Edited by Azizi Powell
This pancocojams post presents definitions of the African American Vernacular English word "son'd" and its seemingly already retired spelling "sonned".
Online examples of these words are also included in this post.
The content of this post is presented for linguistic and socio-cultural purposes.
All copyrights remain with their owners.
Thanks to all those who are quoted in this post.
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WHAT PART OF SPEECH IS THE WORD "SON'D" ("SONNED")?
Son'd (sonned) is a past tense verb as it describes an action or event that occurred in the past.
Most verbs form their past tense by adding "ed". The apostrophe followed by the letter "d" in the word "son'd" is a colloquial way of writing "ed".
That said, I haven't ever come across the word "son" used as a verb. And I've only come across the present participle of the word "son" - "sonning"- one time online*.
*Present participle verbs are those which are used with a form of the verb "to be," the "-ing" word forms the continuous or progressive tense of a verb.
Read the excerpt of the 2014 Chicago Tribune article entitled "Face it, fathers, you've been sonned!" that is given below for an example of the word "sonning".
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WHAT "SON'D" ("SONNED") MEANS
These quotes are numbered for referencing purposes only.
SOURCE #1
From https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=sonned
"sonned
1. to be completely and utterly defeated or destroyed by another individual with extreme prejudice
2. to be owned, or served in utter humiliation or submission
3. to father
1,2. "Yo, this Jackie Chan mothaf-ka tried to fight me and I sonned the sh-t out of him."
3. "Tyrone, come look at the beautiful child you have sonned."
by Jersey the b-tch* November 10, 2008
-snip-
*This word is fully spelled out in this comment.
**
This pancocojams post focuses on definitions 1 & 2 that are given above.
Although the spelling "sonned" can be found for this African American Vernacular English word, based on my online searching, I believe that the spelling "sonned" has already been retired as it is considered to be an "uncool" spelling of that relatively new African American English term.
SOURCE #2
From https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=son%27d
"son'd
the act of making someone your son; To Son someone
Oh, was that defense Ray Allen? Was that what You call
defense? What are you thinking? You can't guard me, the secret service can't
guard me! B-tch*, I just son'd the sh-t* out of you!
by Bennny Ty-Ty November 24, 2006
-snip-
*This word is fully spelled out in this comment.
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SOURCE #3
AI Overview (October 4, 2025)
" "Son'd" is a relatively new term meaning to
completely overpower or humble someone, putting them in their place as if they
were a child to a parent. It's a figurative action, often seen in arguments or
competitive situations, where someone is so decisively defeated or outdone that
they are left feeling like a subordinate.
Here's a breakdown of its meaning:
To put someone in their place: This is the core of the
meaning.
Figurative parent-child relationship: The person being
"sonned" is treated like a child, while the one doing the
"sonning" is like the parent.
Complete overpowering: It implies a total victory or
humiliation of the other person.
Context: It's typically used in situations where one person
asserts dominance over another, often in a somewhat contemptuous or triumphant
way.
Example:
"After the brilliant counter-argument, his opponent was
totally sonned, left speechless and unable to respond".
AN EXCERPT OF A 2014 ARTICLE THAT INCLUDES THE AFRICAN AMERICAN VERNACULAR ENGLISH WORDS "SONNED" AND "SONNING"
https://www.news-journalonline.com/story/news/2014/12/30/face-it-fathers-youve-been-sonned/30698459007/ http://"Face it, fathers, you've been sonned!" by John Keilman, Chicago Tribune, December 29, 2014
Fathers, beware: When you try to son your son, you might end up sonning yourself.
"The English language is a remarkably adaptive system of
communication, capable of turning an ancient noun into a fresh verb that fits
the times perfectly.
The word I'm thinking of is “son,” as in, “That dude thought he could beat me in basketball, but I went on the court and totally sonned him.”
It means, more or less, to put someone in his place so completely that he becomes a figurative child to your metaphorical parent. Bloggers use the word all the time, as do video gamers and rappers, and in my continuing effort to cling to fading youth by talking like a teenager, I've started using it, too.
The usual object of my sonning is, naturally, my son. When we play basement soccer and I slip the ball past him, I let him know he got straight-up sonned. When he gets one of his homework math problems wrong and I get it right, you'd better believe it's sonning time.
I admit I've been using the word with obnoxious frequency lately, but that's only because I won't be able to do it much longer. With every passing day, my son is getting closer to sonning me.
He's in middle school now, and he's unnervingly close to my height. In a couple of years we'll see eye to eye, and not long after that he'll tower over me. Those basement soccer games are a lot more competitive than they used to be, and to be honest, I'm lucky when I even know how to do one of his math problems, let alone get it right.
Sure, my son will surpass me one day, followed soon thereafter by my daughter, but until then the old man still has some life in him. Why, just the other day, after my son said he had clocked a 7:30-minute mile in gym class, I decided to show him how a real runner takes care of business.
With a mile left in my morning jog, I hit the jets. I flew along the path, knees pumping, hands knifing through the breeze, all the while ignoring the growing pain in my left knee. When I passed the final trail marker, I looked at my watch and saw that I done my mile in 7:28.
“Oh, snap!” I told my boy when I got home. “Check out that time.”
He was so indifferent that he didn't even look up from his video game. No one else in my family cared, either. The only thing I got for my triumph was a limp that lasted for a week.
So fathers, beware: When you try to son your son, you might
end up sonning yourself."
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A 2025 EXAMPLE OF THE WORD "SONN'D" IN A YOUTUBE VIDEO CAPTION
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_m3LG7se820&t=197s "Bad Bunny LANDS Super Bowl Halftime Show—Kendrick Reacts
Happily" by UncleSnitch, Sep 30, 2025
"Bad Bunny has LANDED the Super Bowl Halftime Show — and
Kendrick Lamar is reacting with happiness. 🎤🏈 Fans are
buzzing as one of the biggest stars in the world takes center stage, with even
Kendrick showing love for the historic moment…."
-snip-
Here's the first- very briefly shown- caption in this video about the world renown, multiple Emmy award winner Puerto Rican Hip Hop artist and actor Bad Bunny being who was just named as the featured artist for the 2026 Super Bowl Halftime Show:
"Bad
Bunny just son’d the game”
-snip-
This caption was written in upper case letters. i believe that caption was written in upper case letters to emphasize how important this announcement is in the context of which artists have been chosen to perform during the annual Super Bowl halftime show. Why is this choice so important-and controversial?- Because Bad Bunny raps and sings in Spanish rather than in English AND because Bad Bunny is a Puerto Rican man who openly opposes the policies and actions of United States President Donald Trump.
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A RELATED EXCERPT OF AND COMMENT ABOUT A 2011 POST ABOUT THE AFRICAN AMERICAN USE OF THE WORD "SON"
http://dialectblog.com/2011/09/30/son-in-african-american-english/ "Son’ in African American English"
Posted on September 30, 2011 by Ben
Essay with 12 responses
‘I’m going to work, son.’
‘You gotta be careful, son.’
‘That ain’t right, son.’
None of these utterances would be conspicuous but for the fact that such ‘son’ uses are frequent among young African American men speaking to other young African American men. An older friend referring to a much younger man as ‘son’ makes some sense, even if the two are not blood relations. But the ‘youthful familiar’ use of ‘son’ between adolescents is rather puzzling.
My perception is that this is a fairly new phenomena, arising perhaps within the past three decades. I don’t recall hearing many examples of ‘youthful familiar son’ in films before the 1990’s: I know for certain it was alive and kicking as a feature of AAVE by the end of that decade, as I had a roommate who used ‘son’ in this manner my freshman year in college (ca. 1998).
And yet quests to discover when and why young men started calling each other ‘son’ have been futile. The word is so common that searching for the first ‘use’ of it in an engine like Google NGram Viewer is like finding a needle in a haystack. Likewise, searches for scholarly articles yield virtually nothing.
And so I’m left with the vaguest of hypotheses. Any ideas?"
-snip-
Pancocojams Editor's Note:
The bold font is the way that post was written on that blog.
As of October 4, 2025 there are 12 comments about that dialectblog post.
Here's a response that touches on the current (2025) AAVE meaning of the word "sonned“ ("son’d")
AL, September 30, 2011 [comment #4]
"Sometimes I hear “son” being used in a somewhat derogatory
way, where the speaker is implying that the “son” is inferior or has been
subjugated."
-snip-
The subsequent comments in that discussion thread didn't respond in any way to what AL wrote.
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