"B" Slang

bommy

General

A bonfire — almost always the November 5th one. Kids in the West Midlands spend October dragging pallets and old sofas onto the bommy ready for the big night.

bomper

General

In Valleys speech a bomper is something big; often paired with 'dwt' (something tiny) for contrast.

bompton

Street

Compton, CA, rebranded by the local Bloods who refuse to let the letter C — the Crips' letter — anywhere near their mouth. Swap every hard C for a B and Compton becomes Bompton. The Game and YG put it on the global map.

bona

General

Used as a greeting or affirmation, roughly 'great' or 'all right'. Often paired into set phrases, most famously 'bona to vada' (good to see).

bona nochy

General

Polari for goodnight, lifted almost straight from the Italian buona notte: bona (good) + nochy (night). Polari pulled heavily on Italian and Mediterranean lingua franca via sailors and theatre folk, so the romance-language flavour runs all through it — bona on its own just means 'good' or 'lovely'. Used exactly how you'd use 'goodnight'.

bonce

General

The head. British-wide slang but holds particular weight in Brummie speech. Used affectionately ("use yer bonce") or as the punchline of a story about hitting a low door frame.

bonding curve

Internet

A pricing mechanism where a token's price rises along a mathematical curve as more is bought and falls as it's sold, used by launchpads like pump.fun to let tokens trade instantly without seeded liquidity.

bone dome

General

RAF and Commonwealth aircrew slang for the hard flying helmet — the one with the visor, oxygen mask attachments, and comms built in. Named for the obvious reason: it's a dome that protects the bone underneath. Also picked up by motorcyclists and helicopter crews for any serious lid.

boned

General

Describes a grab in which the rider straightens one leg fully out to accentuate the shape and add style. A boned-out grab looks stretched and deliberate.

boneless

General

A trick in which the rider grabs the board with one hand, plants the front foot on the ground, and uses the leg and hand to launch the board and body into the air before landing back on.

bones

General

Dominoes — the universal day-room currency of conversation. Slammed down hard on metal tables, played for push-ups, soups, or just bragging rights. The slam itself is half the point.

bones day

Internet

A day to go hard — ask for the raise, send the text, leave the house. The pug stood up; the omens are good.

bonesmashing

Internet

The looksmaxxing 'technique' of repeatedly striking your own face to allegedly stimulate bone growth and end up with a sharper jaw and brow. Dermatologists call it nonsense and a fast track to fractures, nerve damage, and disfigurement, but the trend keeps surfacing on incel-adjacent TikTok.

boneyard

General

The area where the waves break and crash down, a churning, punishing part of the break. Also used for a graveyard of a lineup where waves close out.

bong

Street

A water pipe that filters and cools cannabis smoke through water before inhalation.

bonk

General

A bank, slope or hillside. Standard Brummie / Black Country geography word — a 'pit bonk' is the mound of waste by an old mine, 'tocky bonk' is a sticky muddy slope. Nothing to do with the cycling sense of hitting the wall.

bonnet

General

The hinged cover over a car's engine; called the hood in America.

bonnie

General

In the northeast of England, sometimes used to mean chubby or well-fed, especially of a baby.

bonny

General

Attractive, pretty or good-looking. 'Bonny lad' is also a term of endearment between men.

bonny lad

General

An affectionate or matey form of address between men.

bonsang

Internet

A main award given to several artists at a ceremony, below the single grand-prize daesang. A solid but non-peak achievement.

bonus round

Gaming

A round you intentionally play with leftover cheap weapons after winning, so you bank credits and load up properly next round. Low stakes, all upside.

bonzer

General

Very good, great or excellent; now somewhat old-fashioned.

boo

Street

An affectionate term for somebody you love — your baby, your partner, your little cousin. In Louisiana it's been Cajun shorthand for 'sweetheart' for generations before the rest of the US picked it up. Often shortened from 'beau' (French for handsome/boyfriend).

boo-yaa

Pop

A term of endearment for someone you love.

booboolups

General

Describing someone plump or flabby; can be teasing or affectionate.

boody

General

Fragments of decorative pottery or china, once used ornamentally or by children in play.

boofhead

General

A foolish, dull or dim-witted person; often affectionate.

booger hook

General

Slang for the index or trigger finger, as in the safety rule to keep your 'booger hook off the bang switch.'

boogie down

Music

To dance freely and exuberantly, usually to upbeat music.

book hangover

Internet

The slump you fall into after a book wrecks you. The world's over, the characters are gone, and every new book on the pile feels like cardboard by comparison. BookTok talks about it like grief because, mildly, it is — researchers actually call the underlying mechanism 'emotional transportation'.

book of stamps

Street

A booklet of stamps, valued individually, that serves as a common medium of exchange where cash is banned.

booked it

General

To run at top speed, usually to flee. 'We booked it' means we sprinted off.

books

General

The trust account the prison holds your money in. Family puts money 'on your books' so you can buy ramen, stamps, deodorant at commissary. No cash circulates inside — your books are your wallet.

bookstagram

Internet

Instagram's book subculture: artfully shot covers, themed flat-lays, mood-lit shelfies, and reviews in the caption. It's where publishers send ARCs, where indie authors get discovered, and where everyone's TBR doubles overnight.

booktok

Internet

The book-recommendation subculture on TikTok. Crying-over-a-paperback videos, tier lists, trope rants, smut warnings. Single creator hyping a midlist book has been enough to send it back to print — Colleen Hoover, Sarah J. Maas and the dark romance wave all owe it dinner.

booky

General

Suspicious or sketchy. A vibe, a person, a situation that's giving you a bad feeling without you being able to name why. London road word — if something's booky, you don't stick around to find out.

boolin'

Street

Just chilling, hanging out, doing nothing in particular. The B-for-C swap is the whole point; using it casually is a tip of the cap (intended or not) to Blood-coded speech.

boombox

Music

A large, portable, battery-powered stereo with speakers, central to 80s street and hip-hop culture.

boomer

Internet

In chat: a wojak of a balding, beer-gut millennial in a polo, longing for the late '90s — the '30-Year-Old Boomer' template. Used to mock anyone clinging to outdated tech, music or takes regardless of their actual age.

boomer (30-year-old)

Internet

Not an actual baby boomer. A specific meme caricature: the millennial who's barely 30 but already behaves like he's pulling up the ladder — same five franchises, same beer, same opinions, ages himself in dog years. The label later broadened to any millennial accused of being prematurely cringe or out of touch with Gen Z.

boomer stock

Internet

A boomer stock is a mature, stable, dividend-paying company unlikely to post explosive single-day gains, appealing to conservative, longer-term investors. WallStreetBets uses the term dismissively toward 'safe' names.

boomerang employee

General

An employee who resigns from a company and is rehired by the same company at a later date. Boomerang employees became common in the early 2020s as workers who left found new jobs disappointing.

boomkin

Gaming

A World of Warcraft Balance druid, who casts ranged spells while shapeshifted into Moonkin Form. The spec hurls Starfire and Wrath from a distance. 'Boomkin' is the affectionate nickname for the build and the player who runs it.

boondocks

General

Wild, remote, or isolated country far from civilization; often shortened to 'boonies.' 'Boondockers' are the field boots worn there.

boonoonoonoos

General

Wonderful, lovely or precious; often used for a beloved person ('mi boonoonoonoos').

boonoonoonoos wine

General

'Running belly' is Patois for diarrhoea / an upset stomach.

boop

Gaming

Overwatch slang for a knockback ability, like Lucio's Soundwave or Pharah's Concussive Blast. The dream is booping someone clean off the map for a free environmental kill.