"W" Slang

walking / walk a category

General

To walk is to compete at a ball. Each category — Realness, Vogue, Face, Runway, Body — has its own rules, and you walk it to be judged, chip for trophies and cash, and earn status for yourself and your house. Houses train their children specifically for the categories they're built to win. 'Walk' is the ballroom verb for stepping out and putting it all on the floor.

wall

General

An admitting doctor who blocks nearly every referral, contrasted with a 'sieve' who admits everyone.

wall carry

Gaming

A combo that doesn't just deal damage but hauls the opponent toward the wall, so you finish next to a wall splat for even more reward. Distance is its own currency.

wall locker

General

A tall metal storage locker in the barracks where a service member keeps uniforms and personal equipment.

wall of pain

Gaming

You knock someone offstage, then float out after them and barrage them with back-airs and forward-airs, drifting toward the blast zone the whole time. Each hit resets their momentum and pushes them further out until they simply can't make it back. Jigglypuff's bread and butter.

wall paper

General

A traffic citation, handed to you after you've been pulled over. The dismissive name takes the sting out — nothing you can do once it's in your hand except pay it.

wall ride

General

A trick where the rider rides up onto and along a vertical or near-vertical wall before dropping back down. Wall rides are a staple of creative street riding.

wall splat

Gaming

When you knock an opponent into a wall and they smear against it in a stunned, slumped state, leaving them open for a big combo. Free real estate.

wall to wall and treetop tall

General

Top-shelf CB compliment about signal quality. 'Wall to wall' means filling the speaker, 'treetop tall' means coming in high and strong. Together it's the trucker way of telling the other driver they sound crystal clear, no static, no breakup. The radio equivalent of 'I can hear you like you're sat next to me.'

walla

General

Very big or large; often paired as 'geet walla'.

wallad

Street

A foolish or stupid person, used as a light insult. It comes from the Arabic 'walad' meaning boy or child.

wallah

Street

An oath used to affirm one is telling the truth, meaning 'I swear'.

wallahi

Street

Wallahi is used across Nigerian Pidgin, especially where there's Islamic and Hausa influence, to swear that something is true — similar to saying 'I swear' or 'on God' in English slang.

wallap

General

To strike hard — a proper full-bodied hit, not a tap. Scottish spelling/pronunciation of 'wallop', used as both verb and noun.

wallbang

Gaming

As a verb, to shoot through surfaces to hit a hidden enemy.

wallet biopsy

General

Slang for establishing a patient's insurance status or means to pay, sometimes before deciding how far to work them up.

wallop

General

To hit hard; a 'wallop' is a heavy blow.

walloper

General

A foolish person; someone who does daft things.

wally

Street

A foolish or ineffectual person; a mild insult.

wame

General

Your belly, your guts, your stomach. Proper old Scots — Burns used it, your gran still uses it. Usually trotted out when someone's stuffed full or sore from too much scran.

wammel

General

A mongrel dog. Specifically the rough, indeterminate, probably-bit-of-everything kind. Said with affection more often than not — a wammel is family even if you don't know what breed.

wampum

Internet

Slang for money, from the shell beads used by some Native American peoples as currency.

wanga gut

General

A hungry stomach; the feeling of being very hungry.

wanna hiding

General

A challenge or threat meaning 'do you want to fight/get hit?'.

wao

General

A Spanglish 'wow' expressing surprise, awe, or admiration.

ward

Gaming

Drop a ward and you light up an area — see ganks coming, track the enemy jungler, spot objective setups. Vision wins games and warding is how you get it.

wardrobe

General

Slang for a big, physically imposing defender who is as hard to get past as a wardrobe.

warez

Internet

Used attributively for the underground subculture around piracy.

warm-up

General

A period of easy cruising and simple tricks at the start of a session to loosen the body before attempting more difficult maneuvers.

warning red

General

An air-defense warning condition indicating that a hostile attack by air is imminent or already in progress — the highest air-defense alert state.

warning yellow

General

An air-defense warning condition indicating that a hostile attack by air is probable — a heightened but not imminent alert state, below 'warning red'.

warno

General

'Warning Order' (also written WARNORD) — a preliminary notice giving subordinate units advance warning of an operation so they can begin preparations before the full order.

warnord

General

'Warning Order' — a preliminary notice of an order or action to follow, giving subordinates time to begin preparation before the full operations order is issued.

warri

General

A mancala-style strategy game played with seeds in a wooden board, brought from West Africa. Also wari, warrie.

wash belly

General

The youngest child in a family, often seen as the most pampered or 'baby' of the household.

wash sale

Internet

A wash sale occurs when an investor sells a security at a loss and buys the same or a substantially identical one within 30 days before or after, which disallows the tax deduction for that loss. The IRS defines a 61-day window.

wash trade

General

A trade where the same beneficial owner is on both sides, so no real risk or ownership changes hands. The point is purely to manufacture the appearance of volume or to print a price. Banned under the Commodity Exchange Act and a perennial enforcement target, especially now in crypto markets where wash trading has been used to fake exchange rankings and NFT floor prices.

wash trading

Internet

Market manipulation where a party trades an asset with itself across wallets to fabricate volume and interest, faking demand for an NFT or token.

washatería

General

Spanglish loanword for a self-service laundromat, common on Southwest storefronts.

washed

Gaming

Describes a player who is no longer effective; past their prime and out of form.

washikong

General

Rubber-soled canvas shoes, i.e. sneakers or plimsolls. Also 'watchekong'.

washroom

General

A restroom or bathroom, favored in Chicago and areas near the Canadian border.

wasson

General

A Cornish greeting, a run-together 'what's on', asking how things are.

wassup

Pop

A way to ask what someone wants or what's going on.

waste

Street

To beat someone up or comprehensively defeat them.

wasted

General

Used loosely to describe being utterly exhausted or drained.

wasteman

British Mle

A useless, unreliable or disappointing person — someone who consistently lets others down.

wat

Internet

A deliberate misspelling of "what," used to express confusion or to mock a basic or absurd question, often alongside "wen."