English dictionary, thesaurus, translations & etymology

Slang Dictionary — Modern Slang, Decoded

What does that word actually mean? Our slang dictionary explains modern slang clearly — Gen Z, internet, British and street slang — with real definitions, examples and where each term came from.

Browse slang by category

Gen Z Slangrizz, delulu, slay Internet Slangbrainrot, based, mid British Slangpeng, bare, peak AAVEbussin, finna, cap

Browse slang by letter

a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z

Latest slang terms

A jumper or sweater — usually the warm woolly kind your mam makes you put on before you leave the house. Standard household word across Ireland.

Grandmother, especially in Sunderland and South Shields.

Cannabis / marijuana, especially in a cultural or sacramental (Rasta) context.

An ironic, online label for the exaggerated, meme-tier 'menace' aesthetic of drill — fans hyping cartoon villain energy half-jokingly.

The slim walkway running between neighboring buildings, especially Chicago's characteristic bungalows and two-flats.

gangster disciples

Larry Hoover's org — the side the Black Disciples split from in '74. In drill terms, GDs are who the BDs are shooting at and vice versa. FBG Duck, Lil Jay, the STL/EBT and Jaro City sets all rep GD. Symbol is the six-point star and the pitchfork; the number 7 and 'Growth & Development' get used as cleaned-up rebrands.

The working foreman who runs a gang of groundworkers or labourers on a civils job. Not management in a hard hat, more like the most experienced shovel on the crew. The ganger sets the pace and takes the bollocking if the work's late.

A heavy, lockable steel storage chest on a construction site where the crew stashes power tools, cords, and consumables so they don't walk off after dark. Usually built like a tank, painted job-yellow or black, and bolted or chained down. If it's not in the gang box at end of shift, it's somebody's now.

Someone shifty and underhanded who takes advantage of others.

A cheer of encouragement urging someone to persevere and give it their all, one of the most common motivational lines in anime.

gan yer ain gate

To go one's own way or do as one pleases.

To go out on a drinking session or night out.

To carry on, continue or nag at someone.

Take care, mind how you go. The Geordie sign-off — said when someone leaves the pub, heads out in bad weather, or sets off on a long drive. Warm, not patronising.

To go. Pure Geordie staple — same root as the German 'gehen' and Old English 'gangan'. Used exactly where a southerner would say 'go', and it conjugates naturally: gannin' (going), gans (goes).

The polite thank-you idols use on stage and in speeches; the intimate version is 'gomawo'.

Inauthentic, cheap or broken; pretending or joking; or just pathetic, in Aboriginal English.

A sharp price rise driven by options market-makers buying shares to hedge the calls they've sold, which forces the price up and triggers more hedging. Central to the 2021 meme-stock mechanics.

Cotton wool. The local Birmingham word, after Joseph Sampson Gamgee — the Queen's Hospital surgeon who invented Gamgee Tissue (cotton wool wadded between gauze) in 1880. The word stuck so hard in Brum that Tolkien, a Birmingham boy, lifted it for Sam Gamgee in Lord of the Rings — confirmed in his own letters.

Shorthand for the whole January 2021 GameStop episode — retail piling into GME on WSB, hedge funds (Melvin, Citadel) getting squeezed, Robinhood pulling the buy button, congressional hearings. The moment retail realised it could move a stock and the moment brokers showed who they actually work for.

An idea, product, or event that fundamentally alters how things are done.

The invisible skill. Not aim, not reflexes, but knowing from a single sound, a missing rotation, or the round count exactly where the enemy is and what they're planning. Great game sense means you're already where the play is going.

game of two halves

A cliche for a game in which the pattern flips at the break, one team bossing the first half and the other the second.

game of s.k.a.t.e.

A game, modeled on basketball's HORSE, in which players take turns setting tricks the others must match; each miss earns a letter of S-K-A-T-E, and spelling the whole word eliminates you.