"R" Slang

rozzers

General

British slang for the cops, in use since the late 1800s. Origin's lost — possibly Romani, possibly a corruption of 'Robert' (Peel again). Sounds Dickensian now but still gets used, half-jokingly.

rpe

General

Rate of Perceived Exertion: a 1–10 scale rating how hard a set felt, used to autoregulate training.

rpg

General

'Rocket-Propelled Grenade' — a shoulder-launched, unguided anti-tank/anti-personnel rocket weapon, most famously the Soviet-designed RPG-7.

rsvp

Internet

From French "répondez s'il vous plaît," a request to reply to an invitation.

rt

Internet

A retweet — broadcasting someone else's post to your timeline. Originally a copy-paste hack ('RT @user: ...'), now a one-click button. Verb and noun, often with the implied 'this deserves more eyes'.

rta

Gaming

An unassisted run timed on a real clock from start to finish, loads and all. The standard for human world records.

rtb

General

'Return To Base' — an order or report that a unit or aircraft is breaking off and heading back to its home base, ship, or operating location.

rtfa

Internet

Curt reply telling someone to read the linked article before commenting on it. Deployed when a top comment is loudly wrong about something the first paragraph clears up.

rto

General

'Radiotelephone Operator' (or 'Radio/Telephone Operator') — the soldier responsible for carrying and operating a unit's field radio and relaying communications for the commander.

rub down

Street

A physical pat-down search of a prisoner, typically before or after visits or movements.

rub out

Street

To rub out a person is to kill them, erasing them entirely. It is classic Prohibition-era gangster slang.

rub-a-dub-dub

Street

Cockney rhyming slang for 'pub', shortened to 'rub-a-dub'.

rubber duck

General

Site slang for a wheeled excavator, the kind that rolls on rubber tyres instead of steel tracks. Named for the tyres. Handy on tarmac and roadworks where tracks would chew the surface, but less stable on soft ground than its tracked cousin.

rubber game

General

The final, deciding game of a series in which each team has won an equal number, so the winner takes the series.

ruby

Street

The shortened form of 'Ruby Murray', Cockney rhyming slang for curry.

ruby murray

General

A curry, the takeaway kind. 'Ruby Murray' rhymes with 'curry' and shortens to 'a ruby'.

ruca

Street

Your woman — wife or long-term girlfriend. Stronger than 'jaina'; this is the one you've been deep with.

ruck

General

A large military backpack, or the act of marching long distances carrying it.

ruck up

General

To shoulder the load and push through adversity; from putting on a heavy rucksack.

rude boy

General

Originally a rebellious, streetwise Jamaican youth of the 1960s ska era; can mean a tough guy or criminal, or be used affectionately.

ruffler

General

By extension, a bullying, swaggering rogue — one who rs alms by intimidation on the open road.

rufo

General

Spanglish loanword for the roof of a house; a roofer is a 'rufero.'

rug pull

Internet

A fraud in which a project's creators build hype, attract buyers, then pull the liquidity (or dump their allocation) and disappear, crashing the token to zero. Often shortened to 'rug' or used as a verb, 'to get rugged'.

rugged

Internet

Got rinsed by the project's own team. They drained the liquidity pool, deleted the Discord, nuked the site, and vanished — your bag is now worth zero and there's no one to sue. The default exit scam of crypto.

rugpull

General

A very real risk in speculative crypto, not just a meme.

rule 63

Internet

An internet adage stating that for any given character there exists an opposite-gender counterpart; widely used to label gender-swapped cosplay and fan art.

rule of five

General

Old ICU bedside rule, half joke half observation. Count the tubes — ET tube, NG, catheter, drains, central lines — once you're past five orifices plumbed in, the patient's odds of leaving the unit alive drop off a cliff. Not in any textbook, but every intensivist who's done a few years nods at it.

rumshop

General

A modest local drinking establishment, hub of village liming and gossip. Also rum shop.

run

General

Move food from kitchen window to guest. The whole role of a food runner is built on this verb. Plates are hot, time is short, and the window doesn't care whose section it is — when expo calls 'run it', whoever's nearest goes.

run it back

General

To play another game immediately, often with the same teams, especially in pickup basketball.

run it up the flagpole

General

To propose something to others to gauge whether it gains support.

run out

Gaming

Instead of sitting inside on the objective, defenders sprint out a door to catch attackers in the open before they've set up. Pure aggression. Catches a flank, eats clock, then ideally you retreat back to site.

run run

General

A rumor or the word going around; the buzz. Synonymous with 'radio bemba' and 'la bola'.

run the dish

General

Take a finished plate from the kitchen window and deliver it to the correct seat at the correct table. "Food runners" are often a dedicated role; on a slammed night any server, busser or manager who's hands-free gets pulled to run. The expo calls it, the runner moves.

run-ahead

Gaming

An emulation feature that runs the game several frames ahead and rolls back, so your inputs register sooner. It strips out the input lag that was baked into the original game, sometimes making the emulated version feel snappier than real hardware.

rundown

General

A rich dish of fish or mackerel simmered until thick in spiced coconut milk. Also 'run-dung'.

rune

Gaming

Spawn points on the Dota map drop runes on a timer. Grab one for a short burst of power: haste, invis, double damage, regen. Controlling rune timings wins lanes and sets up ganks.

runners

General

Trainers. Any athletic-style shoe — Nikes, Adidas, the lot. The default Irish word; no jogging required to qualify.

running the pass

General

The chef (or senior sous) standing at the pass calling tickets, timing courses across stations, wiping rims, dropping the final garnish and waving plates out the door. It's the highest-pressure job in the kitchen during service — you're conducting six stations, reading the dining room, and refusing to send anything that doesn't look right. Gordon Ramsay built a whole TV career on it.

runway

General

The central performance space at a ball — and the category built on walking it. You strut down like it's fashion week: straight-aways, poses, the look. Femme runway tends to stay clean and elegant, straight up and down with sharp poses and minimal antics; male runway leaves room for extra attitude, shade and stunts. It's couture cosplay with stakes — sell the fantasy from the moment you step off.

rupert

General

A British Army commissioned officer — particularly a young, posh, Sandhurst-fresh one. The squaddies' name for the officer class, ranging from mildly affectionate to openly contemptuous depending on tone and how the Rupert in question is performing. The Hugh Grant of military slang.

rush

Gaming

Catching someone right after a fight, low on resources, and blasting them down before they heal. Big special-attack weapon, one combo, dead.

rushdown

Gaming

The aggressive playstyle: get in, stay in, and never let the opponent breathe. Fast normals, strong mixups and relentless pressure until something opens up. The polar opposite of a zoner.

rusting

Internet

Rusting describes a long-term relationship where the spark, effort, and novelty have worn away over time, leaving things stale.

rwt

Gaming

Selling in-game gold or items for real cash, or buying them. Bannable in basically every MMO and the root of most gold-farming and account-hacking.

rx

General

In CrossFit, completing a workout 'as prescribed' — with the prescribed weights, movements and standards, without scaling down.