"B" Slang

b-ball

General

A casual abbreviation of the word basketball.

b-boy

Music

An adjective-like descriptor for the look and attitude of that scene.

b-side

Internet

A song on an album that is not the title track and typically isn't promoted with performances. B-sides are often fan favorites.

b2b

Music

By extension, any tag-team collaboration where two people trade off in real time.

bab

General

Term of endearment in Birmingham and the Black Country — equivalent to 'love', 'duck' or 'hun' elsewhere. Used by everyone to everyone: shopkeepers to customers, mates to mates, mums to kids. Completely platonic and warm.

bab-house

General

An outdoor lavatory. A Black Country/Midlands term.

babash

General

Bootleg, homemade overproof rum distilled illicitly. Also 'babbash'.

babby

General

A baby or young child. Standard across the Midlands and northern England.

babe

Internet

A term of endearment for a boyfriend, girlfriend, or attractive person; a shortening of 'baby'.

babilla

General

Courage, guts, or ballsy bravery; the nerve to do something bold.

baboochka

General

Used for elderly women generally, often as easy targets or unimpressed bystanders.

baby bear

General

A rookie police officer. Inexperienced, eager, and often the one writing tickets to hit a quota — so not as harmless as the name suggests.

baby butch

General

A butch who's young, boyish, and often still inexperienced — early in the journey of growing into a masculine lesbian identity. Said with affection, sometimes a little teasing, by the butches and femmes who remember being there.

baby catcher

General

Affectionate hospital slang for an obstetrician. Strips the Latin off the job title and tells you exactly what they do: stand at the business end and catch. Also stretches to midwives and, in a pinch, the L&D nurse who ends up with the baby in her arms when the doc's hands are full.

baby stripper

General

Industry term for a stripper with under two years' floor experience — not an age comment. Baby strippers earn well on novelty but routinely lose money to bad shift picks, over-tipping out, and not knowing which custies are time-wasters. House moms usually adopt them.

babylon

General

The oppressive Western establishment and its systems; also specifically the police. A key Rastafarian concept.

babylon system

General

The whole oppressive structure of Western society, government and finance that Rastas resist; title of a Bob Marley track.

babymother

General

The mother of a man's child, whether or not they remain together. Male equivalent: babyfather.

bacan

General

As an adjective in some regions, meaning 'cool', 'great', or 'first-rate' (especially elsewhere in Latin America).

bacano

General

Something (or someone) cool, fun, or impressive; also a person skilled at hard things. Feminine 'bacana'.

baccer

General

A dialectal, clipped pronunciation of "tobacco," common in Appalachia.

bacchanal

General

Loud confusion, quarrelling or scandal; can also mean a raucous fete. A central concept in Trini Carnival culture.

baccy

General

Tobacco, especially loose rolling tobacco. Widely used across the UK but a particular fixture in Geordie and northern speech. Shortening of 'tobacco' with the affectionate '-y' tacked on, same way 'telly' came from television.

bach

General

An affectionate add-on tagged after someone's name or after 'love'. 'Come here, bach' or 'Dai bach' — it literally means 'little' but functions as pure warmth. The feminine form is 'fach', used after a woman's name.

bachelor's handbag

General

A hot supermarket roast chicken in its plastic bag, carried like a handbag; Macquarie's 2022 People's Choice Word of the Year.

back burner

Internet

A person someone keeps as a low-priority potential romantic option, ready to pursue if their main interest falls through.

back door

General

The last truck in a convoy — mirror duty, calling out any smokey rolling up from behind. Other half of the front door's job. Lead and tail keep the rocking chairs in the middle safe.

back door parole

Street

A grim euphemism for leaving prison only by dying, sometimes with burial on prison grounds.

back o' town

Street

The historic Black working-class district behind the French Quarter, stretching back toward the old New Basin Canal in what's now the Superdome and Central City area. A cradle of early jazz — Louis Armstrong was a Back o' Town kid. Largely erased by mid-20th-century 'urban renewal' that bulldozed the canal and built the Dome.

back of bourke

General

A very remote location; the far outback.

back of rackhams

General

Euphemism for the city-centre red-light area that operated behind the Rackhams store. Used as a put-down (especially of a woman's dress or makeup) — 'she looks like she's just come from the back of Rackhams'. Properly old-school Brummie; the trade has long since moved on but the phrase stuck.

back of the net

General

A triumphant shout when the ball hits the net; the ball is typically trapped at the back of the net until retrieved.

back out

Street

To draw a weapon — typically a knife or gun — from where it's stashed (back pocket, waistband, bag). Drill-pack staple verb, heard constantly in bar one whenever a violent scene is being narrated.

back rolls!?

General

The sound of an insult landing somewhere tender. You repeat the read back as a stunned question — '...back rolls?' — because you can't believe she went there and you're not over it. It's the perfect template for any too-personal jab: echo the exact words in pure disbelief. Alyssa's confessional delivery, all hurt eyes and slow blink, is the whole joke.

back teeth are floating

General

Another vivid way to say one urgently needs the bathroom.

back up the truck

General

To load up on a stock or bond in enormous quantity, the mental image being reversing a dump truck up to the loading dock and filling it. Used when a trader thinks an asset is so mispriced or such a screaming buy that small nibbles won't cut it.

back-channel

General

To communicate informally and privately outside official channels to influence or learn something.

backalong

General

A Cornish and West Country word for the past or some time back.

backatown

Street

Old-school New Orleans geography. 'Back of town' = the inland, lake-side blocks behind the riverfront — historically the Black, working-class wards from Tremé inland. Trombone Shorty named an album after it. The opposite of Fronatown.

backburner

General

A task deprioritised in favour of more urgent work.

backcountry

General

Terrain outside marked, patrolled resort boundaries, which is ungroomed, unmarked, and carries avalanche and other risks. Backcountry riding demands avalanche knowledge and gear.

backdoor

Gaming

Slip past the action, get into the enemy base alone and start hitting towers or the nexus/throne while the whole map is looking the other way. High risk, game-ending if it lands.

backdraft

General

A smoke explosion. A fire in a sealed space burns down its oxygen and stalls; pent-up unburned fuel gases sit there waiting. Crack a door or break a window and the rush of air re-ignites the lot at once, blowing fire and pressure back through the opening.

backheel

General

A pass or shot struck with the heel, usually to move the ball in the opposite direction to which the player is facing.

backie

General

A ride you get on the back of someone else's bike — perched on the rear pegs, the saddle, or just clinging on while your mate pedals. Classic schoolyard transport across Scotland and the north of England. Free taxi, slightly illegal energy.

backline

Gaming

Your supports and ranged DPS positioned safely behind the frontline. They do the work from distance but fold the second someone gets in their face.

backside

General

A trick executed with the rider's back to the ramp or obstacle, or a rotation in which the heel edge (back side) turns forward first.

backsliding

Internet

Backsliding is returning to a former partner, whether by texting, hooking up, or getting back together, despite having moved on.