Slang Dictionary — Modern Slang, Decoded

Extremely annoyed, frustrated or gutted about something.

A splinter, usually of wood, usually lodged in your finger and driving you mental. Pure North-East — say it in London and you'll get a blank stare.

To ask or enquire; 'speir at him' means ask him.

A duffel or bag of ammunition, water, or supplies quickly delivered, often airdropped, to troops in contact.

An unstable side-to-side oscillation of the board that can develop at high speeds, threatening to throw the rider; a hazard of downhill riding.

A brief, deliberate turn or slide used to shed a bit of speed before hitting a jump or feature, so the rider isn't going too fast. Misjudging a speed check can lead to overshooting or coming up short.

Short for special attack. A weapon's built-in big hit, fuelled by a special-attack bar that fills as you fight. Pop it for burst damage at the right moment.

By extension, any secretive bar requiring a password or insider knowledge to enter.

When you control the map so hard the enemy team keeps respawning into the same kill zone, getting mowed down before they can move. A snowball that ends games.

During prep, defenders break a window or door, then in the first seconds of the round they shoot attackers who haven't even moved out of spawn yet. A free kill if they're not watching for it - and a death sentence if they shoot back.

Standard British/Aussie site nickname for a qualified electrician. Affectionate, not rude. Every job site has one, and they usually turn up after the brickie's already finished.

A brevity code meaning to mark or identify a target using an infrared pointer, visible to those with night-vision or IR sensors, to cue an attacking aircraft.

A daft person. Affectionate when it's your mate, cutting when it's not. Covers the full range from 'forgot his keys again' to 'genuine liability'.

You can't see them but you know roughly where they are, so you just unload through the smoke or the soft wall and hope to clip them. Bullets penetrate, so spamming a common spot can rack up free damage.

A rail wagon used in Welsh collieries to carry miners down to the coalface and back out at the end of a shift. Pure South Wales pit vocab — if you worked the deep mines, the spake was your morning commute.

The Tom Moreland Interchange where I-285 meets I-85 in DeKalb — a five-level mess of ramps that looks like dropped spaghetti from above. ATL rappers drop it as a geographic flex and a metaphor for chaos.

Collective name for the Star Fox cast in Smash — Fox, Falco, and in later games Wolf. They share a similar fast-faller, blaster-and-reflector toolkit, so players talk about 'the spacies' as an archetype.

A Boston winter institution. After a snowstorm, you spend two hours shoveling out a street spot — so you stake your claim with a lawn chair, traffic cone, busted TV, statue of the Virgin Mary, whatever's in the basement. The unwritten code says that spot is yours until the snow melts. Moving someone's space saver is grounds for slashed tires, keyed paint, or a screaming match in three generations of accent.

A wojak edit with a gaping 'cuckface,' glasses, stubble and balding scalp, drooling over whatever's in front of him. Posted at someone to imply their take is consoomer-brained, weak, or embarrassingly enthusiastic.

Historically a gold coin worth one pound; used in slang for a pound of money.

A left-handed pitcher (or left-hander generally). In old ballparks laid out with home plate to the west, a lefty's throwing arm faced south.

South Boston, the historically Irish-American neighborhood across the channel from downtown. Also used for a person from there. Heavy cultural weight thanks to Whitey Bulger lore, Good Will Hunting, and Ben Affleck's entire filmography.

A tangy dish of boiled meat (often pig trotters or chicken feet) steeped in a sharp lime, cucumber, onion and pepper broth. A weekend favourite.

Number two under the head chef and, in practice, the person calling the pass when the exec is doing press or sleeping. Manages the line, disciplines the brigade, and absorbs the chaos so the menu lands clean.