"B" Slang

bobol

General

Illegal or corrupt activity, especially embezzlement or graft in business or politics. Also bobbol.

bobolee

General

A person who is repeatedly blamed or abused; from the Judas effigy beaten on Good Friday.

bobos

Street

The generic, no-brand shoes handed out to inmates, often mocked as low quality.

bobowler

General

A big moth. Specifically the dinner-plate hairy ones that bomb your living room the second you open a window in July. Beloved Brummie word, often weaponised to scare younger siblings.

bobtail

General

A tractor unit rolling without a trailer hooked up. Looks stubby and weird without the box behind it, hence the name — like a dog with a docked tail. Can be a noun (the truck itself) or a verb (the act of driving one that way). Bobtailing is sketchy in the wet: no trailer weight on the drives means the back end wants to swing out under braking.

bochinche

General

In Puerto Rico 'bochinche' means gossip or juicy talk (elsewhere it can mean an uproar).

bockety

General

Physically unsteady, wobbly, lame or falling apart; used of furniture, structures or a shaky gait.

bodacious

Pop

Attractive or impressively shapely, especially the phrase 'bodacious bod.' Can be flirty or admiring.

bodega

General

A cultural touchstone of NYC, particularly in Latino neighborhoods.

bodega cat

General

A cat kept in a bodega, ostensibly for pest control but beloved as a neighborhood mascot judging your late-night snack runs.

bodega run

General

A short errand to the bodega for snacks, drinks, or essentials.

bodied

General

To completely demolish someone in a competition, argument, or rap battle; to be 'bodied' is to be thoroughly beaten.

body

General

In ballroom, Body is the category where the only thing being judged is your physique. No costume to hide behind, no story to spin — you walk to be read on shape, proportion and how you carry the flesh. It splits into sub-categories so nobody's compared unfairly: Model-Thin (lean, runway frame), Muscular (built, gym-cut), Luscious (soft, full, sensual), and Big Girl / Big Boy (the bigger queens and kings serving confidence). You don't win Body by being one ideal — you win by owning whichever one is called.

body block

Gaming

Standing in the way on purpose. You eat a skillshot meant for your carry, or wall off a chokepoint with your hitbox so the enemy can't path through. Tanks and supports live for this.

body check

Gaming

A mechanic that checks every player is alive and standing where they should be. One dead or misplaced body and the whole group wipes. No carrying dead weight through it.

body composition

General

The proportion of your bodyweight made up of fat versus fat-free (lean) mass; the real measure bodybuilders track rather than scale weight alone.

body packer

General

A patient who has ingested condom- or wrap-encased drugs to smuggle them, at risk of catastrophic overdose if a packet ruptures.

body roll

Internet

A dance move in which a performer rolls their body in a fluid wave, often used for sexier choreography. A recurring highlight in performances.

boeuf gras

Street

French for 'fat ox.' The Boeuf Gras float in the Rex parade carries a giant papier-mâché bull, a centuries-old Catholic Carnival symbol of the last meat eaten before Lent. Older than the parade itself — the tradition runs back to medieval France.

boff

General

A fart. Used as a noun for the trump itself, and as a verb for letting one go. Schoolyard staple across the North West.

boffin

General

British forces nickname for the back-room scientists and engineers — the radar people, the codebreakers, the weapons designers. Coined during WWII with affectionate respect: the boffins were eccentric civilians in tweed who kept inventing things that won the war. Still used in the UK for any clever-clogs technical type.

bogan

General

A person regarded as unrefined or lower-class, often stereotyped by dress, speech and taste. Can be affectionate or derogatory.

bogart

Street

To hold onto a shared joint or bowl too long without passing it along, monopolizing the smoke.

bogey

General

A radar contact you haven't identified yet. Could be friendly, could be a bandit, could be an airliner that wandered off course. The point of the word is that you don't know yet — once you do, it gets promoted to bandit or downgraded to friendly. WWII RAF slang that's now standard NATO brevity.

bogey dope

General

A brevity code requesting information on an indicated or closest group in bearing, range, altitude, and aspect (BRAA) format from a controller.

bogged

General

Of a vehicle, stuck fast in mud or deep sand.

bogged down

General

Held up or overwhelmed by something (metaphorical extension of literally being bogged).

bogger

General

The Dublin comeback to 'jackeen.' Bogger = anyone from outside the Pale, especially the deep rural west. Comes straight from the bogs. Usually slagging, occasionally genuine — depends entirely on the smirk attached.

bogie

General

A child's homemade go-cart, often built from pram wheels.

boh

General

Everything the guest never sees: the line, the pass, prep, dish pit, walk-in, dry store, chef's office. Different culture, different pay structure, different uniform, often a different language to FOH.

bohemios

General

Refers to bohemian, hippie, or artsy alternative types — musicians, artists, free spirits.

boi

General

A boyish lesbian — younger, softer-edged masculine than 'butch', more skater-and-snapback than old-school stone. Chiefly a UK read. The respelling does the work: 'boi' signals it's a queer identity, not just a haircut.

boil the jug

General

To switch on the electric kettle to make a hot drink. In New Zealand a kettle is commonly called a 'jug'.

boil the ocean

General

To attempt something impossibly large or to overcomplicate a task by trying to analyse or do everything at once. Used as a warning against scope creep.

boiler

Street

In underworld slang a 'boiler' is a stolen car, an innocuous-sounding cover word.

boiler room

General

A sales operation, usually a cramped room of cold-callers working off scripts, that uses aggressive pitches to offload thinly-traded or worthless securities on unsophisticated investors. The house owns the stock, the brokers pump it, and when retail is loaded up, the insiders dump. Made famous on screen by Boiler Room (2000) and The Wolf of Wall Street.

boke

General

Nausea or the urge to be sick ('gie me the boke').

bol'-face

General

Describing someone who behaves with bold-faced nerve, entitlement or effrontery. Also bold-face.

bold

General

Naughty or badly behaved, especially of a child. Not the standard 'brave/daring' sense.

boldface

General

Describes someone who is impudent, brazen, or has the nerve to do something inappropriate without shame.

bolo

General

To fail to qualify, especially on a marksmanship or skills test; also 'be on the lookout' as an unrelated acronym.

bolts

General

Landing a trick cleanly with the feet positioned squarely over the deck's mounting bolts; 'landing bolts' means a perfect, solid landing.

boludo

General

A fool, idiot, or jerk. The source is Spanish 'boludo', literally 'having big balls', historically linked to a (likely folk) story of front-line soldiers; as an insult it means dim-witted, the opposite of clever.

bomb

General

A dilapidated, poorly maintained vehicle.

bomb diggity

Pop

Excellent or top-tier in a playful, exaggerated way.

bombardiro crocodilo

Internet

Shouted as nonsense to invoke the meme's chaotic energy.

bombing

Gaming

Your panic button and your safety net. A bomb clears bullets, deals big damage, and usually gives you a moment of invincibility. Smart players bomb early to kill a dangerous pattern before it fully expands, rather than waiting until they're already trapped.

bombshell

Pop

An aesthetic of full-glam, va-va-voom beauty — big hair, bold lip, hourglass styling.