RuPaul's Drag Race Wiki Terminology

Under Review This aritcle needs to be reviewed by an admin or moderator to make sure that the information here presented is reliable and conforms to the rest of the Wiki. So take all of this with a grain of salt.

In order to showcase and share Drag Race data and trivia correctly, a uniform and consistent terminology is required to be applied throughout the RuPaul's Drag Race Wiki. Here is a list of terms often spelled or used wrong.

Nomenclature

• A contestant is a drag artist competing on Drag Race. It is preferred to terms such as "queen" and "competitor".
• A Mini Challenge is a short challenge taking place in the first half of an episode, before a Maxi Challenge. The term is spelled with a capital M and capital C, and without a hyphen (-).
• A Maxi Challenge is the challenge the contestants will be judged on in the second half of an episode. The term is spelled with a capital M and capital C, and without a hyphen (-).
  • Maxi Challenges are called "Main Challenges" on RuPaul's Drag Race UK.
• A lip sync is an event where two or more contestants perform to a song while lip syncing. The term is made of two words without capital letters or hyphen (-), just like the infinitive verb ("to lip sync") and its present participle ("lip syncing").
• A guest judge is most often a celebrity who has been invited on the judges panel to judge the contestants' performances in the episode's Maxi Challenge and their runway look presentations.
  • Guest judges are called "guest hosts" on Canada's Drag Race.
• The bottom two/three/four/five/six are contestants who were judged by the judges panel to have had the worst overall performances in the Maxi Challenge and the runway look presentation in most seasons and series. The term is spelled exclusively with letters, without capitalisation.
• The top two are contestants who were judged by the judges panel to have had the best overall performances in the Maxi Challenge and the runway look presentation in most All Stars seasons, but also in recent regular seasons. The term is spelled exclusively with letters, without capitalisation.
  • In All Stars 2, 3 and 4, the top two contestants both win a prize regardless of who later wins the lip sync. This justifies their conjoined "WIN" placement in contestant progress tables on this Wiki.
  • In Episodes 1 and 2 of Season 12 and Episodes 2 and 3 of Season 13, the top two contestants lip sync against each other, but only the winner ends up winning a prize, justifying the loser to have the "TOP2" placement in contestant progress tables on this Wiki.
• A series can refer to two separate program formats:
  • RuPaul's Drag Race UK has currently three series: RuPaul's Drag Race UK (Series 1), RuPaul's Drag Race UK (Series 2) and RuPaul's Drag Race UK (Series 3), all wrongly named on this Wiki.
  • RuPaul's Drag Race, RuPaul's Drag Race All Stars, Drag Race Thailand and RuPaul's Drag Race UK are examples of four separate series.
• An episode is most often spelled without a capital letter, but needs to be capitalized when referring to a specified episode:
  • "In Episode 3, the Mini Challenge winners landed in the bottom two."
  • "In the third episode, the Mini Challenge winners landed in the bottom two."
• A season (called series on RuPaul's Drag Race UK) is most often spelled without a capital letter, but needs to be capitalized when referring to a specified season:
  • "In Season 11, every contestant landed in the bottom two at least once."
  • "In the eleventh season, every contestant landed in the bottom two at least once."
• Contestants have gotten off the show in several different ways:
  • An elimination happens when RuPaul tells a contestant to sashay away, after either losing a Lip Sync for their Life or after their lipstick being chosen by one or more fellow contestants. In contestant progress tables, this placement will read as "ELIM" (or as "Runner-Up"/"Eliminated" if the contestant competed in a finale).
  • A disqualification happens when a contestant is no more eligible for the competition because of an offense or infringement. This happened only four times, to Willam in Season 4, to Miss Gimhuay in Drag Race Thailand (Season 2), to Joey Gugliemelli in Season 12 and Enorma Jean in Drag Race Italia (Season 1). In contestant progress tables, this placement will read as "DISQ".
  • An exclusion happens when a contestant is either unable to compete properly for circumstances out of their control or had a chance to come back into the competition but did not succeed. The former happened to Eureka on Season 9, Veronica Green in Series 2 of RuPaul's Drag Race UK and Victoria Scone onSeries 3 of RuPaul's Drag Race UK, and the latter to several contestants in Season 7, All Stars 2, 3, 4 and Series 2 of RuPaul's Drag Race UK. In contestant progress tables, this placement will read as "OUT".
  • A resignation happens when a contestant voluntarily quits the competition without necessarily being up for elimination. This is the case of Adore Delano in All Stars 2, BenDeLaCreme in All Stars 3, Ginny Lemon in Series 2 of RuPaul's Drag Race UK and Inti in Season 1 of Drag Race España. In contestant progress tables, this placement will read as "QUIT".
    • BenDeLaCreme was only able to quit after winning a Lip Sync for Their Legacy and choosing to eliminate herself. Her placement could read as "QUIT" just as much as "ELIM" or "WIN".
    • In All Stars 5, Mayhem Miller and Ongina chose their own lipstick, but they were either eliminated by a single fellow contestant or by the general vote, meaning that their choice did not have a direct impact on their eliminations, and therefore earn the placement "ELIM" rather than "QUIT" in contestant progress tables.