"V" Slang

vesting

Internet

A schedule that locks tokens allocated to teams or investors and releases them over time, discouraging immediate dumps. Often includes a cliff before releases begin.

vibe

General

The general feeling, energy, or sentiment of a community, project, or the market at a given moment.

vibe check

Gen Z

An informal read of someone's mood, attitude or trustworthiness. To "pass the vibe check" is to give off a good impression.

vibe out

General

To chill and soak up a good atmosphere; to hang out contentedly.

vibe shift

Internet

A smaller change in the atmosphere of a room or group.

vibes

General

The intuitive feeling or emotional energy radiating from a person, place, or situation.

vics

General

Police cruisers, originally specifically Ford Crown Victoria Interceptors. Hung on as generic slang for any cop car even after Ford killed the model in 2011.

viddy

General

Often heard as an imperative inviting someone to look at a spectacle.

vieja

General

Informal term for one's girlfriend or wife (and sometimes mother); 'viejo' for the male partner.

vieux carré

Street

The French Quarter, by its proper name. French for 'old square' — the original colonial grid laid out in 1718, bounded by Canal, Rampart, Esplanade and the river. Tourists say French Quarter; old-line locals, the preservation society, and anyone wanting to sound like they belong say Vieux Carré (pronounced roughly 'voo car-AY').

vig

Street

The vig (short for vigorish) is the interest a loan shark charges or the percentage a bookmaker takes on bets. Failure to pay the vig invites violence.

vip

General

Crew humour: the regular 'Very Important Person' reskinned as 'Very Intoxicated Person'. Used between EMTs and at handover to flag a patient who is, medically speaking, just absolutely hammered. Lets you brief the next crew or the triage nurse with a straight face.

viper

Street

1920s-40s slang for a habitual cannabis smoker, especially among jazz musicians.

virgin abdomen

General

Clinical slang for an abdomen with no previous surgery and therefore no adhesions — relevant before operating.

virgin vogue

General

A vogue category reserved for beginners, performers who've been walking for a year or less, or never competed at all. It levels the floor so first-timers aren't thrown against veterans, a protected lane to learn, build nerve and earn your stripes in the scene.

visual

Pop

Used as an adjective-style compliment meaning strikingly good-looking.

visual line

Internet

The subgroup of members regarded as the best-looking, extending the 'visual' role to several people. A common fan classification.

visual novel

Internet

A game genre that is largely a digital illustrated story, where the player reads dialogue over character art and backgrounds and makes branching choices that steer the plot. Many anime are adapted from popular visual novels.

visual shock

Internet

The stunned reaction fans have on first seeing an exceptionally good-looking idol. Often cited as the reason someone fell into a fandom.

visuals

Internet

Fandom shorthand for an idol's appearance or for exceptionally attractive photos/footage; 'the visuals were insane'.

vitamin h

General

Slang for haloperidol, given to calm severely agitated or psychotic patients — jokingly a 'vitamin' the ward needs.

vitamin p

General

Slang for a diuretic such as furosemide, used to offload fluid.

vitamin v

General

Slang for diazepam, a benzodiazepine used for sedation, anxiety or alcohol withdrawal.

vittles

General

An informal, folksy word for food, especially a home-cooked meal.

vocal line

Internet

The subgroup of members who handle the primary vocals and high notes. Often spotlighted in ballads and choruses.

vogue

Pop

Vogue is the dance style born in Harlem's ballroom scene, built on striking magazine-model poses and slicing the air with angular, geometric arm work. The name comes straight from Vogue magazine — walkers mimicked the editorial poses in its pages. It's competitive and confrontational: you vogue against another person and the moves double as shade. It went global after the 1990 documentary Paris Is Burning and Madonna's 'Vogue', but the scene built it long before the mainstream noticed.

vogue femme

General

Vogue Femme is the most theatrical of the vogue styles, born around the mid-1990s. It's fluidity taken to the extreme — exaggerated, overtly feminine movement pulled from ballet, jazz and modern dance, dramatic and soft and powerful at once. It's organised around five elements (hands, catwalk, duckwalk, spins & dips, and floor performance), and it ranges in feel from soft and graceful all the way to 'dramatics', where the energy turns aggressive and explosive.

voguing

General

Voguing is a highly stylised dance born in the Harlem ball scene of the 1970s–80s, created by Black and Latino LGBTQ+ performers. It steals from high-fashion poses, runway angles and even ancient Egyptian art, then snaps them into rigid lines, dramatic arm and hand movements, and floor work. Named after Vogue magazine — you're literally throwing the poses from the pages. Madonna borrowed it; the ballroom built it.

voguing / vogue

General

A highly stylised dance built from crisp, magazine-cover poses, angular arms, and dramatic lines — like flipping through Vogue at speed. Born in the Black and Latino ballroom scene of Harlem, it's a whole competition category and an art form, with styles from Old Way to New Way to Vogue Fem. Madonna's 1990 hit 'Vogue' borrowed it for the mainstream, but the floor it came from was queer, Black and Latino long before that.

voiding

Gaming

Dropping out of bounds and into the nothingness underneath the level. Sometimes it kills you, sometimes the game catches you and respawns you somewhere useful — which is the whole point when a runner does it on purpose.

vol bomb

Internet

A sharp, sudden spike in implied volatility, often around a shock event, which rapidly repriced options.

volume

General

The total amount of training work performed, commonly counted as sets, reps, or load lifted.

voluntold

General

To be given a task framed as voluntary but with no real option to refuse.

vomit

General

A patient subjected to unnecessary tests and interventions triggered by an incidental scan finding.

vortex

Gaming

You knock them down, run an unreactable mixup, and whatever you land knocks them down again — straight back into the same mixup. Guess wrong once and you're trapped in the spin cycle.

vp

Street

A Vulnerable Prisoner — one who must be kept apart from the general population for their own safety.

vro

Internet

Drop-in replacement for 'bro' that doesn't carry the bro-y gender baggage. Used to address friends of any gender. Softer, slightly funnier, slightly more terminally-online than 'bro'.

vs

General

The set of core physiological measurements: temperature, pulse, respiration, blood pressure, and often oxygen saturation.

vsco girl

Internet

A teen-girl subculture defined by a specific bundle of objects and mannerisms: metal water bottle, scrunchie stack on the wrist, oversized tee over bike shorts, 'sksksk' and 'and I oop' as catchphrases, and earnest save-the-turtles energy. Briefly omnipresent on TikTok, then absorbed into the wider 2019 mood.

vt

General

A rapid heart rhythm arising from the ventricles that can be life-threatening and may degenerate into cardiac arrest.

vuln stack

Gaming

A vulnerability debuff that ramps up the damage you take. Eat a mechanic, get a vuln stack, and the next hit hurts a lot more. Pile up enough and you're one tap from dead.

vulnerable

Internet

Willing to share real feelings and risk emotional exposure with someone.

vvs

Music

Used as a stand-in word for expensive, real diamonds in general.