"P" Slang

porridge

General

British slang for serving a prison sentence — 'doing porridge'. Comes from the stodgy breakfast that was the standard prison meal for over a century. The 1970s Ronnie Barker sitcom Porridge cemented it in the national vocabulary for good.

portable parking lot

General

A car-carrier rig stacked with seven to ten new or used vehicles. From a distance it really does look like a parking lot rolling down the interstate. Loading one is a Tetris puzzle on hydraulic ramps; one wrong angle and you scrape a $90,000 SUV on the upper deck.

porter

Street

A prisoner whose job is cleaning and maintaining a housing unit or common area, a desirable trusted position.

poser

General

A person who adopts skateboarding's look, brands, or attitude to fit in or impress, without genuinely skating or having real passion for it. A pointed insult in skate culture.

position 5

Gaming

Bottom of the gold pecking order, top of the thankless-job list. Pos 5 buys wards, courier and consumables, babysits the carry early, and trades their own farm for the team's. No items, all impact.

position or ban

Internet

A community demand that anyone touting a trade must post a screenshot proving they hold the position — otherwise they're dismissed (or banned) as all talk.

positive hilton sign / suitcase sign

General

Mock 'sign' that a patient sitting fully dressed with bags packed is well enough to go home; the 'suitcase sign.'

poss

General

To wash clothes by pounding them with a 'poss stick' in a tub.

posse

General

A gang, crew or group of associates; in the 1980s specifically Jamaican organised crime groups in the US/UK.

post up

General

When a player, usually a big, establishes position near the basket with their back to the rim to receive the ball and score.

post-con depression

Internet

The letdown, sadness, or fatigue many attendees feel once a convention is over and they return to ordinary life. Abbreviated PCD; also called post-con blues.

post-plant

Gaming

The phase of a round once the bomb is planted. Attackers stop pushing and play to run down the timer; defenders have to retake. All about angles, lineups and trading.

post-workout

General

A supplement taken after exercise to support recovery and results, often protein and fast carbs.

postage stamp

General

The small area right in the angle of post and crossbar — so tight that hitting it is like finding a postage stamp.

postear

General

Spanglish verb meaning to post content online.

posted up

Street

Standing in one spot on a block, usually a corner or trap house, on the clock waiting for customers. The street-level version of 'open for business' — eyes up, hands free, phone live.

poster

General

A dunk so emphatic over a defender that it deserves to be printed as a poster.

posterize

General

To dunk over a defender in dramatic fashion, making them look helpless. The image is worthy of a poster, with the dunked-on player forever the backdrop.

posterized

Gaming

Beaten so emphatically that the moment looks poster-worthy at the victim's expense.

postie

General

A person who delivers the mail, often on a distinctive motorbike.

posting through it

Internet

Continuing to tweet — often manically — while something is visibly going very wrong in your life. The crisis is happening and the timeline is getting updates.

posting up

Gaming

Used for claiming a position or place firmly, as if planted.

pot

General

A potential sugar daddy or sugar mommy — someone in the talking stage who hasn't yet locked in an allowance, PPM, or anything resembling a real arrangement. POT is a holding pen: they're being screened, vibe-checked, and sized up for whether they're the real deal or about to waste your time as a salt daddy.

pot cake

General

A mixed-breed or stray dog, named after the crusty food left stuck at the bottom of the pot that was fed to them.

pot calling the kettle black

General

Said when someone criticizes a flaw in another that they share.

pot hound

General

A mixed-breed stray or yard dog; a mongrel. Sometimes used pejoratively for a person of mixed race.

pot starver

General

A thin stray dog with ribs showing; used affectionately or dismissively.

potatoes in the mould

Street

Cockney rhyming slang for 'cold', shortened to 'taters'.

pothead

Street

Someone who uses cannabis very frequently.

pothole

General

Shorthand reference to the pothole sign, where jolts on the drive in worsen abdominal pain suggestive of peritonitis.

pothole sign

General

A bedside 'sign' where a patient reports much worse abdominal pain when the car hits bumps on the way in — suggestive of peritoneal irritation, as in appendicitis.

pothound

General

A local mixed-breed street dog; sometimes applied loosely to people. Also pot-hound, potcake (in other islands).

pounamu

General

Prized green nephrite jade found in the South Island, culturally significant to Māori and worn as carved pendants.

pov

Internet

Literally point of view, used as a caption that frames a video as if you're living it, like POV: you're late for work.

pow

General

A haircut. Old-school Manc — your dad's word, your barber's word. Often paired with a 'pow slap', the ceremonial smack on the back of the freshly-shorn head from any mate who clocked you'd been to the barber's.

power exchange

General

The mechanism underneath all of D/s — one person willingly hands control to another, who takes it. The word 'exchange' is the whole ethic: nothing is seized, it's given and received by agreement. Power exchange can be dialled from a single scene up to a full lifestyle. It's the framework everything from light D/s to Total Power Exchange sits inside.

power of friendship

Internet

A recurring shounen theme in which characters overcome stronger foes through the emotional power of their friendships and teamwork, sometimes mocked as a convenient win button.

pox

General

An annoying, troublesome person or thing. 'Poxy' means lousy or worthless.

poxy

General

Rubbish, useless, irritating. A catch-all dismissal — the poxy bus, the poxy weather, your poxy boss. Mild enough to use in front of your mam, sharp enough to land.

poznan

General

A supporter ritual where fans face away from the pitch, link arms and jump up and down in unison.

pp9

Street

To strike someone with a large PP9 battery placed inside a sock, used as an improvised cosh.

ppl

General

Push, Pull, Legs: a training split dividing workouts into pushing muscles, pulling muscles, and legs.

ppm

General

A sugar arrangement priced by the date — cash handed over at each individual meet rather than a monthly allowance lump. Safer for the baby because there's no waiting around for a deposit that never lands; preferred by newer daddies who don't want a recurring bill on their card.

ppv

General

A locked photo or video sent in a creator's DMs that the subscriber has to pay an extra fee on top of their monthly sub to unlock. PPV is where the actual money is on OnlyFans — the $5 sub is just the door charge; the PPV drops are the bar tab.

prac

General

A practical session, laboratory class, or professional placement in a course of study.

prairie

General

A vacant, overgrown lot in a city neighborhood.

prang

General

A crash, prang-up, or smashed-up aircraft. Usually a landing accident rather than a combat loss — the kind of thing that wrote off the kite but not the pilot.

prawn

Internet

Australian slang for the pink $5 banknote.