What it means
Short for away from keyboard, flagging that you have stepped away and are not really there. In a game it warns the team you are not controlling your character, in chat it just means back in a bit. It has crept into speech too, as in I went afk for an hour.
Usage examples
"Going afk for five, someone is at the door with a parcel."
"He went afk mid-game and the whole team got wiped."
Where it comes from
An initialism of away from keyboard, from the early days of online chat and gaming when you needed to tell others you had wandered off.
Editors of this term
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