"B" Slang

big-game player

General

Someone who consistently rises to the occasion and performs under the greatest pressure.

bigspin

General

A trick in which the board does a 360-degree shove-it while the rider's body rotates 180 degrees the same direction, landing switch or fakie depending on approach.

bikkie

General

A biscuit; 'big bikkies' means a lot of money.

biko

Street

Used to make a polite or urgent request, functioning like "please" in English.

biles

General

Spanglish loanword for bills or invoices that need paying.

bill

General

Used in the phrase 'on your bill' to mean by yourself.

billabong

General

A pool of water left in a dead-end channel or dry riverbed, especially a cut-off river bend.

bills

Internet

Slang for paper money; in some usage 'a bill' means $100.

bim

General

A familiar, homely name for the island of Barbados; longer form 'Bimshire'.

bimshire

General

An affectionate historical name for Barbados evoking its English-county character.

bindle

Street

A tiny paper packet holding a measured amount of a substance, used as a barter unit worth a few dollars.

bing

General

Solitary confinement, especially in New York state prisons and Rikers. Same deal as the hole — locked down, lights on, nothing to do but stare at the wall. The word got mainstream traction through Oz and hip-hop.

binge

Internet

To watch a large number of episodes — or a whole series — back to back in a short span, a common way fans consume anime on streaming platforms.

bingle

General

A small crash or bump, especially between cars.

bingo

General

A brevity code for the pre-briefed minimum fuel state at which an aircraft must break off and head for recovery to land with adequate reserves.

bingo fuel

General

A pre-briefed fuel level at which an aircraft must break off and head home to land with a safe reserve.

binky

Street

An improvised syringe assembled from a pen, needle, and other parts to inject drugs.

bins

General

Glasses. Spectacles. The thing on your face that lets you read the menu. Strong in Liverpool and across northern England, but understood anywhere in the UK. Usually said with a fond piss-take.

bion

Internet

Stands for "believe it or not," used to introduce a surprising or hard-to-believe statement.

bip

General

Spoken shorthand for a basis point. Saying 'fifty bips' is faster than 'fifty basis points' and sounds less try-hard than 'fifty bee-pees'. Pure desk slang — you'll hear it on rates, credit and FX floors, never in a press release.

bird

General

A police helicopter — usually heard on the radio ('the bird's up') or muttered when you can hear rotors over your neighbourhood at 2am.

bird colonel

General

A colonel (O-6), whose rank insignia is an eagle, distinguishing them from a lieutenant colonel who wears an oak leaf.

bird lime

Street

Cockney rhyming slang for time, particularly time served in prison; almost always shortened to 'bird'.

bird-dog

General

An in-cab radar detector that alerts the driver to police radar/laser. Standard kit in older trucker rigs — illegal in commercial vehicles in the US since 1994, but still seen.

birdbath

Street

Cleaning oneself at the cell sink with limited water when showers are unavailable during lockdown.

birse

General

Temper, anger or hackles; 'to get one's birse up' is to become angry.

birthday ad

Internet

An advertisement, such as a subway or billboard display, that fans pool money to place in public spaces for an idol's birthday. A visible show of fan devotion.

bis

General

Abbreviation for the biceps, the front muscles of the upper arm.

biscuits

Internet

Slang for money, in the food-metaphor family.

bishonen

Internet

An idealised, delicately handsome young male character — slender, refined and often androgynous. A staple of shoujo and Boys' Love works.

bishoujo

Internet

An attractively drawn, pretty young female character. The term also names a whole genre of games ('bishoujo games') built around such characters.

bishounen

Internet

An idealised, delicately handsome and frequently androgynous male character, a staple of shoujo and boys' love works.

bit

Street

A term of incarceration; someone 'doing a bit' is serving time. Often implies a relatively short sentence.

bite the bullet

General

To accept and endure a difficult or painful situation because it's unavoidable.

biting

Music

More generally, copying any idea or move and claiming it as original.

bitz

Street

Your neighbourhood — your patch, your area, where you and your guys hold it down. Sits next to 'endz' and 'manor' in the UK lexicon.

bizarre

General

Bizarre is the ballroom category where pretty is irrelevant and weird is the whole point. The brief: build a costume and silhouette so elaborate, so alien, so far from the human shape that the audience can't tell there's a person under there. Think otherworldly creatures, distorted proportions, avant-garde monsters. It's the scene's purest test of imagination and craft — strangeness is the currency, and the judges reward whoever travels furthest from looking like anybody.

bizzies

General

The police. Standard Scouse shorthand — older than half the force itself. Used the way Londoners say 'old bill' or Americans say 'cops'.

bka

General

Surgical removal of a lower limb at a level below the knee joint, preserving the knee.

bkb

Gaming

Dota's Black King Bar. Pop it and you shrug off enemy magic and disables for the duration, so you can fight through a stunlock instead of dying in it. The classic carry survival button.

blaa

General

A soft, white, floury bread roll, a speciality of Waterford with protected geographical status.

black affrontit

General

Deeply, painfully embarrassed. Not just blushing — full ground-swallow-me-up mortified. The 'black' is an intensifier, like 'utterly'. Classic Scots reaction to your weans showing you up in Tesco.

black and blue

General

A steak hit so hard and fast on the grill that the outside is properly charred — almost black — while the centre stays raw and barely warm: the blue. Requires a screaming-hot surface and a thick cut. Polarising order: chefs either respect the commitment or quietly think you're showing off.

black and white

General

Describing a Newcastle United supporter, after the club's black-and-white strip.

black cat

Internet

A person with an enigmatic, hard-to-read, self-sufficient personality in a relationship, often paired conceptually with a 'golden retriever' type. Alluring but low-key.

black cat girlfriend

Internet

A black cat girlfriend is an enigmatic, self-contained partner who is hard to read and comes and goes on her own terms, like a black cat.

black cat lesbian

General

The aloof, self-contained, slightly mysterious half of a couple. Femme, independent, a bit of a mean-girl edge, affectionate strictly on her own terms, like a cat that picks one person and ignores the rest. Pairs perfectly with a golden retriever lesbian who's delighted to chase.

black disciples

Street

Chicago street org formed when David Barksdale and Larry Hoover's coalition fractured — the BDs broke off from what became the Gangster Disciples in 1974. In the drill era they're the side Chief Keef, Lil Durk, King Von and the entire O'Block / 600 / GBE world rep. Symbol is the six-point star and the number 3 (trey). Half the names you see in drill lyrics — 300, 600, 051 — are BD sets.