"H" Slang

holeshot

General

Taking the lead out of the starting gate and being first into the opening turn of a race. The holeshot is often decisive in short BMX races.

holistic

General

An approach that takes all interconnected aspects of a problem into account together.

holla

Pop

To flirt with or make a move on someone.

hollow

General

Describes a wave that pitches out over a gap of air rather than crumbling, creating rideable barrels.

hollywood

General

Behaving like a celebrity — self-important, flaky, or too good for people. 'He's on hollywood' = he's acting big-time.

hollywood code

General

A resuscitation that's all performance, no intent. Staff go through the motions — shallow compressions, half-hearted drug pushes — on a patient they've already accepted as gone, usually because the family hasn't accepted it yet. Ethically radioactive: the American Nurses Association calls it flat-out wrong, but surveys say most clinicians have seen one.

hollywood marine

General

A ribbing term for a Marine who went through recruit training in San Diego rather than Parris Island.

hollywood pass

General

An ambitious, showy long-range pass prioritising spectacle over the simple, effective option.

holup

Internet

A reaction screaming 'wait, what?' — you spotted something off, suspicious, or wildly out of pocket in what was just said or shown, and you need everyone to rewind. The deliberate misspelling does the work: it signals you're not literally pausing, you're double-taking.

holy buckets

General

A mild exclamation of surprise or amazement.

holy ghost

General

Bread, browned. Classic Cockney rhyming slang — Holy Ghost rhymes with toast, and that's the whole trick. Usually kept in full; rarely shortened, because 'pass us the holy' just sounds like a prayer request.

holy wah

General

The signature Yooper exclamation — surprise, awe, mild outrage, all in two syllables. The 'wah' carries Finnish-immigrant DNA from the U.P.'s mining heritage. Used the way a Minnesotan says 'oh geez' or a Bostonian says 'wicked'.

home plate

General

A brevity code for an aircraft's home airfield or ship — the base it will return to for recovery.

home run

General

An outcome that greatly exceeds expectations.

homeboy

Music

Chicano/English term for a close friend from the neighborhood; also 'homie' or 'homes.'

homegirl

Music

A friendly term of address among women in the same crew or community.

homegrown

Street

Marijuana grown at home for personal use rather than bought.

honey

Street

A cannabis concentrate with a viscous, golden, honey-like consistency, sometimes called honey oil.

honey bucket

General

The plastic porta-potty parked at the edge of every jobsite. 'Honey' is straight-faced sarcasm for the contents — the term goes back to the days when waste was hauled away in actual barrels. In the Pacific Northwest it's also a major brand, which is why locals call every blue box a Honey Bucket regardless of who made it.

honey oil

Street

A viscous, honey-colored cannabis oil concentrate.

honey wagon

General

The vacuum-tank truck that rolls up once a week to service the porta-potties. Same sarcastic 'honey' as the bucket — nothing sweet is happening here. The name dates back to horse-drawn carts that collected human waste from back alleys before sewers existed.

honkin'

General

Stinking, foul-smelling. Usually about BO, bins, feet, or a kebab shop at 3am. Stronger than 'whiffy'.

honorifics

Internet

The system of respectful address terms, such as hyung, noona, sunbae, and unnie, used according to age and seniority. Fundamental to idol interactions.

hoo

General

The old Lancashire word for 'she'. Largely died out in everyday speech but still pops up in dialect verse, folk songs and older Mancunians quoting their nan.

hoobae

Internet

Someone junior to you in a profession or field, such as a more recently debuted idol. The counterpart to a sunbae.

hoodsie

General

Those little 3oz ice cream cups with the flat wooden spoon, made by HP Hood (a Massachusetts dairy). A field-trip and school-lunch staple across New England for generations.

hoof

General

To clear or launch the ball long without control or intended target, just to get it away from danger.

hook

Music

In collaborations, the part one artist sings or raps as the song's centerpiece while others handle verses.

hook song

Internet

A song whose appeal centers on a memorable, easily repeated musical or lyrical phrase. A hallmark of K-pop's ultra-catchy production style.

hooky

General

Truancy — cutting class or ducking out of work. 'Playing hooky' is taking an unauthorized day off.

hoon

General

A person who drives dangerously and noisily; more broadly a lout. Also a verb: to hoon around.

hoop

Gaming

The basketball rim and net, the target you score into.

hooper

Gaming

A basketball player, especially one who is genuinely skilled and lives for the game.

hoops

General

A common nickname for basketball, referring to the hoops used as goals.

hooroo

General

An informal farewell; also spelt 'hoo roo' or 'ooroo'.

hoose

General

House. Same word, just the Geordie/Scots vowel doing its thing — long 'oo' where RP says 'ow'. Shared across the Tyne and the border into Scotland.

hoosier

General

In St. Louis usage, a derogatory term for a low-class, unsophisticated person, the local equivalent of 'redneck' or 'white trash.' Unrelated to the Indiana sense.

hooty hoo

Street

Call-and-response holler used to spot or summon your crew. You shout it, they shout it back — you've found each other. Old-school Atlanta, OutKast-coded.

hooyah

General

A spirited shout used by the Navy, especially Navy SEALs, to acknowledge orders or express motivation — the naval equivalent of 'hooah' and 'oorah.'

hop in vc

Internet

A casual summons to leave the text channel and talk out loud. Reads as friendly with mates, mildly ominous when the server admin says it, and faintly flirty when a stranger DMs it at 1am.

hopemaxxing

Internet

Deliberately choosing optimism — Gen Z's self-aware, often ironic take on staying hopeful in a doomscrolling-heavy internet culture.

hopium

Internet

A blend of 'hope' and 'opium', the intoxicating optimism that keeps traders believing a coin will pump against all signals.

hopkick

Gaming

A short hopping kick that launches the opponent into a juggle. Most of the cast has one, and it's a staple for punishing whiffed lows.

hoppings

General

A fair, dance or festival; the Newcastle Town Moor 'Hoppings' is Europe's largest travelling fair.

hops

General

How high a player can jump; great leaping ability.

horn

General

To have an affair behind a partner's back; to cuckold. Widely used across Trinidad and Barbados.

hornerman

General

The male with whom a woman has an affair; the outside lover. Female equivalent is 'hornerwoman'.

horrendoma

General

Fake tumour name for a real nightmare. Built from 'horrendous' + the medical suffix '-oma' (tumour), it labels a patient or case so tangled with complications, comorbidities and bad outcomes that it stops being one disease and starts being a genre. Reserved for the truly grim — the kind of admission that gets a whispered warning at handover.