Slang Dictionary — Modern Slang, Decoded

To eat; 'jama' is the food itself. 'Jamar un cable' = to be dead broke.

Food or grub; the noun paired with the verb 'jamar' (to eat).

Describes a place that is completely packed and crowded with people.

Cockney rhyming slang for 'heart', and affectionately for a sweetheart.

A British police traffic car painted white with a bold red stripe running along the side. Old-school nickname that stuck even after the livery changed in most forces.

Cockney rhyming slang for parole (release from prison).

Affectionately, an old car someone is fond of despite its faults.

A car in Chicano Caló, also seen as 'jato'.

A habitual heavy drinker, often homeless; a derogatory term for a street alcoholic.

The police. Crossed over from American hip-hop (where 'jake' has meant cop since the early 20th century) into UK drill and road-rap vocab as a quick, throwaway way to name the law without saying 'feds' or '12'.

A compression-release engine brake that opens the exhaust valves at the top of the compression stroke, dumping the air the pistons just squeezed. Result: the engine becomes a giant air pump that slows the truck without touching the service brakes — saving the friction brakes from cooking on long downgrades. Sounds like a machine gun ratcheting. Many towns ban its use inside city limits because of the noise, hence the 'No Jake Brake' signs you see at every off-ramp.

In Chicano Caló, a great or loyal girlfriend, combining 'jaina' with 'firme'.

A girlfriend or a young woman. The Chicano equivalent of 'shorty' or 'my girl' — affectionate, scene-specific.

A prisoner who's read enough case law in the library to file motions, draft appeals and counsel other inmates. Sometimes sharp, often not, occasionally the only legal help anyone on the tier can actually get.

The practical, experience-based skill officers use to run a wing calmly and read situations — knowing when to enforce and when to turn a blind eye.

A string jails when blocking the first hit keeps you in blockstun long enough that you're forced to block the rest standing, even hits you'd normally duck.

God; specifically Jah Rastafari, the divine as understood in Rastafarianism.

Describes a situation, place, or system that's fallen into total disorder or disrepair — widely popularized in Nigerian pop culture as a description of national dysfunction.

An injection (as at the doctor's) or a prick from something sharp.

A cheeky nickname for Auckland, derived from 'jafa'.

Slang for a $20 note, after Andrew Jackson's portrait.

The toilet. Always 'the jacks', always plural. Universal across Ireland — pub, house, workplace, doesn't matter, you're going to the jacks. Likely from the old English 'jakes' (a privy), preserved in Ireland long after it died out in Britain.

The central record kept on an inmate by the institution: charges, classification, disciplinary history, gang affiliations, medical notes. Staff use it to make every call about you.

What culchies (rural Irish) call Dubliners. Originally proper derogatory — the 'Jack' is said to come from the Union Jack, painting Dubs as too cosy with the British during the colonial era. Now mostly slung in the GAA banter sense rather than serious abuse.