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.

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

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Latest slang terms

Money, tobacco or drugs owed to another prisoner; unpaid debts frequently lead to violence.

Slamming the bomb button in the few frames after taking a hit, before the death registers, so you survive instead of losing the life. All about reaction timing.

A strat, not just a fight. Stack five heroes with heavy AoE and lockdown, group early, and steamroll lane to lane — kill, take tower, repeat — before the enemy can scale. End fast or lose late.

The week around August 16th — the day Elvis died in 1977 — when Graceland and the rest of Memphis flood with impersonators, fan-club pilgrims and tour buses. Officially Graceland calls it 'Elvis Week,' but locals have called it Death Week for decades.

Killing yourself deliberately because the respawn point is closer to where you need to be than walking there would be. Death becomes a fast-travel button.

The name the wider world, mostly via RuPaul's Drag Race, gave to the vogue dip: a sudden, dramatic backward fall to the floor landing on your back with a leg up. It looks like you've been shot. Drag queens and the public love the name; ballroom practitioners consider it a misnomer that erased the original term 'dip.' Knowing which word to use signals which side of the velvet rope you learned it on.

A death cross is a chart pattern in which a shorter-term moving average (often the 50-day) crosses below a longer-term one (often the 200-day), read as a bearish signal of lower prices. It is the inverse of a golden cross.

Small, hard chunks of ice or frozen snow strewn across a run that catch edges and rattle the rider. They make for jarring, unpredictable riding.

A letter sent to a serviceman ending a romantic relationship while he is away on duty, typically opening with the cold formality 'Dear John.'

Old inventory that never sold and sat in a warehouse, now valuable because it's vintage and pristine.

Truly, genuinely or absolutely; used to affirm something is real.

Excellent or very good; a positive term widely used in Aboriginal English (as in the Deadly Awards).

A foundational compound lift in which you pull a loaded barbell from the floor to a standing, locked-out position.

Hauling an empty trailer back to base or to the next pickup. Every deadhead mile burns fuel and time with no revenue against it, so drivers and dispatchers obsess over keeping the number low. A bad lane is one where you load out heavy and deadhead the whole way home.

Meat or meat products, referred to as 'dead' food that ital-living Rastas avoid.

A fixed intensified expression meaning truly, completely worn out — 'deadass' modifying 'tired.'

A position that offers little or no opportunity for promotion, skill growth, or increased pay, leaving the worker stuck at the same level indefinitely.

Grim slang for the seasonal presentation of an out-of-shape person suffering a fatal cardiac event while shoveling snow.

A botched jump where the rider freezes up and stays stiff and motionless in the air instead of committing to the trick, then lands awkwardly. It looks lifeless, like a dead sailor.

dead presidents

Slang for American banknotes, referencing the deceased leaders pictured on them.

A plate that can't go to a guest — wrong cook, wrong order, sent back, sat too long, dropped. Dead plates are the staff's dinner if the cook isn't egregious, or the bin if it is. Every dead plate is money walking out the door, which is why chefs hate them on a primal level.

Great, perfect, decent or all right. Can describe a person of good character or confirm agreement. Northern Irish.

Dead money is capital tied up in a security that shows little prospect of appreciation or income over the relevant horizon. The funds are effectively idle even while invested.

Tomato sauce (ketchup), by rhyming slang.