"B" Slang

boost

Gaming

Crouch under a teammate and they can stand on your head, gaining height for an angle or a peek nobody expects. A boost opens off-angles, lets an AWP see over cover, or sneaks a player onto a perch the enemy never checks.

boosted

Gaming

Describes a player sitting at a rank above their real skill, usually because someone better dragged them there, duo-queued them up, or straight-up played on their account. A favourite insult for anyone playing badly at a high rank.

booster

Street

A booster is a shoplifter, one who steals merchandise from stores, often concealing it in special clothing or 'booster bags.'

boot

General

US Marine Corps and Navy term for someone who's just graduated boot camp. The shine isn't off them yet — fresh haircut, fresh uniform, no experience, no stories. Used by everyone senior, which in the fleet means everyone. By extension, anyone new to a unit, posting or job is 'a boot' until they've earned otherwise.

bootcamp

Gaming

An intense in-person practice block where a pro team trains together in one place for days or weeks ahead of an event. Scrims all day, reviews all night.

bootleg

General

An offensive play in which the quarterback fakes a handoff, hides the ball on his hip, and rolls out in the opposite direction to run or pass.

bootneck

General

A Royal Marine. Worn with full pride by the Marines themselves and used by the rest of the British forces — particularly the Navy they serve alongside — with the usual mix of respect and ribbing. If you call a Royal Marine a bootneck you'd better mean it the right way.

boots

General

A ballroom-and-drag intensifier that turbocharges whatever comes before it. Tack 'boots' onto an adjective and you mean it to the maximum — 'sickening boots' is sickening at the highest possible level. Lives in the same family as 'the house down.'

bootsy

Street

Oakland-flavoured way to call something corny, weak, or beneath the standard. If a move's bootsy, it's the kind of thing nobody respectable would pull.

booty-do

Street

A body shape where the gut juts out past the backside. The whole joke lives in the sentence: your belly do more than your booty do.

bootylicious

Music

A general term for fabulous or impressively good, extended beyond bodies.

booyah

Pop

A celebratory exclamation of triumph or success.

booze bus

General

A police bus set up at the roadside to breath-test drivers for alcohol.

boozer

Street

A public house; or, of a person, someone who drinks heavily.

boozy

General

Describing a person who's been drinking or tends to drink a lot.

bop

Music

Can be used as a quick verdict on music — "that's a bop" signals instant approval without needing further explanation.

bora

Street

A knife — usually a long one. Drill shorthand that started in UK road slang and got swallowed whole by NYC drill once Brooklyn started rhyming over UK beats.

boracic

General

Completely broke or out of money. 'Boracic lint' rhymes with 'skint', and it's clipped to 'boracic'.

boracic lint

General

Cockney rhyming slang for 'skint', meaning flat broke, no money. Almost always shortened to 'brassic' in modern use (so much so that most people who say brassic have no idea it started as boracic lint, a medicated dressing).

bore da

General

The everyday Welsh greeting for the morning, widely heard even among non-Welsh-speakers.

boreen

General

A small country road — barely wide enough for one car, hedges scraping both wing mirrors, grass growing up the middle. The classic Irish backroad. From the Irish 'bóithrín,' literally 'little road.'

boreout

General

A state of exhaustion and distress caused not by overwork but by persistent boredom, under-stimulation, and lack of meaningful tasks in a job.

boricua

General

The proud self-name for Puerto Ricans and things Puerto Rican, derived from the Taíno name for the island.

borrow me

General

A regional construction using 'borrow' where standard English uses 'lend,' as in asking someone to lend you something.

bosie

General

A hug, cuddle, or embrace. Pure Doric (north-east Scotland). Used as both noun and verb — you can give someone a bosie or bosie them in. Warm, affectionate, granny-coded.

bosman

General

When a player moves to a new club for no fee once their contract expires.

boss

General

A friendly, respectful way to address a man; also used for a big man in charge.

boss babe

General

A woman who runs her own business or brand, projecting confidence and independence. The term is heavily associated with social-media entrepreneurship and multi-level marketing, and is often used ironically.

boss babe hustle

General

An entrepreneurial venture, often multi-level marketing, framed with empowerment and independence branding aimed at women, promising freedom and income through relentless self-promotion.

boss tha

General

An emphatic version of 'boss', with 'tha' (that) tagged on.

boss that

General

An intensified form of 'boss', tacking 'that' on the end for emphasis.

boss webs

General

A characteristic Scouse compliment for a nice pair of trainers, combining 'boss' and 'webs'.

bossman

General

What you call the man behind the counter — chicken shop, off-licence, corner shop, barbers. A respectful catch-all when you don't know his name. Doesn't imply he actually owns the place.

bosso

General

Spanglish loanword for one's boss or supervisor.

bostin

General

Excellent, brilliant, smashing. The classic Black Country and Birmingham seal of approval. From the verb 'bost' meaning to break or burst — so something 'bostin' is so good it's bursting.

boston cooler

General

A blended float made from Vernors ginger ale and vanilla ice cream. Named for a Detroit street, not the city of Boston.

boston marriage

General

A 19th- and early-20th-century term for two unmarried women sharing a home and a life, financially independent of any man. Some were romantic, some weren't — the phrase let polite society leave that unspoken. It got its name from Henry James's 1886 novel The Bostonians, which centers on exactly this kind of arrangement, though James never used the words himself. His own sister Alice lived one. Common among suffragists and the early college-educated set.

botella

General

A lift or ride; 'coger botella' / 'ir en botella' is to hitch a ride, often flagging cars at intersections.

botero

General

A driver of a shared, fixed-route taxi (often an almendrón).

bottle

General

Used to praise nerve or to mock cowardice depending on the phrasing.

bottle service

General

Used as a flex symbol for spending big money on a night out.

bottle shop

General

A shop selling takeaway alcohol; shortened to 'bottle-o'.

bottle-o

General

A shop licensed to sell packaged alcohol to take away.

bottled it

General

To collapse under pressure and blow a lead or a title that looked secure.

bottom

General

The Bottom is on the receiving end — taking the sensation, the restraint, the impact the Top delivers. Like Top, it's a physical role rather than a psychological one. Bottoming isn't the same as being submissive; a Bottom can be calling every shot while taking the action. Plenty of power lives at the bottom.

bottom turn

General

The first turn made at the bottom of a wave after the drop, redirecting the surfer back up the face and setting up everything that follows.

bought the farm

General

To be killed. Originally aviation slang for a fatal crash, the 'farm' being the cemetery plot; extended to any killed-in-action service member.

boujee

Aave

Acting or living in a fancy, upscale way — sometimes admiringly, sometimes as gentle mockery of pretension.