"S" Slang

sandbagger

General

A rider who signs up for a contest category or amateur class below their true ability in order to win against weaker competition. It is frowned upon as cheating the spirit of competition.

sandbagging

Gaming

Intentionally underperforming. Could be a pro messing about in casuals, a smurf hiding their rank, or someone tanking a match for seeding reasons. Either way they're not playing their A-game on purpose.

sandbox

General

Slang for the arid deployment theaters of the Middle East, especially Iraq and Kuwait.

sandwich attack

Internet

An MEV tactic where a bot places a buy just before a victim's large trade and a sell just after, profiting from the price movement it sandwiches around the target order.

sandwiched

General

A brevity code indicating an aircraft or element is positioned between opposing aircraft or elements — a dangerous, surrounded situation.

sanfi

General

A manipulative, dishonest person who sweet-talks others to exploit them, especially for money. Also samfai.

sanger

General

A sandwich; a classic Aussie diminutive, as in a 'sausage sanger'.

sangnamja

Internet

Describes a strongly masculine man, often muscular and traditionally 'manly'; also the name of a B.A.P title track that popularized the term with fans.

sannies

General

Trainers or plimsolls — short for 'sandshoes', the old Scottish word for the rubber-soled canvas shoes you wore for gym class. Still very much current.

santa claus rally

Internet

The Santa Claus rally is a seasonal tendency for stock prices to rise during the last five trading days of December and the first two of January. It is a widely watched calendar effect.

sap

General

A simpleton or fool, with the specific flavour of being soft and easily taken advantage of. Common across Ireland and Britain — the sap is the one who picks up the bill, believes the excuse, lends the money he won't see again. Less mean than 'eejit', more pitying.

sapa

Street

A vivid personification of poverty — being so broke that "Sapa" is described as a force or spirit that has come to grip you.

sapiosexual

Internet

Describing someone for whom intelligence is the most attractive trait in a partner, prioritizing the mind over physical appearance. A common dating-profile descriptor.

sapodilla

General

A round brown fruit with sweet, malty, grainy flesh (also called naseberry in Jamaica).

sapphic

General

The broad, inclusive word for attraction between women, and increasingly non-binary people who feel a connection to womanhood, toward women. Covers lesbians, bi women, pan women and more. Preferred when you want a term wider than 'lesbian' but warmer and more identity-rooted than 'WLW'. Named for the poet Sappho.

sappnin'

General

Squashed-down 'what's happening?' used as a hello. No actual answer required — a nod and a 'not much, you?' does the job. Heard on every Manc estate, in chippy queues and across group chats.

saranghae

Internet

A declaration of love; frequently said by idols to fans and by fans to idols.

sarn

General

A causeway, cobbled track or paved way. In Welsh place names it usually flags an old hard-surfaced road, often Roman — Sarn Helen being the famous one running the spine of Wales. Linked to the verb sarnu, 'to trample', because that's what feet did to it.

sarriball

General

A brand of quick, positional possession football emphasising verticality and intense build-up, named after coach Maurizio Sarri.

sasaeng

Pop

Used as a label for any fan behavior that crosses into harassment or surveillance.

sashay

General

To sashay is to walk with confident, swaying, theatrical flair — hips going, arms loose, owning every step. It traces back to the French 'chasser' and entered American slang around the 1920s, then got adopted hard by drag and cabaret performers as a strut of glamour and defiance. RuPaul later sharpened it into 'sashay away' — the line a queen hears when she's eliminated.

sashay away

General

The send-off. The queen who loses the lip sync hears 'now, sashay away', meaning pack your kit and strut out, with grace. The elimination half of the 'shantay/sashay' pair. Beyond the show it's a stylish way to tell someone to leave.

sassenach

General

An English person; historically a Saxon/Lowlander. Often jocular.

sativa

Street

A cannabis category traditionally linked to uplifting, energizing, cerebral effects.

satoshi

Internet

The smallest divisible unit of a bitcoin (0.00000001 BTC), named after Satoshi Nakamoto, the pseudonymous person or group who created Bitcoin.

sats

Internet

Short for satoshis, the smallest divisible unit of a bitcoin, equal to one hundred-millionth of a BTC. 'Stacking sats' means accumulating small amounts of Bitcoin over time.

sauce

Internet

Slang for steroids, used interchangeably with 'juice' and 'gear'.

saucier

General

In Escoffier's brigade, the saucier runs sautéed dishes and all the mother sauces. Highest-ranked chef de partie under the sous, and the spot most cooks grind years to reach. Reduce, mount, plate, repeat — at speed, without a slip.

sausage and mash

General

Cash. Classic Cockney rhyming slang — sausage and mash rhymes with cash, and in true Cockney style the rhyme usually gets chopped, so you just hear 'sausage'. Pure East End plate-of-grub money talk.

sausage factory

General

Slang for a gym floor crowded almost entirely with large, muscular men and few or no women.

sausage sizzle

General

A charity or community event selling barbecued sausages in a slice of bread with onions and sauce.

sav

General

A saveloy, a bright-red cooked sausage; a 'battered sav' is a takeaway favourite.

savage

General

Used to intensify how good something is, like 'seriously' or 'massively'.

savage squad

Street

The crew Fredo Santana ran out of 64th and King Drive — overlapping with Chief Keef's GBE and the wider O'Block / Black Disciples set. Birthed Lil Reese affiliates and a whole wave of early-2010s drill output.

save

Gaming

When a round's lost, dying with a rifle means buying a whole new one next round. So you save: avoid combat, hide, run the clock, and keep your gun. Live and you carry that rifle into the next round, which means a stronger buy.

save state

Gaming

An emulator snapshot of the entire game state, memory, registers, the lot, written to a file so you can reload that exact moment instantly. The ultimate undo button.

saw doctor

General

A specialist who maintains saw blades, sharpening teeth, setting them at the right angle, and tensioning band-saws so they cut true. Critical in sawmills and joinery shops; a bad saw doctor means warped boards and ruined work. A proper trade in its own right, not just a bloke with a file.

sawbuck

Street

A sawbuck is a ten-dollar bill; a 'double sawbuck' is twenty dollars. Named for the X-shaped sawhorse resembling the Roman numeral ten.

say again

General

A procedure word meaning "repeat all of your last transmission." When followed by an identifier it requests only the specified portion be repeated; the word 'repeat' is avoided on the radio because it means to re-fire artillery.

say less

Internet

A confirmation that a request is handled, used like 'consider it done.'

sayin'

General

Short for 'what are you saying?' — meaning 'what's the plan, what's the goss, what you up to?'. A greeting that doubles as an opener for actual chat. Big with younger Mancs and crosses over with London road slang.

scab

General

A worker who crosses a picket line during a strike, or takes a striking worker's job. The ultimate insult in union trades — once you're branded a scab, the name follows you. Used the same way across construction, mining, longshoring, and the railroads.

scaffie

General

A road sweeper or binman; a cleansing-department worker.

scaffies

General

Refuse collectors — bin men, dustmen, the council lads who empty your wheelie bin at 6am. Short for 'scavengers', which was the old official job title before councils got polite about it.

scal

General

A scally/scallywag — a working-class, often tracksuited youth. North West term.

scalable

General

Describing a solution or business that can handle much more volume without a proportional increase in effort or cost.

scaley

General

A Royal Signals soldier — the bloke handling radios, comms kit and signals across the British Army. Often heard as 'scaley-back', a reference said to come from the old days of carrying heavy battery sets that rubbed the skin raw.

scaling

Gaming

A measure of how strong a champion becomes over time. A 'scaling' champ is weak early but monstrous once they hit their item spikes and levels, so they play for the long game.