Slang Dictionary — Modern Slang, Decoded

A self-care approach to Mondays that reduces pressure.

Used adjectivally for anything blindingly pink and doll-glam.

Sausages intended for cooking on a barbecue.

A barbecue, both the appliance and the social gathering.

To cancel or change plans at the last minute, or to let a topic drop. Implies flakiness.

An air trick where the rider swings both feet forward over the handlebars and back again before landing, hopping the legs over the bars. It shows air control and timing.

Slang for a large round sum — a million rand in South Africa; also used for £1,000 in some British usage.

The sound of a gunshot, doubled or tripled up in lyrics for rhythmic effect — bap bap bap. By extension, to bap somebody is to shoot them. Drill rappers use it as both ad-lib and verb in the same bar.

The sidewalk. Pronounced 'BANK-it' by old-school New Orleanians, this is one of those Yat words that flags you as either local or read-up.

The trained signaller responsible for safely guiding lorries, dumpers, and especially cranes around a site. They're the eyes the driver doesn't have, using hand signals or radio. On any decent UK site, reversing without a banksman is a sackable offence.

The money someone has available to spend or invest; as a verb, to fund something.

A stonemason who works at a 'banker' (the heavy bench), cutting and dressing blocks to shape before they ever reach the wall. The bench-bound counterpart to the fixer mason who sets the stone on site. Skilled, slow, expensive work.

A feature where a sloping bank leads up into a vertical or near-vertical wall, sometimes with a gap between them, letting riders ride up onto the wall. Wall rides and taps are done here.

Slang for a big pile of money; 'make bank' means to earn a lot.

A hitter who lacks power and usually produces bloop singles, said to sound like the plink of a banjo off the bat.

A realness category built around the banjee look: rough, hood, hyper-masculine street presentation. Judges aren't grading whether you're glamorous, they're grading whether you read as a real tough guy off the block, no clocking, no slipping. Featured in Paris Is Burning, where the whole game of realness is passing so completely that nobody would question you. Banjee realness is that, aimed at convincing street masculinity.

A banjee boy is the performer who walks the tough-street category — projecting hard, hip-hop-flavoured masculinity, the kind of swagger that reads as 'don't mess with me' from across the room. The look and attitude are pulled straight from urban street youth. Banjee boy categories have been part of vogue balls since the early 1980s, and Paris Is Burning popularised the figure beyond the scene.

Banjee describes a streetwise, hyper-masculine urban look and attitude — someone who can hang with the roughest crowd and blend straight into the hood. In ballroom it doubles as a Realness category (sometimes called Banjee or Thug Realness): you have to pass convincingly as that tough urban guy, no softness clocked. The word came out of Black and Latino queer New York.

Lifting weights, a central pastime for many prisoners.

Welsh English intensifier for something outstanding, especially food or music.

Fan slang for a really good goal, usually a hard-hit strike from range that leaves the boot like a gun going off.

Locked in a cell, or more generally imprisoned.

A loud disturbance, hubbub or chaotic commotion. Title of a classic Lester Sterling ska tune.

The scheduled time at which prisoners are locked in their cells.