The Clash of Clans Glossary: Every Term and Abbreviation Explained

Updated: 16 September 2026 · Goblins Farm

Clan chat is close to unreadable for the first month. It is not gatekeeping — the vocabulary is genuinely dense, and most of it is shorthand for a real mechanic. Here is the lot, grouped by where you will run into it.

Attacking

• Three star / two star / one star — the result of an attack. One star for 50% destruction, one for the Town Hall, one for 100%. War scoring runs entirely on these.
• Funnel — clearing the outside buildings on two sides so your main army walks into the core rather than around the base. The single most common reason attacks fail.
• Queen walk / Queen charge — sending the Archer Queen in with healers to carve a path and kill something important before the main army lands.
• Lure — pulling the defending Clan Castle troops out with a cheap unit so they can be killed away from the base.
• Kill squad — a small, expensive group sent in first to destroy a specific high-value defence, separate from the main army.
• Spam — deploying a large number of one troop type quickly, with little placement finesse. Not automatically an insult; some armies work that way.
• Sniping — attacking only a specific building, usually an exposed Town Hall or a Dark Elixir Drill, and leaving.
• Aggro — what a troop is currently choosing to attack. Troops follow fixed targeting rules, not player orders.
• Tank — a high-hitpoint unit sent ahead to absorb damage for fragile units behind it.
• Splash — damage that hits an area rather than one unit. The counter to massed cheap troops.
• DPS — damage per second. The standard way troop and defence damage is quoted.
• Housing space — how much of your army capacity a troop occupies. A Dragon is 20, an Archer is 1.
• Zap — using Lightning Spells to destroy a specific building, most often an Air Defence, before the attack proper.
• Cycle — using cheap, fast attacks in sequence, usually to farm or to trigger something repeatedly.
• Time-out — the attack ending because the clock ran out rather than because the army died. Usually a funnelling problem.
• Scout — looking at a base before committing to the attack. Free, and skipped constantly.

Bases and defence

• Compartment — a walled-off cell in a base layout. The main tool against ground armies, and irrelevant against anything that jumps or tunnels.
• Core — the middle of the base, where the Town Hall, storages and strongest defences usually sit.
• Anti-three-star base — a layout that accepts giving up two stars in order to make the third very hard. Standard for war.
• Farming base — a layout built to protect storages rather than the Town Hall.
• Trophy base — a layout built to protect the Town Hall, because that is what costs trophies.
• Teaser — a building placed deliberately to bait troops in a chosen direction.
• Drag trap — a trap arrangement placed where the base designer expects troops to be pulled.
• Giant bomb — the large ground trap, usually placed to punish grouped Hog Riders.
• Double giant bomb — two of them overlapping, which kills a hog wave outright rather than damaging it.
• Seeking Air Mine — the air trap that targets large air units. The reason unsupported Dragons and Lava Hounds disappear.
• Clan Castle radius — the area within which an attacking troop will trigger the defending Clan Castle. Knowing it is what makes a lure work.
• Town Hall as a defence — at higher levels the Town Hall shoots back, which changes where it can safely be placed.

Resources and economy

• DE — dark elixir. The resource that gates the late game, because heroes and pets run on it.
• Collector loot — resources sitting in mines and collectors. A much larger share is stealable than from storages, which is why stripping collectors is the fastest farming.
• Storage loot — resources in storages. Only a percentage is available, set by the defender's Town Hall relative to yours. See loot mechanics.
• Dead base — an inactive village with full collectors and no shield. The ideal farming target.
• Treasury — the Clan Castle store fed by war and Clan Games. A separate, protected pool with its own stealable cap.
• Search fee — the gold an attack costs. It rises with your Town Hall: 750 at TH9, 1,700 at TH18. Troops themselves are free.
• Shield — protection from attack, gained by being attacked heavily. Attacking while shielded shortens it.
• Village Guard — short-term protection with no attacking penalty, usually granted after a shield ends or by an event.
• Rune — a magic item that fills a resource storage to capacity. Worth more the longer you hold it, because storage capacity grows.
• Book — a magic item that instantly finishes one upgrade. It does not pay for it.
• Hammer — instantly finishes and pays for an upgrade. The rarest items in the game.
• Potion — a timed boost. Builder potions and research potions are the ones worth planning around.

Clans, wars and the side villages

• CC — Clan Castle, or the troops inside it. Donated troops are free and arrive in every attack.
• Donation ratio — troops given against troops received. Many clans enforce a minimum.
• War weight — the hidden value the game assigns your base for war matchmaking, driven mostly by defences and storages.
• CWL — Clan War Leagues, the monthly tournament with one attack per war over seven wars.
• Clan Games — a periodic cooperative event paying magic items, with the reward tier chosen by each member.
• Raid Weekend — the Clan Capital event, paying raid medals.
• Capital Gold — the Clan Capital's own currency, which cannot be moved to your Home Village.
• District — one of the Clan Capital's separate islands, unlocked in order.
• Builder Base — the second village, with its own troops, buildings and progression, run on versus battles.

Progression

• TH — Town Hall, usually with a number: TH12, TH15. The single most important fact about an account.
• Rushed — a Town Hall upgraded before the level below it was developed. See what rushing costs.
• Maxed — everything at the highest level the current Town Hall allows. Usually means defences and army rather than literally everything.
• Lab — the Laboratory. One research at a time, which is why research choice matters so much.
• Super troop — a temporarily boosted version of a normal troop, activated for a period rather than researched permanently.
• Ore — the currency for hero equipment, on a track separate from hero levels.
• Pet — a companion assigned to a hero, upgraded with dark elixir in the Pet House.
• Siege machine — a vehicle that carries Clan Castle troops into the core instead of making them walk. Donatable.

Abbreviations you will see in clan chat

• BK, AQ, GW, RC, MP — Barbarian King, Archer Queen, Grand Warden, Royal Champion, Minion Prince.
• QC — Queen charge, as in 'QC Hybrid'.
• Hybrid — an army mixing Hog Riders and Miners.
• LavaLoon — Lava Hounds with Balloons, the classic air army.
• E-drag / ZapDrag — Electro Dragons, often with Lightning Spells used to open the way.
• GoWiPe / GoWiWi — older ground armies built on Golems with Wizards and either P.E.K.K.As or Witches. Historical, still referenced.
• Sui — a deliberately sacrificial deployment, usually to pull the Clan Castle or trigger traps.
• F2P — free to play. See what that actually gives up.
• GP — Gold Pass.

If you only remember three

Funnel, lure, and housing space. Those three explain most of what happens in an attack and most of what your clanmates are telling you to do differently. Everything else on this page is vocabulary; those three are mechanics.

Frequently asked

What does CC mean in Clash of Clans?

Clan Castle, or the troops inside it. Donated Clan Castle troops are free, arrive in every attack, and the defending player's Clan Castle troops are the most common reason an attack fails.

What does funnelling mean?

Clearing the buildings on the outside of a base on two sides so that your main army's path of least resistance points into the core rather than around the perimeter. It is the most common cause of attacks stalling at around 60%.

What does a rushed base mean?

An account whose Town Hall was upgraded before the defences, heroes and army research of the previous level were developed. It raises your search fee and matchmaking difficulty while leaving your attacking and defending power behind.

What is DE in Clash of Clans?

Dark elixir, the third resource. It funds heroes and pets, which makes it the resource that gates late-game progress — a fully maxed account needs roughly 101 million of it.

Keep reading

Funnelling Loot mechanics Getting started Starting Clash of Clans in 2026

Goblins Farm is not affiliated with, endorsed by, sponsored by, or specifically approved by Supercell. Clash of Clans is a trademark of Supercell Oy. This material is unofficial fan content produced under Supercell's Fan Content Policy. Game values change with every update; always verify in-game before committing an upgrade.