"P" Slang

proggy mat

General

A traditional handmade rug pegged from strips of cloth; also 'clippy mat' or 'hookie mat'.

progressive overload

General

Steadily increasing the demand on muscles over time — more weight, reps, or sets — to keep forcing adaptation.

projecting

Internet

Attributing your own emotions, insecurities, or behaviors to another person.

prolly

Internet

A casual phonetic spelling of "probably," indicating likelihood.

promo (album)

Internet

Promotional copies of an album, often signed, distributed to industry contacts and broadcasters rather than sold — sometimes leaking into the resale market.

prop

Internet

An object or accessory, such as a weapon, wand, or gadget, carried or worn to portray a character more convincingly.

prop maker

Internet

A crafter who makes props such as swords, staffs, and gadgets, often for other cosplayers, and who may not wear costumes themselves.

propa

General

The Geordie spelling of proper used as an intensifier — slapped in front of any adjective to crank it up. Same job as very, dead, or well in other dialects. If something's propa canny, it's seriously good.

proper

General

Used to mean 'really' or 'thoroughly'. Ubiquitous in Northern and Mancunian speech.

proper job

General

A Cornish phrase meaning something is satisfactory or first-rate.

protection

Street

'Protection' is a racket in which criminals demand payment from a business in exchange for not harming it, dressed up as a security service.

protective custody

Street

Housing that isolates a prisoner from general population for their own safety. Requesting it is called 'checking in' or 'PC-ing up.'

protein window

General

The window of time after training when protein intake is believed to be especially beneficial for recovery and growth (the 'anabolic window').

protocol

General

The agreed code of conduct — how a submissive addresses, moves around, and behaves toward a dominant, plus the rituals and etiquette that go with it. Protocol can be a private thing between two people or a shared house style at a leather party. It's often graded (low/high protocol) depending on the occasion. Rooted in Old Guard leather culture, the heavily ritualised club scene that also gave us the 'safe, sane and consensual' ethos.

provel

General

A white processed cheese blend of cheddar, Swiss, and provolone, used on St. Louis-style thin-crust pizza cut into squares.

provenance

Internet

The complete, transparent record of an NFT's creation and every subsequent owner, provable on-chain — a key selling point over traditional art.

provisions

General

Also called 'ground provisions' — starchy staples like yam, dasheen, eddoes, cassava, and green banana that accompany meals.

prowling

Internet

Prowling is scrolling far back through a person's old posts, tags, and comments, like an archaeologist excavating their digital past.

pruno

General

Improvised wine brewed in a cell from whatever ferments: oranges, fruit cocktail, ketchup, sugar packets, bread for the yeast, all sealed in a plastic bag and hidden warm for days. Tastes like the inside of a bin and can put you in the infirmary — botulism outbreaks from pruno are a documented thing — but it gets you drunk, which is the entire point.

ps

Street

Ps is money — straight up. From the £ sign / 'pees' (pounds). 'Bag of Ps,' 'chasing Ps,' 'made my Ps' — the most common money word in UK drill, full stop.

psa

Internet

Stands for 'public service announcement,' used to mark a post as important info worth everyone's attention.

psych

Pop

As a verb, to psych someone is to mentally trick or fake them out.

pt

General

'Physical Training' — the organized physical fitness and exercise regimen that service members perform, often early in the morning.

ptitsa

General

Used for women in general, sometimes older than a 'devotchka' (girl).

public pretender

General

What inmates call their court-appointed lawyer when they reckon the guy isn't actually defending them — just going through the motions before pleading them out. Born of overworked PD offices and 15-minute hallway conferences.

puckerood

General

Completely broken or wrecked; an anglicised spelling and pronunciation of the Māori 'pakaru'.

puddle pirate

General

A jocular, mildly mocking term for a Coast Guardsman, referencing their coastal and inland waters mission.

puff puff pass

Street

The unwritten sharing rule of taking about two hits before passing the joint, blunt, or pipe to the next person.

pug

Gaming

Pick-Up Group. A team of players who don't know each other, usually formed through the in-game group finder. The opposite of running with your guild or mates. Notoriously hit or miss.

puggled

General

Worn out and exhausted; or of a thing, broken or not working.

puka

General

The Hawaiian word for hole, used by surfers for a hole in the reef, a gap, or a ding punched through a board.

pull

Gaming

In MMOs, initiating combat by getting an enemy (or a pack of them) to come to you, usually the tank ranged-attacking to grab a controlled number rather than waking the whole room.

pull bull

General

To drive a private car as an illegal, unregistered taxi ('PH' taxi).

pull up

Gaming

A jump shot taken by rising straight up out of the dribble, without gathering into a set stance.

pull your head in

General

A blunt instruction to stop interfering or being cheeky.

pulled

General

To attract and get together with someone romantically, especially on a night out. "Pulling" means successfully getting a date, kiss, or hookup.

pulling

Gaming

Aggro a neutral camp so it pulls your lane creeps off their path and into the jungle. The wave dies in the camp instead of pushing, resetting equilibrium toward you and denying the enemy the XP and gold they'd have got.

pump

Internet

A sharp upward move in price, whether organic or engineered. 'Pumping' describes a coin climbing fast.

pump and dump

Internet

A manipulation scheme where promoters inflate ('pump') a coin's price through hype, then sell ('dump') their holdings onto the new buyers, collapsing the price.

pump fake

General

A fake shooting motion designed to make the defender jump, creating a driving or shooting lane.

pump it

Internet

An exclamation urging a coin's price higher, associated with the Bogdanoff twins "dump it / pump it" meme mocking market manipulation.

pump it out

General

Heads down, hands moving, no chatting — just get tickets up and out the window. Said during a rush when the printer won't stop and the only way through is volume. Slightly different from being 'in the weeds' — pumping it out is the controlled version, weeds is when you've lost it.

pumpamentals

Internet

A blend of "pump" and "fundamentals," mocking the idea that a coin's only fundamental is that its price is going up.

pumping

General

Describes a solid swell where the waves are consistently nice, powerful and well-shaped.

pumpkin

Street

A newly booked prisoner wearing orange during processing. A group of them is a 'pumpkin patch.'

pumpkin head

General

What's left of someone's face after a sustained beating — swelling so bad the head goes round and orange-ish, eyes shut, features gone. In prison talk, giving someone a pumpkin head is a deliberate piece of work, not an accident.

pumpkin positive

General

The mental image is the joke. Stick a penlight in the patient's mouth and the skull would light up like a jack-o'-lantern because there's so little brain to absorb the light. Doctors use it under their breath about a patient who's not the sharpest — the kind who can't follow simple instructions. Cruel, but it's been kicking around medical break rooms for decades.

punch-and-judy hitter

General

A batter who lacks power and prefers to place well-timed singles instead of swinging for home runs.