Is "Swag" here to stay?

At the end of a sentence, it can used repeatedly as an affirmation, as in, "The stakeholders were very impressed by our second-quarter earnings.

Lil B has no problem at all with Diddy commandeering his favorite word.

A prolific rapper with a persona that's eccentric even by hip-hop standards (the self-professed heterosexual's upcoming album, for example, is titled I'm Gay), B's best-loved songs are languid tributes to "swagged-out" celebrities like Justin Bieber, Paris Hilton, even Dr. Phil, where each line is punctuated with a declarative "swag."

Without question, Berkeley rapper and meme-maker Lil B is swag's most active booster.

"'Swag' seems to me to be especially suited to the ethos of hip hop," Ingrid Monson, a professor of music and African and African-American studies at Harvard, says.

But the music mogul could have told people to call him anything.

Swag's rise has followed that of the word that spawned it.

"Swagger" has long held an occasional presence in rap, but it was British rapper/singer M.I.A.'s 2007 number "Paper Planes" that really ignited the term's viral spread.

Of course, "swag" has a few hundred years under its belt before that, going back to Australian colloquial use meaning "stolen goods" in the 1800s (a sense still carried in the "swag bags" given to celebrities at award

On Friday, though, he unveiled a new name change.

Then T.I. sampled the line for 2009's "Swagga Like Us," which featured fellow hip-hop leviathans Lil Wayne, Kanye West and Jay-Z. From there on, "swagger" became a go-to for pop artists ranging from the Black Eyed Peas to Ke$ha.

A prolific rapper with a persona that's eccentric even by hip-hop standards (the self-professed heterosexual's upcoming album, for example, is titled I'm Gay), B's best-loved songs are languid tributes to "swagged-out" celebrities like Justin Bieber, Paris Hilton, even Dr. Phil, where each line is punctuated with a declarative "swag."

"Cool," he explains, is an anomaly, the very rare slang word that has survived a pattern of cultural transferal, making its way from the 1920s jazz era to the '50s beat generation through writers like Norman Mailer and Chandler Brossard, to 60s-era hippies, from surfer subculture to nerdspeak to rap, and on and on.

Over the course of his career, rapper Sean "Diddy" Combs has shifted aliases a few times: He's been Puff Daddy, Puffy, P. Diddy and, lately, just Diddy.

"Swag" works as a verb, too, meaning "enhance."

A prolific rapper with a persona that's eccentric even by hip-hop standards (the self-professed heterosexual's upcoming album, for example, is titled I'm Gay), B's best-loved songs are languid tributes to "swagged-out" celebrities like Justin Bieber, Paris Hilton, even Dr. Phil, where each line is punctuated with a declarative "swag."

The word's definition is kind of hazy, but that's a big part of its appeal.

A prolific rapper with a persona that's eccentric even by hip-hop standards (the self-professed heterosexual's upcoming album, for example, is titled I'm Gay), B's best-loved songs are languid tributes to "swagged-out" celebrities like Justin Bieber, Paris Hilton, even Dr. Phil, where each line is punctuated with a declarative "swag."

A prolific rapper with a persona that's eccentric even by hip-hop standards (the self-professed heterosexual's upcoming album, for example, is titled I'm Gay), B's best-loved songs are languid tributes to "swagged-out" celebrities like Justin Bieber, Paris Hilton, even Dr. Phil, where each line is punctuated with a declarative "swag."

In March, NCAA basketball team the Virginia Commonwealth Rams adopted the word as a rallying cry.

In March, NCAA basketball team the Virginia Commonwealth Rams adopted the word as a rallying cry.

Over the course of his career, rapper Sean "Diddy" Combs has shifted aliases a few times: He's been Puff Daddy, Puffy, P. Diddy and, lately, just Diddy.

As a noun, "swag" conveys style, confidence, triumph and power.

The word, derived from "swagger," has been thrown about among hip-hop fans since at least 2008, with the release of Soulja Boy's "Turn My Swag On."

A prolific rapper with a persona that's eccentric even by hip-hop standards (the self-professed heterosexual's upcoming album, for example, is titled I'm Gay), B's best-loved songs are languid tributes to "swagged-out" celebrities like Justin Bieber, Paris Hilton, even Dr. Phil, where each line is punctuated with a declarative "swag."

He says chances are slim that "swag" will endure the way "cool" has.

The word, derived from "swagger," has been thrown about among hip-hop fans since at least 2008, with the release of Soulja Boy's "Turn My Swag On."

For instance, hip-hop artists no longer refer to their shiny things as "bling bling," the once-hot phrase invented by rapper Lil Wayne's original crew the Cash Money Millionaires, which made it into the Oxford English Dictionary in 2003.