Kodeclik Blog
Minecraft Glossary
Achievement/Advancement
Minecraft achievements are titles you get awarded upon completing challenges like entering the nether. Your achievements apply to your Minecraft account so if you get it in one world it applies to all worlds. Minecraft achievements are on the bedrock version of the game. Minecraft advancements are on Minecraft Java edition and are achievements but you get one of them per world accept account. On Minecraft Java you get achievements with cheats on or off but in Minecraft Bedrock you can only get them with cheats off.
AFK
AFK is a term that stands for “away from keyboard”. Most of the time a player is afk so that their farms can run smoothly without them having to do anything in the actual game. When you go afk, remember to build yourself a safety chamber or you can get killed and lose everything!
Armor
Armor in Minecraft is essential if you are fighting hordes of mobs. There are 4 pieces of armor: helmet, chestplate, leggings, and boots. The chestplate is the most important piece of armor. There are different types of armor. All of them include: leather, chainmail, gold, diamond, and netherite. Leather being the worst and netherite being the best. There is also a shield which can be used to block off any attacks.
Beacon
A beacon (made primarily from a nether star and obsidian) is a very powerful item that when used gives a player certain effects if they are in the required range. There are different types of beacons as you usually put them on top of pyramids of valuable blocks (like diamonds). These pyramids can vary in size, but a max level beacon has a pyramid made up of 164 blocks.
Biome
A Minecraft biome represents what type of environment you are in. There are forest biomes, different types of ocean biomes and even nether biomes. To see what type of biome you are in press F3 and look at the biomes section of the statistics that pop up. Unfortunately the F3 screen isn’t even a thing on Minecraft Bedrock.
Block
A block in Minecraft is a 3 dimensional item that can be placed and broken at the players will. Every Minecraft world is made up entirely of blocks.
Block Clutch
A block clutch is a method of placing a block under you to avoid taking fall damage. To perform a block clutch you will need some sort of wall. Falling from a high place, line yourself up against a wall and place a block on the side of the wall. You should next make sure you fall on the block therefore taking a smaller amount of damage that a full fall might have given you.
Blind Travel
Blind traveling is a method used to find Minecraft strongholds. Blind traveling unfortunately only works in Minecraft Java Edition. To blind travel, you need to create a second nether portal in the nether that links up to a specific far from spawn location in the overworld. Since strongholds are generally far from spawn this is a very necessary element of blind traveling. Once you have gone through the portal the stronghold should not be that far away. Note that since stronghold generation is different on Minecraft Bedrock Edition, this method will not work.
Breed
Breeding animals in Minecraft is a way to get the animals in question to reproduce a baby. To breed two animals you must feed both of them when they are relatively close. Each animal will eat a different food. For example pigs eat carrots. When you feed an animal it enters love mode and when two animals are in close enough proximity to each other when they are in love mode they will breed.
Caving
Caving in Minecraft is the process of exploring a cave for its resources. In a cave you can find valuable ores like iron and diamonds. Some caves connect to the surface while others you have to dig down to find.
Cheats
Cheats are a Minecraft setting that, when turned on, will give you access to commands such as changing your gamemode or killing other players.
Chunk
Is a 16 by 16 area in Minecraft that stretches from the sky to bedrock. Your render distance (how far you can see) is measured in chunks.
Conduit
The conduit in Minecraft is made from a heart of the sea, which can only be found in buried treasure chests. They must be placed in water. Conduits are similar to beacons as if you surround them with a block called prismarine, they become more powerful, and the more prismarine the more powerful it gets (though there is a max power level). Conduits give you water breathing and water sight if you are in their range.
Coords
Coords are short for coordinates which is your position in the Minecraft World. There is your x coordinate (left and right), your y coordinate (up and down), and your z coordinate (north and south)
Coral
Coral is found in coral reefs which are significantly rare and can be mined only with the silk touch enchantment. They can also be bought from wandering traders. Coral is a nice decorative block but will die if every side of it does not touch water.
Craft
Crafting is one of the most important aspects of Minecraft as you need to craft to do almost anything in Minecraft. To craft you must either use a crafting grid which is displayed when you open your inventory or use a crafting table. You put certain items in different slots of the grid and if you get the recipe right you will be able to craft your item!
Crit
A crit in Minecraft is short for critical hit. A critical hit is a way to attack players or mobs. By jumping up and hitting a player or mob as you are falling down you will have crit them and do 1.5 times more damage than usual. This means that if your iron sword does six attack damage (3 hearts), it will instead do 9 attack damage (4.5 hearts). You will know if you have got a crit if upon hitting a player or mob, you see brown x’s displayed around their body.
Crouch
Crouching or sneaking in Minecraft is a very handy game mechanism as it makes sure you don’t fall off edges and hides your gamertag. To crouch on Minecraft Java edition just press shift and to do it on Bedrock Edition simply double tap on the button in the center of your up, down, and right, controls.
Divine Travel
Divine Traveling in Minecraft is a very complex topic. What you do is you take certain chunks in the world and if they meet certain conditions (like animals are there) go to one of three sets of coordinates (whichever is closest) and you should be relatively close to the stronghold.
Drop
A drop in Minecraft is what a mob or even block drops. For example a skeleton’s drops would be a bow, arrow, or bones.
Elytra
The elytra is an item that a player can wear in order to glide in Minecraft. By jumping and then pressing your space key you will activate your elytra and glide away! Note that elytra are an item used for gliding and not flying. To propel yourself up into the air with your elytra use firework rockets. Make sure that you use normal rockets and not colored ones or you will take a ton of damage!
Enchant
Enchanting in Minecraft is a way to upgrade your gear so that it is the best it can possibly be. For example enchanting your sword with sharpness will make it do more damage and enchanting your chestplate with unbreaking will mean it’s durability lasts longer. You can enchant items in an enchanting table or merge enchanted books with items in an anvil.
End
The end is a perilous dimension and home to the ender dragon, one of Minecraft’s boss mobs. Once you are in the end there is no way out other than dying or killing the ender dragon and going through the portal that appears to go home. Once you have killed the dragon, you can use another portal to travel to the outer end which is a huge mass of islands. Most of the end is covered in enderman but there are occasional end cities with arguably the best loot in the game as well as end ships which contain the coveted elytra. Beware though, end cities are full of creatures called shulkers which can hit you with their projectiles and launch you into the air for a couple seconds for you to just fall down and die from the fall damage.
Ender Dragon
The ender dragon is one of Minecraft’s bosses and is found in the end dimension. It is a dangerous foe that can knock you up and crash you to the ground and it’s breath is deadly. To kill it you can either once cycle it or take out the 10 end crystals that help it regenerate health and snipe/hit it to death. Once you have defeated the dragon the coveted dragon egg will appear. There is only one dragon egg per world so guard yours carefully.
E-Ray
E-raying is a technique used to find structures. The e stands for entities and basically can be used to find structures like bastions and nether fortresses. Since these structures are full of mobs, players go forward in one direction and press f3 to see the number of entities and if there is a high spike they know they are near a structure.
(0-12) Eye
(0-12) Eye is used to describe the number of eyes of ender in an end portal. If there is already one eye inserted without player interaction the portal is a one eye. If all twelve eyes required are there with no player interaction the portal is a 12 eye. Note that if a player adds 5 eyes to a 0 eye portal the portal will still be classified as a 0 eye.
Fire Res
Fire res is short for fire resistance and is a potion that makes you immune to fire and lava. This means that you will take no damage from going into fire or lava. You can use fire resistance to be immune to a blaze’s fire or to protect yourself from falling into lava.
Gamemodes (Survival/Adventure/Spectator/Creative)
Survival, Adventure, Spectator, and Creative are different game modes within Minecraft. Survival means the player has to survive on their own and fend off enemies just to survive. Adventure mode is survival without the ability to place or break blocks, creative mode is essentially god mode in which the player can do anything whenever they want, and spectator mode is essentially creative mode with the ability to see through everything.
Golden Apple/Enchanted Golden Apple
A golden apple (or gapple) in Minecraft is a way to instantly replenish your health and give you some important effects. You can craft one using eight gold ingots and an apple or find them in loot chests. Just eat it and boom! Instant health. An enchanted golden apple (also known as god apple or notch apple) gives you more health and more effects. You can’t craft them in the newest version of Minecraft so you need to find them in loot chests which is extremely rare. You used to be able to craft them with eight gold blocks and an apple instead of eight gold ingots and an apple.
Golem
A golem in Minecraft is a mob that is not really living that can be constructed to help the player. There are two defined types of golems: the iron golem and the snow golem. The iron golem can spawn naturally in villages to help the villagers but the snow golem must be constructed by the player.
Guardian/Elder Guardian
Guardians and elder guardians guard ocean monuments. They attack you with laser beams and will only attack you if you are in their line of sight. Elder Guardians can inflict upon you mining fatigue meaning it will take an extremely long time just to mine a dirt block. There are only three elder guardians per monument and they are the only mob in the game that has a finite number in any given Minecraft World. Guardians drop fish while elder guardians drop fish and sponges.
Hotbar
Your hotbar in Minecraft is the first nine slots of your inventory available to you when you play the game and are not in your inventory. You can move items from your main inventory to your hotbar for quick access.
Hotkeying
Hotkeying is when you switch between items in your hotbar really fast. This skill takes a lot of practice and patience to learn.
HP
HP stands for health points and represents how much health you have. Getting to zero health means you will die so it is always a good idea to get on full health. You can lose damage in several ways like taking fall damage, getting hit, drawing, etc. Eating golden apples or enchanted golden apples will regenerate your health.
Hunger
Hunger in Minecraft represents a quantity describing your hunger state. It is a bit counter-intuitive as saying “I have no hunger” means you are extremely hungry and saying “I have full hunger” means you are not hungry. Your hunger is represented by a hunger bar and eating food replenishes it. Satisfying your hunger means you will regenerate health points faster. In certain difficulties of the game you lose damage if you get to zero hunger. Golden carrots are the best food source in the game.
Inventory
Your inventory in Minecraft is the collection of items you carry on you. Your inventory has 36 slots plus one in your off hand. You can drop items from your inventory or pick up items that go into your inventory. If you have a full inventory you will not be able to pick up items.
Invis
Invis is short for invisibility and is used to describe an invisibility potion. Invisibility potions make you completely invisible to players and even mobs other than a couple of particle effects. Note that if you are wearing armor anyone will be able to see that but not your actual body.
Maxed Out
Maxed Out is a term used to describe a Mineraft item that can not have any more enchantments put on it. For example if you have a sweeping edge, sharpness 5, looting 3, fire aspect 2, mending, knockback 2, and unbreaking 3 sword, you could call it maxed out as there are no more enchantments you can put on it.
Melee Attack
A melee attack is when a player or mob attacks another player or mob directly with a weapon such as a sword rather than indirectly with something like a bow or crossbow.
Mine
Mining is one of the most essential aspects of Minecraft. Mining is the process of breaking any type of block be it dirt or diamonds. To mine certain blocks you need certain tools and you need blocks to help you progress through the game. In short, mining is probably one of the most important parts of Minecraft.
MLG
MLG is short for major league gaming and basically consists of a player doing a certain action to prevent them from taking fall damage. For example a water bucket mlg would mean when a player falls from a height, if they place the water from the bucket right before impact, the water will break their fall and they will take no damage.
Mob
A mob is a non-player-character (npc) in the Minecraft world that use AI to interact. There are three types of mobs: passive, neutral, and hostile. A passive mob is a mob that doesn’t attack you (e.g. a villager), a neutral mob is a mob that attacks you when provoked (e.g. an enderman), and a hostile mob is a mob that will always attack (e.g. a skeleton).
Mob Farm
A mob farm in Minecraft is a contraption that farms certain mobs for you and collects their drops. These farms can be fully automatic, or may require you to deliver the final blow. For example you can make super efficient enderman farms in the end.
Nether
The nether is arguably Minecraft’s most dangerous dimension filled with lava and dangerous mobs. To get access to the nether you need to build a nether portal. The nether has essential mobs that need to be killed and features to use in order to beat the game.
Netherite
Netherite is the strongest known material in Minecraft and can be found in bastion chest and usually underground in the depths of the nether (although it can be very high up). It is typically found at y 13 and is incredibly rare as there is usually only one vein per chunk and the highest number of pieces in a vein is 3. This material found underground is actually ancient debris and once you smelt it into netherite scrap and combine four netherite scrap with four gold, you get one netherite ingot. Costly right? Once you have your netherite ingots, you can combine them with your diamond tools and gear to get netherite tools and gear. A smithing table even lets you keep the enchantments on your previous diamond tools and gear.
Nether Travel
Nether Travel is essentially blind traveling except all you need to do is travel someway into the nether before making your second portal. Blind traveling is when you go to semi-specific coordinates and go back to the overworld. Remember that in Java Edition one block in the nether is eight blocks in the overworld and in Bedrock Edition one block in the nether is three blocks in the overworld. If you nether travel far enough, you get the achievement “Subspace Bubble”.
Ocean Monument/Temples
Ocean Monuments/Temples are huge structures made of prismarine that house guardians and elder guardians. Their treasure is a simple eight blocks of gold but there is the bonus of sponge blocks as well.
Once Cycle
Once cycling is a way to kill the ender dragon, one of Minecraft’s boss mobs. This process uses beds as trying to sleep in beds in the nether or end dimension (where the ender dragon is located). In the Java Edition of Minecraft you place beds on the pedestal in the middle of the dragon’s perch and blow them up right before the dragon perches. In the Bedrock Edition this is impossible so instead you need to wait till the dragon perches and place the bed in front of it and blow it up. In both cases you need a blast resistant block, blocking you from the bed so you don’t take as much damage as the dragon will.
Pearl/Pearling
A pearl in Minecraft is used to describe an ender pearl which is dropped by enderman and can be used to craft eyes of ender to defeat the ender dragon. Pearling is the act of throwing an ender pearl to teleport to the place the pearl lands on. This is a very handy game mechanic. If you say “I pearled” it means you used an ender pearl to teleport somewhere.
Pick/Pickaxe
A pick or pickaxe is a special tool for mining different types of stone from all three dimensions, and ores such as coal, gold, and diamonds.
Portal
A portal in Minecraft is a way to travel to another dimension, be it the end, the nether, or the overworld. You can make a nether portal which can be used to get into the overworld from the nether or into the nether from the overworld. You can also complete an end portal which will transport you to the end in the nether or overworld or transport you to the overworld from the end. To make a nether portal you need to arrange 14 pieces of obsidian in a rectangular shape (you can cut out the corners making it 10 obsidian) and you need to light the portal using a flint and steel, fire charge, or get lava to spread on a flammable block so it catches on fire and lights the nether portal. To complete an end portal in survival, you need to find one using eyes of ender and fill in the portal blocks with eyes of ender to unlock the end. You can also make your own portal in creative but when you place the end portal blocks make sure you are facing outwards.
Potion
A potion in Minecraft is a drinkable item that gives you either a positive or negative effect. For example a strength potion would give you extra strength and a weakness potion would weaken you. Potions require blaze powder and a certain ingredient in order to be brewed. You can either drink a potion or make a splash potion which you can splash upon yourself.
Prot
Prot is short for protection and is used to describe the enchantments on your armor. For example prot 4 means your armor is enchanted with protection 4.
PvP
PvP stands for player versus player. There are two types of pvp: organized pvp, and unorganized pvp. Organized pvp is when two players know they are going to fight in advance and have time to get ready or practice. Unorganized pvp is when a player sneaks up on you and starts a fight to the death!
Respawn
Respawning is when you have died and essentially come back to life within the world. If you outright die you will always respawn at the world spawn (where you started your world), but you can set your respawn point with a bed in the overworld and with a respawn anchor in the nether.
RNG
RNG stands for random number generator which is what all games use to choose random qualities of your game. Good rng would mean you are very lucky while bad rng would mean you are unlucky.
Seed
A Minecraft seed is a randomly generated number that helps decide how your world is created. A seed can be made up of numbers or letters with an optional minus at the beginning. Seeds can be up to 32 characters meaning there are basically infinite seeds and therefore infinite Minecraft Worlds.
Skelly
Skelly is short for skeleton in Minecraft which is a hostile mob that spawns during the night and generally attacks you with a bow and arrow.
Sniping
Sniping in Minecraft is when you shoot a mob or player usually with an arrow and they take damage or knockback. Sniping is especially useful for battles that are not close combat.
Spawn
Spawn is a certain place in the Minecraft world that you would have been in for the first time, in your world. If you die without a respawn point set, you will respawn all the way back at spawn. A mob spawning is when a mob is created within the game.
Speedrun
A speedrun in Minecraft is a challenge in which you try to do a certain thing in Minecraft as soon as possible. The most common speedrun is beating the game in which you have to kill the ender dragon. The faster you complete the run, the better. Speedruns usually rely on good rng.
Sponge
Sponges are a very useful block in Minecraft as they drain any water in a certain vicinity when they are placed. They are dropped by elder guardians and also contained in rooms in ocean monuments/temples. Once a sponge has been used it becomes a wet sponge and can’t be used to drain water till it becomes dry again. There are multiple ways to dry a sponge, including placing one in the nether or smelting them. If you smelt a sponge with a lava bucket, then when the sponge is dry again the bucket gets filled with water.
Sprint/Sprint Jump
Sprinting in Minecraft is double the speed of walking and happens when you double tap the forward key. Sprint jumping is the action of sprinting and jumping at the same time and is significantly faster than sprinting. Beware though: sprinting and jumping are both actions that make you lose hunger.
Stack
A stack in Minecraft is a group of 64 or 16 items that go together in your inventory. For example you could have a stack of cobblestone (64 cobblestone) or a stack of snowballs (16 snowballs. Stacking is the action of towering up with blocks.
Structure
A structure in Minecraft is a naturally generated place that does not fit with the natural terrain. For example villages in the overworld and nether fortresses in the nether are structures. Structures generally have very helpful loot.
Trident
The trident is one of the coolest weapons in the game and can potentially do a ton of damage. They are found held by drowned which is extremely rare, even rarer is if it drops, rarer than that is if it is enchanted, or if it has a good amount of durability.
Vanilla
Vanilla Minecraft is the original form of the game without any plugins or mods installed to change the game experience mechanics, etc.
Wither
The wither is one of Minecraft's bosses that can be constructed by the player using soul sand and wither skeleton skulls. First kill the wither using arrows but when it gets down to half health, you will need to hit it with melee attacks. Note that the wither can regenerate its health so you need to act fast. The wither drops a nether star.
XP
XP or experience in Minecraft is how you enchant items. Every enchantment you apply to an item in Minecraft costs levels which are made up of experience. XP is dropped upon a mob dying. The only mob that does not drop XP upon death is the villager. XP can also be acquired from mining coal and quartz, smelting, fishing, and much more!
XP Farm
A XP in Minecraft is a farm which has a purpose to give you xp. Most xp farms are also mob farms in which case you kill the mobs to get their xp but there are other farms like fishing farms which give you xp.
If you are interested in more Minecraft content, checkout our blogpost on how to kill mobs in Minecraft. Also checkout and participate in Kodeclik's Minecraft Settlement Creation contest. Finally, learn about Minecraft Manhunt.
Want to learn Minecraft modding? Checkout Kodeclik's 1:1 and small group classes.
