"H" Slang

horrendoplasty

General

Mock-surgical term for an especially difficult, drawn-out and messy operation.

horrorshow

General

The deliberate clash between the cosy meaning 'good' and the menacing English sound 'horror show' is part of Burgess's irony about violence.

horse

General

A prison officer who smuggles contraband for inmates — phones, drugs, tobacco, whatever pays. 'Horse' because they carry the load in and out. The single most valuable asset an inside crew can have, and the riskiest one to lose.

horsefeathers

General

Used as a noun meaning worthless nonsense.

hose

General

A player's throwing arm, especially a powerful one that fires the ball like a hose blasting water.

hospital flip

General

A trick in which the board is half-kickflipped, momentarily caught upside down under the front foot, then flipped back over to land. Named for how easily it can hurt you.

hospital hobo

General

A patient who repeatedly moves between different hospitals seeking admission, care or shelter — 'hospital hobo syndrome.'

hospital pass

General

A poorly timed or placed pass that forces the receiver to catch it in a vulnerable position, likely to result in a punishing hit.

hoss

General

A friendly term of address for a close friend or buddy. From 'horse'.

hoss road

General

The street — specifically the road surface, as opposed to the pavement. Classic Black Country / Brummie warning to kids: 'Gerrout the hoss road' means get out of the road before a car flattens you.

hot

Gaming

A heal that drips. Slap a HoT on someone and they regen health in ticks over a few seconds, no need to keep casting. Healer's best friend for keeping the team topped while you handle the next thing.

hot behind

General

Escalated version of 'behind' — you're passing with a screaming pan, a sheet tray straight from the oven, or a stockpot. Tells everyone within burn radius to lock their position and not pivot.

hot corner

General

Third base, so named because hard-hit balls reach the third baseman quickly and dangerously.

hot drop

Gaming

The high-risk, high-reward landing. Drop where everyone else drops, get into a fight before your feet touch the ground, and walk out loaded if you survive. Most of the lobby's already dead two minutes in.

hot meds

Street

Drugs an inmate must swallow while watched, with a mouth check, to prevent hoarding or diversion. Contrast 'cold meds,' kept in-cell.

hot one

Street

A homicide charge, considered the most serious 'beef' an inmate can carry.

hot plate

Street

The heated counter where prisoners collect their hot meals, and by extension the meal itself.

hot rod

General

By extension, a person who drives recklessly fast.

hot sauce

General

Dazzling, over-the-top dribbling flair; also the nickname of a famous And1 streetball dribbler.

hot take

Internet

An opinion pitched to feel daring, often half-baked, usually posted without the receipts to back it up. The temperature is the point, not the truth. Increasingly used self-deprecatingly to soften a real argument.

hot wallet

Internet

A wallet connected to the internet (a mobile app, browser extension, or exchange account) that's convenient for spending and trading but more vulnerable to hacks than cold storage.

hot wrench

General

The technique — and by extension the torch itself — of heating a rusted or seized fastener red-hot so the metal expands, breaks the corrosion bond, and finally lets you back it out. Not the same as cutting it off; the goal is to save the threads. Every mechanic and millwright has a hot wrench story.

hotbox

Street

To smoke cannabis in a small enclosed space like a car so it fills with smoke.

hotdish

General

A hearty baked main dish combining a protein, a starch, vegetables, and a creamy soup binder, frequently crowned with tater tots. What most of the country calls a casserole.

hotdropping

Gaming

The act of throwing yourself into the busiest POI on purpose. Hotdropping means you're chasing fights and loot from second one, not hiding in a bush waiting for the circle.

hotel pan

General

Standardized rectangular stainless-steel pan built to drop into a steam table, hot well, or speed rack. Sized in fractions of a full pan — full, half, third, sixth, ninth — and in depths (2-inch, 4-inch, 6-inch). The lingua franca of restaurant storage and service.

hotlanta

Street

A '70s-era nickname for Atlanta that locals will side-eye you for using. Real ATL folks say A-Town or the A. Saying 'Hotlanta' marks you as a visitor, a Bravo producer, or someone who hasn't been since 1994.

hotshots

General

Interagency Hotshot Crews — 20-person wildland hand crews held to the highest training, fitness, and experience standards in US wildland firefighting. They get sent to the gnarliest sections of the biggest fires (the "hot" parts of the line, hence the name), often cutting direct line with chainsaws and hand tools right next to active flame. Roughly 110 IHC crews exist nationally across USFS, BLM, NPS, BIA, and state agencies. The 19 hotshots killed on Yarnell Hill in 2013 were Granite Mountain IHC.

hotsy-totsy

General

Just fine; satisfactory; all in good order.

hottie

General

A hot water bottle used to warm the bed on cold nights.

houl yer whisht

General

An instruction to be quiet or hold one's tongue.

house

General

In ballroom culture, a house is a chosen family — a tight-knit crew of mostly Black and Latino LGBTQ folks, headed by a mother and/or father, that walks balls together under one name. It started as survival: queer kids kicked out of home found shelter, mentorship and a surname with their house. Think House of LaBeija, House of Xtravaganza. The house both raises you and reps you when you walk the floor.

house father

General

The patriarch of a ballroom house, the counterpart to the house mother. An older, respected member who leads, mentors and protects the house children, providing the guidance and family their birth homes often didn't. Hector Valle founded and fathered the House of Xtravaganza. Same chosen-family role as the mother, just the masc-presenting seat at the head of the table.

house fee

General

Pay-to-play: dancers are typically classed as independent contractors and have to hand the club a set amount — often $50 to $200 — before they've earned a dollar. Scales with the shift (Friday night costs more than Tuesday afternoon). The reason a slow night can end with a dancer leaving in the red.

house mom

General

Often a retired dancer, she runs the back: tracks shifts, sells tampons and hairspray at markup, breaks up fights, talks girls off ledges, and trains the baby strippers on how the floor actually works. Tipped by every dancer at end of shift. The job the customers never see but the club can't run without.

house mother

General

The matriarch of a ballroom house. Usually an older, respected member, a drag queen, gay man or trans woman, who leads the house, trains its children to walk categories, and provides the support, guidance and sometimes literal housing that the kids' birth families wouldn't. Think Angie Xtravaganza. A chosen-family mum in every sense that counts. The term has spread well beyond ballroom into wider drag and queer culture.

house mouse

General

A recruit assigned to clean and run errands in the drill instructors' offices and quarters.

house of labeija

General

The original. The House of LaBeija is the first ballroom house, born when Crystal LaBeija walked off the stage of a rigged white-judged drag pageant in 1967 and decided to build something for Black and Latino queens instead. With Lottie LaBeija she threw the first House of LaBeija ball in Harlem in 1972, and the entire house system, every chosen family that came after, traces back to that move. Crystal is the Mother of Ballroom for a reason.

house of ninja

General

Willi Ninja's house, started in 1982. Willi was the Godfather of Vogue, the dancer who sharpened the form into the clean, precise, runway-fierce style the world knows from Paris Is Burning, and he led the House of Ninja as its mother. Famously multiracial when most houses were Black or, in Xtravaganza's case, Latino. Willi broke the rule that you needed three grand prizes before starting a house, then went and proved he never needed it.

house of xtravaganza

General

The first all-Latino house in a scene that was mostly Black at the time. Hector Valle started it in the summer of 1982 to give Latino queens their own family, but it was Angie Xtravaganza, a Puerto Rican trans teen, who became house mother and turned it into a powerhouse, snatching grand prizes almost immediately. You know the name from Paris Is Burning and Pose. Inducted into the Ballroom Hall of Fame in 2006.

houseman

Street

A houseman is a burglar, one who breaks into houses to steal. It is a plain occupational term within the underworld.

how body

Street

A variant everyday greeting, often used interchangeably with "How you dey" and "How far." Asks after someone's general state or health in a warm, casual way.

how copy

General

A radio phrase asking the other station to confirm how well they received and understood the transmission — 'did you get all that?'

how far

Street

A universal Nigerian Pidgin greeting used when meeting someone, checking in, or opening a conversation. It isn't literally about distance — it's closer to "how's everything?"

how man

General

An exclamation meaning 'steady on', 'be sensible' or 'listen here'.

how ya goin'

General

A standard greeting asking how someone is; not literally about travel.

how ya going

General

A common greeting meaning 'how are you?', not asking about travel.

how's it going

General

A standard casual greeting; often not a literal question. Also 'how's it?' or 'how are ya?'.