD) — chaining backdashes fluidly by cancelling each one's recovery with a brief down-back, which resets the lockout on the next backdash (b, b, db, b, db…). It also lets you block and whiff-punish between dashes. A core defensive skill.
Wavedash — an advancing technique that loops the crouch dash (f,n,d,df~f) to close distance while staying in crouch-dash state, from which the Electric and the hellsweep both threaten. It is the Mishima family's signature, and a crouch dash on its own is not enough: the loop needs the dash's recovery to cancel back into another dash, which some crouch dashes do not. Twelve characters own a crouch dash, and the frame data records where each one cancels TO without ever recording whether it cancels back into itself, so this site does not publish a list of who can loop it.
Electric Wind God Fist (EWGF) / "electric" — the just-frame Wind God Fist, f,n,d,df:2, with the df and 2 on the exact same frame. A very fast high launcher, so it can be ducked, and about +5 on block. Miss the timing and you get the ordinary Wind God Fist instead: ~−10, unsafe.
Crouch dash — the Mishima f,n,d,df step ("Wind God Step") that drops you into a crouch-dash state with access to EWGF, the hellsweep, and the rest. The building block the wavedash loops.
Backdash — a quick backward hop (b,b), the main defensive spacing and whiff-bait tool. A second backdash is locked out until the first recovers, and that lockout is what KBD works around.
Sidestep / sidewalk — a sidestep is a single step off the attack axis (u or d) to dodge linear moves. A sidewalk holds the direction and circles continuously. You can't block while stepping, and homing moves track both sides.
While standing (WS) — moves usable only in the brief window while rising from crouch, notated WS, e.g. WS2; the window is ~6 frames out of full crouch. Plenty of key crouch-punishers and uppercut launchers live here. Not the same as WR (While Running: f,f,F+button). See states & crouch tech below for how you get into it.
Tracking / linear — tracking is a move's ability to still hit someone who sidesteps. A move with poor tracking is called linear, and linear moves are what stepping exists to beat. Tracking is directional: a move can catch a step to one side and lose to the other, which is what separates it from homing. wavu publishes a tracking score on a small minority of moves, defined as the number of frames you can sidestep for and still get hit; it's measured from a standing start only and says nothing about the same move inside a string.
Step block — pressing back partway through a sidestep to regain guard, since you can't block while stepping. It's how you probe with movement without betting the round on the step working. The community rule of thumb is roughly twelve frames of step before the block, which creates whiffs against linear moves while still covering the ones that track.

Knockdown & okizeme

Knockdown (KND) — any state that puts a character on the ground and forces a getup choice. The grounded orientation (face-up/down, feet toward/away) gates which options and which grounded hits apply.
Okizeme ("oki") — wake-up offense: pressuring a downed or rising opponent with meaty timing, mixups, and setups while their options are limited.
Wakeup / getup options — the ways off the ground: quickrise (tap u, fast, no space), back-roll (hold b, most distance), side roll / tech roll (tap 1/2, safest), wake-up kicks (3/4, all unsafe on block), or staying down. Each trades speed, distance, and risk differently.
Tech roll / quickrise / ukemi — recovery options after a knockdown. A tech roll (tap 1/2 on landing; "ukemi") rolls you sideways with ~20 invincible frames, the safest getup. Quickrise (tap u) stands you straight up fast but creates no space.
Wall splat — slamming the opponent into a wall and pinning them there for a guaranteed follow-up. Caused by launchers and big-knockback hits into the wall. Jabs and downward crumples don't splat.
Wall carry — routing a combo so it moves the opponent toward a wall to finish with a splat. Players often trade raw damage for carry distance. T8's Tornado (against T7's Screw) makes carrying and re-splatting much easier.
Floor break / balcony break — breakable stage geometry that extends a combo by dropping the fighters to a lower area. T8 adds hard breaks (two hits), floor and wall blasts (relaunch, +5 damage), and wall bound.

Throws & the ground game

Tackle (Ultimate Tackle) — T8 removed the old universal "run in and tackle." The takedown survives as a command grab on a handful of characters, Paul and King among them. It mounts the opponent into a ground minigame: the attacker lands 1/2 mounted punches or branches into an arm bar (1+2) or leg hold (3+4), while the pinned player can break the tackle as it connects, overturn it as their back lands (flipping who's on top), parry mounted punches, and break the submissions. If you get tackled, mash the escape. Eating the full mount is the worst outcome on offer.
Ground game / hitting a downed opponent — okizeme against a knocked-down opponent, built on grounded hits (moves that connect on a lying opponent, flagged by a capitalized hit-letter on wavu, e.g. Devil Jin b+4) and ground throws. What connects depends on the opponent's downed orientation. The idea is to punish their wake-up choice instead of letting them recover for free.
Ground throw — a grab that connects on a downed opponent. Mostly a grappler thing, King especially. Some are breakable, eligibility depends on the opponent's orientation, and the damage is combo-scaled when used in a juggle.
Chain throw — a character-specific multi-throw (King, Nina, DLC Anna). Each link has its own break window, so you read the grabbing arm and break 1/2/1+2 link by link, not once for the whole chain.

States, stances & crouch tech

Ducking — crouching (hold or tap d/db) so highs whiff over you. The high-evading half of the crush system; jumping crushes lows. You can block lows but not mids while crouched, and a ducked high usually gives a guaranteed While-Standing punish.
Full crouch (FC) — the deepest crouch, entered after holding down ~11 frames. Only FC grants a character's "While Crouching" (FC-prefixed) moves. You duck highs, you can't block mids, and mid launchers hit clean.
Forced crouch — being pushed into crouch by a move that carries the property. Many downward mids and pokes do; it's written as a lowercase c on the frame data, e.g. -1c. You're stuck with crouch and WS options until you stand or crouch-cancel.
Instant While Standing (iWS) — an execution trick for firing a WS move as early as possible: dip to crouch and back to neutral (d~n) while buffering the button, timed to the first rising frame. Lets slow WS launchers threaten from a standing situation.
Crouch cancel (CC) — exiting crouch straight to standing without passing through WS, so you get a true standing move instead of the rising one, via an up-sidestep or a dash. The inverse of instant full crouch (iFC).
Hop — a short jump (tap uf), mainly to evade lows; any jump enters airborne "jump status," which low-crushes. A tapped hop lands standing. A held jump landed with down held recovers in full crouch, giving WS access on touchdown — the "jump → While Standing" behavior.
Backturned (BT) — back facing the opponent, whether from a move, a BT stance, or being spun. It unlocks BT-prefixed moves and a generic BT throw, but you cannot block until you turn around. A genuinely vulnerable state.
Airborne (juggle state) — knocked into the air by a launcher: you can't block or act, so you get juggled. Tornado extends it, once per combo, and each juggle hit is combo-scaled.
Grounded states (FUFT / FUFA / FDFT / FDFA) — a downed character faces Up or Down with Feet Toward or Away. The orientation decides which getups are viable (and their frames) and which ground hits and throws connect. FUFT recovers fastest and safest.
Character stances — special postures that unlock stance-only moves: Jin's ZEN, Xiaoyu's AOP, Steve's FLK, written as a 3-letter prefix, e.g. RFF b+4. A stance cancel exits early (hold back or crouch), which can change recovery and even make an otherwise-unsafe move safe.
Fuzzy guard — the answer to a string that branches into a fast high and a slower mid: duck briefly so the high whiffs, then be standing again in time to block the mid. One committed input covers both branches, which makes it an option select. It works because crouch state follows whether down is held instead of running a timed animation. Also called a flash duck or a fuzzy duck. How big the gap between the two branches has to be for this to work has never been measured for Tekken 8, so a tight one is a guess.

Neutral & strategy

Neutral — the even state: both players upright, neither attacking nor recovering, nobody holding frame advantage. The start of every exchange. Often modeled as rock-paper-scissors, where waiting beats attacking, keepout beats approach, and approach beats waiting.
Spacing / footsies — the mid-range battle for the space in front of you, fought with movement, pokes, and timing. Strictly, spacing is the range and positioning; footsies is the whole poking-and-baiting game. Tekken leans on backdash and sidestep to force whiffs.
Keepout — throwing a long, fast move into the space ahead to stop the opponent approaching. Beats rushdown, loses to patient whiff-punishing.
Whiff — an attack that misses entirely, leaving the attacker to eat its full recovery. Punishing whiffs, with Tekken's launchers, into a juggle, is a cornerstone of neutral.
Conditioning — repeating an action to train a predictable habit in the opponent (duck, block low, freeze), then breaking the pattern to punish it.
Matchup (MU) — how two specific characters fare against each other, often given as a ratio: 5-5 even, 6-4, 7-3. The ratios are community estimates, and matchup knowledge can swing the practical result by a rank or more.
Stagger pressure — offense built on deliberately varying or delaying your jab and string timing so the opponent can't cleanly interrupt, duck, or step, freezing them into frame traps and mixups. The standard answer is a fast crouch jab (d+1). (Don't confuse it with a counter-hit "stagger" stun, or with "stagger lows.")

Online

Plugging — intentionally disconnecting to dodge a loss ("pulling the plug"). T8 penalizes it: profiles show a disconnect rate, repeat offenders get funneled into "plugger-prison" matchmaking, and disconnecting now costs ranked points.

Tekken 8 glossary