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

The book-recommendation subculture on TikTok. Crying-over-a-paperback videos, tier lists, trope rants, smut warnings. Single creator hyping a midlist book has been enough to send it back to print — Colleen Hoover, Sarah J. Maas and the dark romance wave all owe it dinner.

Instagram's book subculture: artfully shot covers, themed flat-lays, mood-lit shelfies, and reviews in the caption. It's where publishers send ARCs, where indie authors get discovered, and where everyone's TBR doubles overnight.

The trust account the prison holds your money in. Family puts money 'on your books' so you can buy ramen, stamps, deodorant at commissary. No cash circulates inside — your books are your wallet.

To run at top speed, usually to flee. 'We booked it' means we sprinted off.

A booklet of stamps, valued individually, that serves as a common medium of exchange where cash is banned.

The slump you fall into after a book wrecks you. The world's over, the characters are gone, and every new book on the pile feels like cardboard by comparison. BookTok talks about it like grief because, mildly, it is — researchers actually call the underlying mechanism 'emotional transportation'.

To dance freely and exuberantly, usually to upbeat music.

Slang for the index or trigger finger, as in the safety rule to keep your 'booger hook off the bang switch.'

A foolish, dull or dim-witted person; often affectionate.

Fragments of decorative pottery or china, once used ornamentally or by children in play.

Describing someone plump or flabby; can be teasing or affectionate.

A term of endearment for someone you love.

An affectionate term for somebody you love — your baby, your partner, your little cousin. In Louisiana it's been Cajun shorthand for 'sweetheart' for generations before the rest of the US picked it up. Often shortened from 'beau' (French for handsome/boyfriend).

Very good, great or excellent; now somewhat old-fashioned.

A round you intentionally play with leftover cheap weapons after winning, so you bank credits and load up properly next round. Low stakes, all upside.

A main award given to several artists at a ceremony, below the single grand-prize daesang. A solid but non-peak achievement.

An affectionate or matey form of address between men.

Attractive, pretty or good-looking. 'Bonny lad' is also a term of endearment between men.

In the northeast of England, sometimes used to mean chubby or well-fed, especially of a baby.

The hinged cover over a car's engine; called the hood in America.

A bank, slope or hillside. Standard Brummie / Black Country geography word — a 'pit bonk' is the mound of waste by an old mine, 'tocky bonk' is a sticky muddy slope. Nothing to do with the cycling sense of hitting the wall.

A water pipe that filters and cools cannabis smoke through water before inhalation.

The area where the waves break and crash down, a churning, punishing part of the break. Also used for a graveyard of a lineup where waves close out.

The looksmaxxing 'technique' of repeatedly striking your own face to allegedly stimulate bone growth and end up with a sharper jaw and brow. Dermatologists call it nonsense and a fast track to fractures, nerve damage, and disfigurement, but the trend keeps surfacing on incel-adjacent TikTok.