"L" Slang

leh we go

General

A common phrase meaning 'let us go', used to signal it's time to leave or get moving. Also 'leh we'.

lembo

General

A mild Welsh insult for a daft or dopey person.

lemon

Street

A foolish or gullible person ('standing there like a lemon'); 'lemon squeezy' rhymes with 'easy'.

lemon pepper wet

Street

Wings dusted in lemon pepper, then dipped in or tossed with hot wing sauce so the seasoning goes wet instead of dry. An Atlanta-specific order — most associated with American Deli and J.R. Crickets. Donald Glover put it in front of the world via 'Atlanta' S1E2, but locals were ordering it for years.

lemon squeezy

Street

Cockney rhyming slang meaning easy; the source of 'easy peasy lemon squeezy'.

leng

General

Very attractive. Fit. Said about a person — usually a woman in road usage — who turns heads. Stronger than 'nice-looking', shorter than the speech you'd otherwise need.

lengua larga

General

Someone who talks too much or can't keep a secret; a blabbermouth. Literally 'long tongue'.

leopards eating faces party

Internet

A tag slapped on stories where someone is shocked — shocked! — that the thing they cheered for is now happening to them. The joke writes itself: you voted for the Leopards Eating Faces Party, you don't get to complain when leopards eat your face.

let him cook

Internet

Can be sarcastic when someone is clearly not cooking, i.e. failing.

let on

General

To acknowledge or greet someone you know when you cross paths — a nod, a wave, a quick alright. Failing to let on is a social crime up North: 'she walked right past and didn't even let on'. Massive shade.

let them cook

Internet

Used sarcastically when someone is confidently doing something terrible — letting them fail spectacularly.

let's blow this popsicle stand

General

A casual, jaunty way to say it's time to go.

lettuce

Street

Money, especially paper cash, named for the green color of US bills.

lettuce hands

Internet

An escalation of 'paper hands' for someone who sells at the slightest drop; lettuce is even flimsier than paper.

level set

General

To make sure all participants have the same baseline information or expectations before proceeding.

leverage

Internet

The use of borrowed funds, margin, or options to amplify exposure — multiplying both potential profits and the risk of a blown account.

lewdies

General

The spelling nudges toward English 'lewd', a faint extra colouring typical of Burgess.

lezzer

General

A meadow or grassy field. Older Black Country / Brummie usage — 'on the lezzers' means out in the fields. You'll still see it preserved in road and farm names round the West Midlands.

lfg

Internet

The default crypto-Twitter celebration shout. Posted when a coin pumps, a mint sells out, an airdrop lands, or honestly any time something good happens. Adopted from sports/gaming culture and weaponised by crypto into a near-religious chant.

li

Internet

Short for love interest. Fanfic and BookTok shorthand for the romantic target in a story — the one the MC is orbiting, pining over, or already entangled with. Plural LIs are common in poly plots and otome games.

liar's poker

General

A bluffing game traders play on the desk using the eight-digit serial numbers on dollar bills. Each player treats their bill's digits as a hidden hand and bids on how many of a given digit are present across everyone's bills combined. You either raise the bid or call the previous player a liar. Famously the favoured pastime of Salomon Brothers bond traders in the 1980s.

liberty

General

A blatant injustice — a price hike, a dodgy ref decision, your mate eating the last chip. 'That's a liberty, that' is the standard cry. Wider British usage but Geordies wield it constantly.

libo

General

Time off from duty when a sailor or Marine may leave the base or ship, short for 'liberty.'

lick

Street

A robbery, or more loosely any quick, opportunistic come-up — could be a stick-up, a scam, a flipped bag, a plug. 'Hit a lick' = pulled off the score. Born in Southern street slang, weaponised by Chicago drill and now standard across rap.

lick down

General

To strike and knock down; frequently used for being hit by a car. Also lick-dung.

lickrish

General

Describing someone excessively fond of eating or eager for a particular food.

licks

General

Blows or corporal punishment; can be literal or figurative, as in a sports thrashing.

licky-licky

General

Describes someone greedy, grasping, or fawning — willing to debase themselves for a small treat or favour.

lid

General

A mate, lad, or geezer. The Scouse equivalent of 'bro' or 'pal' — used to address a friend or refer to a bloke. Can be warm or sarcastic depending on tone. Often heard in 'alright, lid?' as a greeting.

lifer

General

A prisoner doing a life sentence. On the wing, lifers are a tribe of their own — settled in, often calmer than the short-stretch lads, because for them this isn't a phase, it's the address.

lift

General

As a noun, a theft or the trade of stealing — and 'the lift' was a recognised canting law (con) of its own.

light 'em up

Street

To launch a swift, unexpected assault on another inmate.

light a fire under

General

To motivate or push someone to get moving on a task.

light attack weaving

Gaming

The bread-and-butter rhythm of ESO endgame: fire a light attack, cast an ability, repeat. Done clean, you're basically doubling your damage output for free. Get the timing wrong and you clip your own attack.

light novel

Internet

A style of short, easy-to-read Japanese novel aimed at young readers, usually with anime-style illustrations and frequently adapted into anime.

lightmans

General

The day or daylight; the canting word for daytime, the hours for begging, casing houses and lying low.

lightstick

Internet

An official, group-branded battery-powered glow stick that fans bring to K-pop concerts. Each group has its own shape — ARMY Bomb (BTS), Carat Bong (Seventeen), Candy Bong (TWICE) — and they sync via Bluetooth so the whole arena lights up in coordinated waves. Owning your group's lightstick is basically the membership card.

lightstick ocean

Internet

The dazzling field of coordinated fandom lightsticks that lights up an arena during a concert, often in a signature color. A hallmark image of K-pop concerts.

like

General

A filler placed at the end of a sentence for emphasis or as a verbal full stop, characteristic of Geordie speech.

like a house on fire

General

Of people, getting on very well together; or progressing rapidly.

like crazy

General

An intensifier meaning intensely, wildly, or to a great degree.

like white on rice

General

Sticking to something or someone extremely closely.

like, totally

Pop

A standalone reply expressing full enthusiastic agreement.

likear

General

Spanglish verb meaning to 'like' something on social media.

likkle

Street

Little or small; one of the most recognisable Patois pronunciations.

likkle more

General

A casual farewell meaning 'see you later' or 'until a little later'.

lills / luppers

General

Hands. Part of the head-to-toe Polari body lexicon. If you knew the words you could clock someone's mannerisms, jewellery or wandering grip without a single straight person at the bar catching on.

lily law

General

The police, dressed up in a camp feminine alias. Polari loved to feminise authority into harmless-sounding women — Lily Law, Betty Bracelets (handcuffs), Jennifer Justice. Naming the thing that could arrest you for who you were, and naming it as a fussy lady, was both a warning system and a small act of defiance. You'd hiss 'Lily Law' to clear the room.