Slang Dictionary — Modern Slang, Decoded

A sales operation, usually a cramped room of cold-callers working off scripts, that uses aggressive pitches to offload thinly-traded or worthless securities on unsophisticated investors. The house owns the stock, the brokers pump it, and when retail is loaded up, the insiders dump. Made famous on screen by Boiler Room (2000) and The Wolf of Wall Street.

In underworld slang a 'boiler' is a stolen car, an innocuous-sounding cover word.

To attempt something impossibly large or to overcomplicate a task by trying to analyse or do everything at once. Used as a warning against scope creep.

To switch on the electric kettle to make a hot drink. In New Zealand a kettle is commonly called a 'jug'.

A boyish lesbian — younger, softer-edged masculine than 'butch', more skater-and-snapback than old-school stone. Chiefly a UK read. The respelling does the work: 'boi' signals it's a queer identity, not just a haircut.

Refers to bohemian, hippie, or artsy alternative types — musicians, artists, free spirits.

Everything the guest never sees: the line, the pass, prep, dish pit, walk-in, dry store, chef's office. Different culture, different pay structure, different uniform, often a different language to FOH.

A child's homemade go-cart, often built from pram wheels.

The Dublin comeback to 'jackeen.' Bogger = anyone from outside the Pale, especially the deep rural west. Comes straight from the bogs. Usually slagging, occasionally genuine — depends entirely on the smirk attached.

Held up or overwhelmed by something (metaphorical extension of literally being bogged).

Of a vehicle, stuck fast in mud or deep sand.

A brevity code requesting information on an indicated or closest group in bearing, range, altitude, and aspect (BRAA) format from a controller.

A radar contact you haven't identified yet. Could be friendly, could be a bandit, could be an airliner that wandered off course. The point of the word is that you don't know yet — once you do, it gets promoted to bandit or downgraded to friendly. WWII RAF slang that's now standard NATO brevity.

To hold onto a shared joint or bowl too long without passing it along, monopolizing the smoke.

A person regarded as unrefined or lower-class, often stereotyped by dress, speech and taste. Can be affectionate or derogatory.

British forces nickname for the back-room scientists and engineers — the radar people, the codebreakers, the weapons designers. Coined during WWII with affectionate respect: the boffins were eccentric civilians in tweed who kept inventing things that won the war. Still used in the UK for any clever-clogs technical type.

A fart. Used as a noun for the trump itself, and as a verb for letting one go. Schoolyard staple across the North West.

French for 'fat ox.' The Boeuf Gras float in the Rex parade carries a giant papier-mâché bull, a centuries-old Catholic Carnival symbol of the last meat eaten before Lent. Older than the parade itself — the tradition runs back to medieval France.

A dance move in which a performer rolls their body in a fluid wave, often used for sexier choreography. A recurring highlight in performances.

A patient who has ingested condom- or wrap-encased drugs to smuggle them, at risk of catastrophic overdose if a packet ruptures.

The proportion of your bodyweight made up of fat versus fat-free (lean) mass; the real measure bodybuilders track rather than scale weight alone.

A mechanic that checks every player is alive and standing where they should be. One dead or misplaced body and the whole group wipes. No carrying dead weight through it.

Standing in the way on purpose. You eat a skillshot meant for your carry, or wall off a chokepoint with your hitbox so the enemy can't path through. Tanks and supports live for this.

In ballroom, Body is the category where the only thing being judged is your physique. No costume to hide behind, no story to spin — you walk to be read on shape, proportion and how you carry the flesh. It splits into sub-categories so nobody's compared unfairly: Model-Thin (lean, runway frame), Muscular (built, gym-cut), Luscious (soft, full, sensual), and Big Girl / Big Boy (the bigger queens and kings serving confidence). You don't win Body by being one ideal — you win by owning whichever one is called.