Goblin Lingo & Gold-Making Glossary - A-Z

 Goblin Lingo & Gold-Making Glossary - A-Z

Gold making in World of Warcraft has its own slang. This GoblinCapital glossary collects the core terms you will see in guides, comments, and trade chat, and explains them in plain English so you can read faster and make better decisions.

2

·         2x4 - Two groups of four players used in some farms to maximize tagging/loot efficiency.

A

·         AH - Auction House.

·         AH alt - See Bank alt.

·         AH Cut - The fee/commission the AH takes from sales.

·         API - Blizzard's Community API used by tools/services to retrieve Auction House pricing data.

B

·         Baby goblin - A new gold-maker learning fundamentals.

·         Baiting - Posting a small amount cheaply to provoke competitors into posting low so you can buy their stock.

·         Bank alt (aka AH alt / banker / mule) - A character used primarily for storage, mail, and Auction House activity.

·         Banker - See Bank alt.

·         Barking - Repeatedly advertising items/services in trade chat to drive sales.

·         BoA - Bind on Account.

·         BoE - Bind on Equip.

·         BoP - Bind on Pickup.

·         Bots / Botting - Automated gameplay via third-party software (commonly discussed as a rules/policy issue).

·         Boost run / Carry run - Selling content clears (Mythic+, raid, arena, etc.) for gold.

C

·         CD (Cooldown) - A time gate on an action/craft that can't be repeated until it resets.

·         Camping - Sitting on a spot or watching a market for long periods to catch opportunities.

·         Commodity - Stackable goods traded in bulk (commonly referenced alongside LIFO behavior).

D

·         Dualboxing - Running more than one WoW client at once (often used interchangeably with multiboxing).

·         Dumping / Liquidating - Selling off an entire stock quickly (often to exit a market or avoid upcoming losses).

E

·         EN - Emerald Nightmare (raid abbreviation).

·         (Economy) Goblin - A gold-maker focused on system thinking: efficiency, pricing, inventory, and strategy.

F

·         Farming - Killing mobs / harvesting nodes to obtain valuable items/materials to sell.

·         Flipping - Buying low and reselling higher for profit.

G

·         Gold cap - The maximum amount of gold a single character can hold (limits can change over time).

·         GPH - Gold per hour.

H

·         Hopping / Server hopping - Changing shard/realm by joining groups to improve farming efficiency or refresh spawns.

·         Hyperspawn - Very fast mob respawns enabled by rapid killing (often paired with organized group farms).

K

·         k (kilo) - One thousand gold (e.g., 40k = 40,000g).

L

·         LF - Looking for.

·         LIFO - Last-in, first-out: at the same price, newer listings may sell first (commonly discussed for commodities).

M

·         M - One million gold (e.g., 2M = 2,000,000g).

·         Margin - Profit from selling an item (often expressed as a percentage).

·         Mats - Materials/reagents used to craft items.

·         Multiboxing - Running multiple WoW clients at once, often controlling multiple characters.

·         Mule - See Bank alt.

·         MV (Market Value) - A typical/reference value for an item's price.

·         Mog - See Tmog / Xmog.

N

·         Neat stacking - See Pretty stacking.

·         Nerf(ed) - A change that makes something worse or less profitable.

O

·         OBO - Or best offer.

·         Opportunity cost - The value of the best alternative you didn't choose (e.g., crafting uses mats you could've sold).

P

·         Pretty stacking - Buying uneven/'ugly' stacks and converting them into clean even stacks to resell (historically more relevant than in modern commodity systems).

·         Proc - Bonus items/outcomes generated via randomness in crafting (gold-making context).

·         PST - Please send tell (whisper).

R

·         Raw gold / Raw gold farm - Farming gold currency directly (vendor loot/quests/etc.) rather than selling items.

·         Reset (market reset) - Buying out an item's listings to repost at a higher price.

·         RNG - Random number generator; anything luck-based.

·         ROI - Return on investment (profit relative to total cost).

S

·         Shuffling - Converting/refining raw materials through professions into other items/materials for profit.

·         Sniping - Scanning the AH for mispriced listings to buy for profit (often via addons).

·         Stalking - Tracking competitors' activity (online/offline patterns, alt behavior, etc.).

·         Strings - Shared addon configuration/import text (commonly for pricing and operations).

·         Sunk cost - Time/gold already spent that can't be recovered.

·         Sunk cost fallacy - Continuing a losing strategy because you've already invested into it.

T

·         Tanked - A price that dropped sharply compared to earlier levels.

·         TCG - Trading Card Game loot-card items (often high-value).

·         Token - WoW Token (commonly discussed as a gold <-> game time / money <-> gold bridge).

·         ToV - Trial of Valor (raid abbreviation).

·         TSM - TradeSkillMaster (gold-making addon suite).

·         TUJ - The Undermine Journal (historically popular price-tracking resource).

·         Tmog / Xmog - Transmogrification items (cosmetic gear markets).

U

·         Undercut - Historically: post below the current lowest. Modern usage often overlaps with 'match price and repost to win sales,' especially in commodity conversations.

W

·         Walling / Flooding - Posting high volume at a set or reduced price to control a price level and/or push competitors out.

·         WTB / WTT / WTS - Want to buy / trade / sell.