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

In business chat, stands for "small and medium-sized business." A well-documented workplace initialism.

A recurring chat or stream game. Someone posts a celeb, character, or unfortunate volunteer; everyone replies 'smash' (would) or 'pass' (wouldn't). Built for quick takes, mock-outrage, and roasting the friend with the cursed taste.

A program stored on a blockchain that automatically executes agreed logic — minting, royalties, staking — without an intermediary.

small up yuhself

An invitation or instruction to make space by squeezing together, e.g. on a seat or in a packed room.

small up yourself

A request to make space, especially in a crowded seat or vehicle, by shifting to fit more people.

A style of play that scores runs through bunts, steals, and situational hitting rather than home runs.

Slang for dollars, as in the amount something costs. Variant: smackeroos.

Heavily under the influence of alcohol or drugs; wasted.

Control, discipline or order, especially imposed on someone or something unruly.

Soft, wet, slushy snow typical of warm spring afternoons, which is forgiving and fun for jibbing and jumping. Spring slush sessions are a beloved end-of-season tradition.

Vintage nickname for the city of Somerville, dating from the decades when it was a tough working-class town with Whitey-era organised crime and not the seven-dollar-oat-milk-latte borough it is today. Still used affectionately by old-timers and ironically by the hipsters who priced them out.

Gold (or gold-and-diamond) teeth — usually permanent caps or removable fronts, not the slip-on grills you bought online. Deep roots in New Orleans and the wider Dirty South; to be 'slugged up' is to have the full mouth done, often with names, initials or open-face diamond cutouts. Status piece, mouthpiece, and family heirloom all at once.

A skincare technique of coating the face in petroleum jelly or another occlusive at night to lock in moisture.

A lazy prisoner who stays in his cell and avoids the yard.

slowed and throwed

Same syrupy Houston technique as chopped and screwed — slow it down, chop it up — under a different banner. Swishahouse (Michael Watts, OG Ron C) leaned on this name to distinguish their version from DJ Screw's original.

When too many sprites and bullets pile up, the game can't keep frame-rate and everything crawls. In shmups this is a feature, not a bug — it buys you time to thread the curtain.

Wave management where you kill just a couple of the enemy's minions each wave so your own side stacks up. Over a few waves it builds into a huge wave that crashes hard into the enemy tower, perfect for setting up a dive or recall timing.

slow is smooth, smooth is fast

The shooter's gospel. Rush a reload or a corner clear and you fumble it; do it deliberately and the motion becomes smooth, and smooth motion ends up faster than panicked motion ever could. Associated with Navy SEAL and broader special-operations training, and now bled out into everything from rock climbing to startup advice.

A breakup method where someone slowly decreases contact and effort over time instead of having a direct conversation, until the relationship quietly dies.

An ethically fraught, unofficially subdued resuscitation performed on a patient for whom full efforts are felt to be futile.

A romance that develops across many chapters — sometimes many books — with longing looks, almost-kisses and emotional restraint instead of a quick payoff. Fanfic readers will sit through 200k words for one hand-graze.

A sloughworker is a burglar who specializes in robbing houses in the countryside, away from city policing.

Noticeably drunk, often sloppy and unsteady on your feet.

The grim morning ritual in cells with no flush toilet: doors unlock, you carry your overnight bucket of piss and shit down the landing to the sluice and tip it out. Standard in British nicks until 1996, when slopping out was officially abolished in England and Wales. Still lingered in places for years after, and Scotland kept it going even longer.