"S" Slang

slippage

Internet

The difference between the price you expect on a trade and the price you actually get, caused by volatility or thin liquidity. DEX users set a slippage tolerance to control it.

slobberknocker

General

A violent, jarring collision between two players, especially a huge tackle.

slock

General

Improvised cosh: padlock (or batteries, or a tin of tuna) stuffed into the toe of a sock and swung at someone's head. Cheap, deniable, available from the commissary, and absolutely devastating. One of the most common homemade weapons inside US prisons.

slogan

Internet

A banner or towel printed with an idol's name or image, waved or held up by fans during performances.

slooshy

General

In Nadsat, to slooshy is to hear or to listen. Source word: Russian 'slushat' (слушать), 'to listen'.

slop

Internet

Can extend to any cheap, mass-produced thing, like fast fashion or spammy media.

slop out

General

The grim morning ritual in cells with no flush toilet: doors unlock, you carry your overnight bucket of piss and shit down the landing to the sluice and tip it out. Standard in British nicks until 1996, when slopping out was officially abolished in England and Wales. Still lingered in places for years after, and Scotland kept it going even longer.

sloshed

General

Noticeably drunk, often sloppy and unsteady on your feet.

sloughworker

Street

A sloughworker is a burglar who specializes in robbing houses in the countryside, away from city policing.

slow burn

Internet

A romance that develops across many chapters — sometimes many books — with longing looks, almost-kisses and emotional restraint instead of a quick payoff. Fanfic readers will sit through 200k words for one hand-graze.

slow code

General

An ethically fraught, unofficially subdued resuscitation performed on a patient for whom full efforts are felt to be futile.

slow fade

Internet

A breakup method where someone slowly decreases contact and effort over time instead of having a direct conversation, until the relationship quietly dies.

slow is smooth, smooth is fast

General

The shooter's gospel. Rush a reload or a corner clear and you fumble it; do it deliberately and the motion becomes smooth, and smooth motion ends up faster than panicked motion ever could. Associated with Navy SEAL and broader special-operations training, and now bled out into everything from rock climbing to startup advice.

slow push

Gaming

Wave management where you kill just a couple of the enemy's minions each wave so your own side stacks up. Over a few waves it builds into a huge wave that crashes hard into the enemy tower, perfect for setting up a dive or recall timing.

slowdown

Gaming

When too many sprites and bullets pile up, the game can't keep frame-rate and everything crawls. In shmups this is a feature, not a bug — it buys you time to thread the curtain.

slowed and throwed

Street

Same syrupy Houston technique as chopped and screwed — slow it down, chop it up — under a different banner. Swishahouse (Michael Watts, OG Ron C) leaned on this name to distinguish their version from DJ Screw's original.

slug

Street

A lazy prisoner who stays in his cell and avoids the yard.

slugging

Pop

A skincare technique of coating the face in petroleum jelly or another occlusive at night to lock in moisture.

slugs

Street

Gold (or gold-and-diamond) teeth — usually permanent caps or removable fronts, not the slip-on grills you bought online. Deep roots in New Orleans and the wider Dirty South; to be 'slugged up' is to have the full mouth done, often with names, initials or open-face diamond cutouts. Status piece, mouthpiece, and family heirloom all at once.

slummerville

General

Vintage nickname for the city of Somerville, dating from the decades when it was a tough working-class town with Whitey-era organised crime and not the seven-dollar-oat-milk-latte borough it is today. Still used affectionately by old-timers and ironically by the hipsters who priced them out.

slushies

General

Soft, wet, slushy snow typical of warm spring afternoons, which is forgiving and fun for jibbing and jumping. Spring slush sessions are a beloved end-of-season tradition.

smacht

General

Control, discipline or order, especially imposed on someone or something unruly.

smacked

General

Heavily under the influence of alcohol or drugs; wasted.

smackers

Internet

Slang for dollars, as in the amount something costs. Variant: smackeroos.

small ball

General

A style of play that scores runs through bunts, steals, and situational hitting rather than home runs.

small up yourself

General

A request to make space, especially in a crowded seat or vehicle, by shifting to fit more people.

small up yuhself

General

An invitation or instruction to make space by squeezing together, e.g. on a seat or in a packed room.

smart contract

Internet

A program stored on a blockchain that automatically executes agreed logic — minting, royalties, staking — without an intermediary.

smash or pass

Internet

A recurring chat or stream game. Someone posts a celeb, character, or unfortunate volunteer; everyone replies 'smash' (would) or 'pass' (wouldn't). Built for quick takes, mock-outrage, and roasting the friend with the cursed taste.

smb

Internet

In business chat, stands for "small and medium-sized business." A well-documented workplace initialism.

smdh

Internet

Stands for "shaking my damn head," a more emphatic version of SMH. Conveys stronger frustration or disbelief.

smh

Internet

Stands for 'shaking my head,' expressing disappointment, secondhand embarrassment, or disbelief.

smirr

General

A very fine, soft rain or drizzle that seems to hang in the air.

smite

Gaming

The summoner spell that lets you slam true damage into a monster, used to last-hit Dragon, Baron and other big objectives so the enemy can't steal them. Carrying Smite basically defines you as the jungler.

smith grind

General

A grind in which the back truck is on the obstacle while the front truck hangs down and over the far side, angling the board downward and away.

smoggie

General

A person from Middlesbrough or the wider Teesside area.

smoke

Street

To kill someone with a gun. Drill and gangsta-rap shorthand — you 'smoke' an opp the same way you'd put out a cigarette. Cold, casual, final.

smoke diving

General

Interior structural firefighting through heavy, zero-visibility smoke while breathing off an SCBA (self-contained breathing apparatus). The term frames it like scuba diving — limited air, hostile environment, no vision, follow the line back out. In Scandinavia "smoke diver" (røykdykker / rökdykare) is an actual job certification with a brutal physical standard; in North American slang it just means aggressive interior work.

smoke gank

Gaming

In Dota, the team pops Smoke of Deceit — which hides you from enemy wards — then walks in together to ambush a hero who never sees it coming. The classic way to open a fight on your terms.

smoke wagon

Street

A smoke wagon is a gun, especially a revolver, evoking the smoke it discharges. It is Old West and early crime slang.

smoke wrench

General

A cutting torch, usually oxy-acetylene. Called a smoke wrench because when a bolt, bracket or piece of structural steel refuses to come apart with hand tools, you reach for fire instead. The 'wrench' is sarcasm — it's not unscrewing anything, it's just turning it into slag.

smoked

General

To be disciplined by being made to do exhausting physical training such as endless push-ups and sprints.

smokeshow

Internet

Someone whose good looks are so intense they're almost overwhelming, as if smoking hot. A strong compliment for physical attractiveness.

smokey

General

CB radio shorthand for a highway patrolman, specifically because the broad-brimmed campaign hat troopers wear is the same one Smokey Bear wears in the fire-prevention ads. Hit hard by the 1977 film Smokey and the Bandit and never really left the airwaves.

smokin' opps

Street

Killing enemies — and in the drill double-meaning, literally smoking weed packs named after dead opps. Chief Keef and the GBE/O'Block circle made it the genre's central bar. The whole 'I Don't Like' / 'Faneto' era runs on this image.

smoking on that opp pack

Street

Drill catchphrase that doubles up the slang for 'smoke': you're smoking actual weed, and you're 'smoking' (killing/celebrating the death of) a named opp. Almost always followed by the dead rival's name. The ultimate disrespect bar.

smoko

General

A short break from work for a cigarette, tea or snack.

smol brain

Internet

A cutesy misspelling of "small brain," used self-deprecatingly or as a mild insult for a lack of understanding.