36 Glossary
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| Term | Meaning |
|---|---|
| 1/4, 1/2 | Note spacing relative to the beat. 1/4 notes are streams; 1/2 notes are singletaps at half the rate |
| Alt (alternating) | Tapping two keys in turn, one note each; the basis of streaming |
| AR | Approach rate: how long objects are visible before they must be hit |
| Burst / stream / deathstream | Runs of 1/4 notes: roughly 5 to 8, 9 or more, and long enough that stamina dominates |
| CS | Circle size: larger CS means smaller circles |
| Derust | Regaining skill after a break |
| Digits | Rank bracket shorthand: 6-digit is ranks 100,000 and above, 4-digit is 1,000 to 9,999, and so on |
| Farm map | A map whose pp is high relative to its difficulty, usually short with a spike of jumps |
| FC | Full combo: no misses and no broken sliders |
| Finger lock | Fingers seizing or refusing to alternate, usually from mashing bursts |
| Flow aim / snap aim | Smooth continuous movement versus sharp point-to-point movement |
| HP | Drain rate: how fast the health bar empties |
| Lazer / stable | The new client and the classic client |
| Mindblock | Playing a pattern from memory instead of reading it, so it falls apart |
| Muscle memory | In players' usage, the automaticity that comes from motor learning. Physiologically the term means something else entirely (structural changes in muscle fibres that speed re-training after a layoff), and the gaming usage misleads: what you build is adaptable motor control, not a memorized distance (Ch. 17) |
| Notelock | Being unable to hit an object because a previous object's hit window is still open |
| OD | Overall difficulty: how tight the timing windows are |
| One-trick | Playing one skill set or mod almost exclusively |
| osu!pixel | The game's internal coordinate unit; circle sizes are measured in it |
| pp | Performance points: the score-weighted ranking currency |
| Practice difficulty | A copy of a map, usually cut short in the editor, made to drill one section |
| Singletap | Hitting consecutive notes with one finger |
| Sightread | Playing a map correctly the first time you see it |
| SS | A perfect-accuracy score (100%) |
| Star rating | The game's difficulty number for a map |
| TV size | A map of a roughly 90-second TV-edit song |
| UR | Unstable rate: the standard deviation of your hit errors, times 10 |
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