Meanings
- InternetinformaluncountableNon-spam email messages that have been signed up for, but which the recipient does not necessarily want or have time to read.
Rather than let bacn accumulate and ruin an otherwise pleasant day, ...
2011, Ryan Teeter, Karl Barksdale, Google Apps for Dummies, John Wiley & Sons, →ISBN4 more examples
Examples of bacn email are: bank statement notifications, e-news alerts from companies, newsletters ...
2008, Bill Young, Webplicity 2.0: The Critical Guide to Successful Web Strategies, iUniverse, →ISBN, page 1005 dump your bacn This is the term for e-mail newsletters you've subscribed to. Kill them off Monday morning. A study by MessageGate estimates up to 30 percent of e-mails are bacn.
2008 January–February, “70 Ways to Improve Every Day of the Week”, in Men's Health, volume 23, number 1, →ISSN, page 134In other words, they're messages that you want to read eventually, just not right now. Clearing away the bacon automatically can help you drill down to what's important more quickly.
2010, Gina Trapani, Upgrade Your Life: The Lifehacker Guide to Working Smarter, Faster, Better, John Wiley & Sons, →ISBN, page 35The smart labels feature essentially focuses on "bacn," that brand of e-mail that people subscribe to and generally want to read -- but don't have time for right now.
2011 March 9, John D. Sutter, “Google 'smart labels' aim to de-stress e-mail”, in CNN, retrieved 16 Mar 2013
Origin
Coined at PodCamp Pittsburgh 2, 2007, modelled on spam (junk mail, or a meat product) and bacon.
Full word history & related roots →Rhymes & wordplay
Anagrams
Cite this entry
bacn. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 2, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/bacn
“bacn.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/bacn. Accessed November 2, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “bacn,” accessed November 2, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/bacn.
Source: bacn on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.