Dictionary of Contemporary Slang

come out vb

to reveal oneself as a homosexual, declare one’s homosexuality. The expression is a shortening of ‘come out of the closet’, dating from the period in the early 1970s when liberalisation encouraged more openness among gay men and women in their relations with each other and the straight world. Subsequently the term has sometimes been extended to mean ‘to declare one’s real position’ in non-sexual contexts.

come the raw prawn vb Australian

to try to take advantage of or deceive someone. This colourful expression probably originated in the 1940s and is still heard. The precise connection between the uncooked crustacean and deceitfulness is not clear, but the suggestion is of cadging by feigning innocence or naïvety.

come untied vb See untied

commodore n British

the sum of £15. The item of financial slang is inspired by the Commodores’ hit single ‘Three Times a Lady’ (a Lady (Godiva) being £5 in rhyming slang).

completely cute adj American

suitably attractive, handsome and/or sexy. An expression used by upperand middle-class young women to indicate approval of a potential male partner. A code term in the preppie lexicon.

compo n Australian

(unemployment) compensation. A typical Australian shortening.

Compare arvo

con1 vb, n

(to perpetrate) a swindle or fraud, obtain money by false pretences. This venerable colloquialism (regarded as slang in the 1950s) is simply a shortening of ‘confidence-trick’.

‘A crazy au pair girl planned to con superstar Eric Clapton out of a fortune by claiming another couple’s baby was THEIR love child.’

(News of the World, 1988)

con2 n American

a convict or ex-convict, felon or prisoner

conch n American

a swot. A preppie shortening of ‘conscientious’.

conchie n

an alternative spelling of conshie

cone-head n American

a.an intellectual or swot

b.a stupid, socially inept person. The term is a more recent version of pointyhead. Its latter sense, as used in adolescent speech, was adopted as the title of a comedy film starring Dan Ackroyd in 1993.

cones n pl female breasts

conk n

1a. the nose. The generally quoted origin for this comical word is the conch shell (often collected as a curio since the 17th century), or a learned play on the Latin concha, meaning shell in general, or a trumpet.

‘This face, embossed as it is with a vast fleshy conk.’

(Observer magazine, 15 May 1988)

1b. the head. A less common use of the word.

2. American a ‘process’ hairstyle (one where the hair is straightened by the application of chemicals and/or heat) as worn by hip young blacks from the 1930s until the 1960s when it was superseded by the racially affirmative afro styles

conkers n pl Scottish

balls (in both the literal and figurative slang senses). Like its contemporary synonym clackers, the expression borrows the name of a children’s game.

connection, connexion n

a drug supplier, a dealer or pusher. Originally from the language of American drug users of the late 1950s and 1960s, the term has become part of the international jargon of illicit drug users. It particularly refers to a source of heroin. (‘Connection’ was used ambiguously as the title and in the lyrics of a 1967 song by the Rolling Stones.)

conniption n

a fit of irritation, agitation. The geographical origin and derivation of the word is obscure (it is fairly common in Australian and North American speech) but it is most often heard among mid- dle-aged speakers.

to have/get into a conniption

content adj

attractive, pretty. The term has typically been used by younger males for describing females since 2000. It is probably a transferral of the idea of pleased from subject to (pleasing) object.

contrasexual n

a person, usually female, who prefers domestic comforts to sexual display or activity. The semi-technical term from psychology and anthropology (originally denoting someone who displays traits of the opposite sex) was borrowed in 2004 for this jocular social categorisation on the lines of metrosexual and retrosexual. coo1 n

gossip, news. The term, usually in the form ‘What’s the coo?’, has been used in London since 2000. Its origins are obscure, but it may be the same word as ku, or derive from the adjectival sense. It has also been suggested that it is inspired by the cooing of congregating birds.

coo2 adj American

a deliberately lazy pronunciation of cool in the sense of relaxed, congenial, etc.

coochie n American

a.the female sex organs

b.a female or females as sex objects

This item of black slang is probably a shortening of hoo(t)chie-coochie, which has denoted sexual activity since the 19th century.

cookie-pusher n American

an unmanly man, an effete or sycophantic male (the word never seems to be used of women). The image is of someone who spends his time passing cookies at tea parties, either because he enjoys such ‘effeminate’ activities, or in order to curry favour or further his career.

some little State Department cookiepusher trying to persuade them all to play ball

cooking adj American

going well, moving fast, succeeding. Originally from pre-World War II street language, this usage spread, especially via jazz musicians, to young whites. It is still often used to refer to musicians who are performing well and generating excitement. A stronger form is ‘cooking with gas’.

cool1 adj

a.unflappable, imperturbable

b.excellent, admirable, acceptable

One of the key items in the vocabulary of jazz musicians, hipsters, beatniks and hippies, cool, with its original suggestion of calm disinterested serenity, is a word which has not dated. It is as much in

vogue with teenagers in the early 21st century as it was among the 1930s jazz musicians who probably coined it (to denote gentler, progressive jazz, as opposed to ‘hot’ jazz).

cool2 n

sang-froid, imperturbability. A back-for- mation from the adjective.

cool3 vb

to calm down. A more fashionable abbreviated form of the colloquial ‘cool down’, heard since 2000.

Just cool!

cool it, cool out vb

to relax, unwind, defuse a situation. A hipsters’ term which has become a common colloquialism.

coon n

a black person. Originally (and still) a term of racist abuse common in the southern states of the USA, from ‘raccoon’ (a black-faced rural pest). The word has been adopted in Britain and Australia to refer to a person of any supposedly inferior race. In Britain it is a widespread racist epithet in use by the police and other working-class whites; egg and spoon is the rhyming-slang version.

‘There were a couple of coons shouting at each other and it’s difficult in these circumstances, I suppose.’

(Police officer, quoted in Inside the British Police by Simon Holdaway, 1983)

coot n

a foolish person, idiot

cootie n American

a head or body louse. The word was originally armed-forces slang, from the Polynesian kuty, meaning ‘parasite’.

‘Here you are.

No, not if it has cooties on it. I don’t have cooties!’

(Roseanne, US TV comedy series, 1989) cooze n American

a.a woman. A fairly vulgar term, used almost exclusively by men and having overtones of ‘sex object’, ‘victim’ or ‘slut’.

b.the female sex organs. The origin of the word is obscure.

cop1 n

a police officer. A shortening of copper. In Britain, until the 1960s cop was felt to be an Americanism and only in the late 1980s did it find its way into print, albeit in the gutter press.

‘Don’t cry/Gotta go bye bye/SUDDENLY: DIE DIE/COP KILL A CREEP! pow pow pow.’

(‘Concentration Moon’ written by Frank Zappa, recorded by the Mothers of Invention, 1967)

cop2 vb

to buy illicit drugs, to score. A specialisation of the general use of ‘cop’ to mean obtain.

‘You wanna take a walk, You wanna go cop,

You wanna go get Some chinese rock?’

(‘Chinese Rock’ by Dee Dee Ramone and Richard Hell, recorded by the Heartbreakers, 1977)

copacetic, kopasetic adj American excellent, satisfactory, hunky dory. Used usually of a situation or state of affairs, copacetic is as likely to be said by a college professor as a New York cop. The college professor might think he is using a newish slang term; the cop may suspect that a word ending in -ic derives from Greek or Latin. Both would be wrong. This bizarre word has rarely been written down, but was recorded as early as 1919. Attempts have been made to derive it from Latin, Yiddish or even Amerindian roots, but its true origin is unknown. It has not crossed the Atlantic in its comparatively long history.

‘What’s your sign, love?’ ‘Stop.’

‘Well that’s copacetic.’

(Beach Party, US film, 1981)

‘You stick with me and everything will be copacetic.’

(The Secret of My Success, US film, 1987)

cop a feel vb American

to grope (someone) sexually; succeed in heavy petting. A (mainly male) teenagers’ term from the 1950s, when this might be the goal, rather than a waystage in the process of seduction.

I didn’t even get to cop a feel.

‘Then when they start gettin’ passionate, start coppin a few feels.’

(High-school student, IT magazine, June 1972)

cop a plea vb American

to plead guilty to a lesser offence than the one which is charged to speed up the judicial process (for the prosecutors) and avoid a heavier sentence (for

the defendant). A strategy which forms the basis of plea bargaining, a peculiarity of the US legal system.

The guy copped a goddam plea and only went down for three.

cop off vb British

to find a sexual partner, to pull someone. A term from the north of England that had become widespread elsewhere by the 1990s.

‘Cop off…that beautiful moment when you finally get some snog action…’

(Just Seventeen magazine, August 1996)

cop-out vb, n

(to be guilty of) an evasion, avoidance of responsibility. This expression (almost always heard in the noun form) was American slang until the late 1970s, at which time it suddenly gained widespread currency, even among ‘respectable’ speakers in Britain. The phrase arose in the 1960s meaning specifically to ‘duck out’ of one’s obligations to one’s peers.

copper n

a police officer. The word originated in Britain in the 1840s, from ‘to cop’ as a humorous or racier alternative to ‘to catch’.

coppish? question form American an alternative spelling of capeesh

copshop n British

a police station. Currently mainly a children’s expression.

cop some zees vb American

to sleep. The phrase, which also occurs in the form stack some zees/zeds, uses the repeated letter ‘z’ as a cartoon representation of snoring.

corgis n pl British

(a) ‘couple of really ghastly individuals’. Another in the series of joky acronyms (on the lines of yuppie, dinkie, etc.) coined by professionals and the media to epitomise special subgroups of the population in the late 1980s.

cork up vb British

to keep quiet. A phrase briefly in vogue among adolescents in the mid-1960s, usually in the form of a brusque imperative.

corn n

money. A variant form of the Caribbean form carn which was said to have been the favourite word of the black British boxer Frank Bruno in 1982.

corn (on the cob) n British

the penis. Rhyming slang for knob. corn-dog n American

1.a swot. One of many synonyms used in the USA (throat, grind) and UK (Wendy, spod), principally by male school students, to ostracise misfits. The reference is to a bland-tasting variety of hot-dog.

2.(a male with) an uncircumcised penis. The expression trades on the supposed resemblance to a type of hot-dog. Aardvark and anteater are contemporary synonyms.

cornflake n American

an eccentric, crazy or silly person. An elaboration of the widespread term flake (which has the same meaning). The pun is on the name of the breakfast cereal; ‘corn’ is otherwise meaningless.

corn-hole n American

a.the anus

b.a pinch or poke in the anal region. In this sense the phrase has been recorded since the early years of the 20th century.

Cornish pasties n pl British

a style of men’s shoe considered deeply unfashionable or indicative of a certain social subgroup in the 1970s and 1980s (specified by Judy Rumbold, fashion editor of the Guardian, as ‘maths teachers countrywide’). The pastie was so-called because of the supposed resemblance of the mouldedsoled, heavily stitched shoe to the meat and vegetable savoury.

corpse vb British

1.(in acting) to be rendered unable to speak or act by the onset of uncontrollable hysterical laughter, in rehearsal or before an audience. The word has been used in the theatre since the 19th century.

2.to cause another actor to break down with laughter or giggling during rehearsal or performance

These meanings are also true of performers in operas and musicals.

cory, corey n British

the penis. A vulgarism used particularly by marginals and the poorer elements of the working class. The word, which is from the Romany word for thorn, kori, was more widely used in the 1950s and 1960s than today.

costered up adj British

solvent, wealthy. A phrase from the East End of London, probably based on the

old word ‘costermonger’ for a fruitseller.

costume n See in costume

cosy n British

an act of sex. A Sloane Ranger euphemism, used by girls and perhaps revealing of sexual attitudes in that milieu.

cot-case n

an invalid or someone who has been mentally and/or physically incapacitated. A usually heartless and often derogatory expression, used in Britain and Australia typically by health-care personnel or relatives. The similar term ‘stretcher-case’ has become an acceptable colloquialism, whereas basket case remains slang.

cotch vb to relax

‘I’ve got some pot, want to cotch round mine tonight?’

(Recorded, student, Devon, 2002)

cotchin’ n

relaxing. A vogue term since 2000 among young speakers of all ethnic groups.

cottage n British

a public lavatory, in the language of the homosexuals who made contact there. The word and the practice were more common in the 1950s and 1960s before the liberalisation of anti-homo- sexual laws, but are still in evidence. The term is also used in Australia.

cottaging n British

visiting, or hanging around in, public lavatories to make sexual contacts. A male homosexual’s term from the 1950s which was still in use in the late 1980s.

cotton-top n American

an old person, especially one with white hair. Frost-top and moss-back are synonyms.

cotton wool n British See on the cotton wool

couch potato n American

a lazy, greedy person. This expression from the late 1980s describes a person whose only activity is to lie in front of a television and eat and drink. (‘Couch’ is an American synonym for sofa.)

‘“Couch-potato”, according to Lindsey Bareham “is American for a television addict”: the potato, once again, is defamed as a symbol of dull lethargy.’

(Patrick Skene Catling, Daily Telegraph, Christmas Book Review, 1989)

cough vb British

to confess to a crime, to reluctantly give up information. A police and underworld term influenced by the notion of coughing up something stuck in the throat.

‘Look, many times I have known prisoners who have coughed to seven or eight jobs when they have been given a quick thump.’

(Police officer quoted in Inside the British Police, Simon Holdaway, 1983)

council adj British

inferior, of poor quality, shabby. The term, recorded since 2000, is inspired by council estates as a habitat of poor people.

Those big gold hoop earrings make her look so council.

Compare village

cow n British

1a. an unpleasant or obnoxious woman

1b. a placid, drab or humiliated woman

The word is often used with real malice or, alternatively, can be said with fellow feeling by a sympathetic woman, especially in the phrase ‘poor cow’. Cow is not a universal term of abuse (in French for instance it can be a term of affection). It is said that the synonym moo was used in the 1960s because cow was still considered beyond the pale for family TV.

2. an unpleasant or extremely irritating task, experience or sensation, etc. In this sense the word is often used in the phrase ‘a cow of a job’, etc.

Compare mare cowboy1 n

a.a reckless or irresponsible person, especially someone young, inexperienced and/or wild. The term is typically used by older workers referring to younger ones, or by police about a delinquent loner. The term originated in the 1950s, drawing comparisons with western film heroes or with pre-war gangsters’ use of ‘cowboy job’ or the verb ‘to cowboy’ to refer to a particularly messy or violent crime.

b.British a bad workman. The above sense of cowboy has been extended and popularised in colloquial language to refer to anyone who does a shoddy job in order to make a quick profit.

a cowboy plumber/plasterer

cowboy2 vb British

to behave or perform recklessly. The word is now used in two main senses; to drive dangerously or to perform a professional task in a slapdash and/or hazardous way.

cowboy job/operation n

1.an unauthorised scheme, as in, for instance, the field of espionage

2.British a badly finished or skimped example of workmanship

3.See cowboy1 a

cowboy outfit n British

a firm or organisation which specialises in shoddy workmanship or dubious business practices. The punch-line of a familiar joke among disgruntled businessmen is that a doting millionaire, when asked by his infant son for a cowboy outfit, buys him the company in question.

coyote n American

a person who preys on those illegally immigrating to the USA from Mexico. The word (literally, prairie wolf) is used in Spanish to describe unscrupulous agents, mainly Mexican, who offer to help wetbacks cross the border, but instead rob, defraud, denounce or even kill them. A term from the late 1970s and 1980s.

coz n See cuz

cozzer n

a police officer. An item of London working-class slang. The word might have originated in the archaic market porters’ term ‘cozza(r)’, from the Hebrew chazar meaning pork or pig. London’s first black policeman, Norwell Roberts, was known as ‘Nozzer the cozzer’.

‘I didn’t want to see the shit-eating grins on the cozzers’ faces.’

(Jimmy Robinson, released prisoner, speaking on the BBC TV programme Panorama, 24 February 1997)

crabs n pl

pubic lice, a case of pediculosis pubis. The louse is popularly known as the crab louse from its resemblance when viewed under magnification.

a dose/case of crabs

crack n

1. a purified, addictive form of cocaine. When pellets of crack are smoked they fizz and crackle, which is probably the origin of the name, reinforced by the precedent of smack. The drug became

popular in the USA in 1985, but was first described in The Gourmet Cookbook, a Complete Guide to Cocaine, published in California in 1972.

‘Crack – cocaine mixed with baking soda and cooked in microwave ovens – has been described as the “fast food of drugs”.’

(Independent, 24 July 1989)

2.the vagina. An obvious vulgarism, occasionally heard in all English-speak- ing areas.

3.Irish and British a good time. From the adjective cracking and the Irish notion (sense 4).

‘It’s a right crack.’

(Snooker hall manager, ITV telethon, May 1988)

4. the crack Irish and British what’s going on, the latest news or the current ambience. This word is used all over Ireland and in the late 1980s spread to Britain. The all-purpose term, usually in phrases such as ‘what’s the crack?’ or ‘that’s the crack!’, seems to combine two very old, popular unorthodox senses of the word: to talk, gossip or boast, as in crack on, and the adjective crack meaning firstrate, excellent.

‘This is the only place to live. I tried Australia but I came back because I missed the crack.’

(Belfast resident, The Crack: a Belfast Year, Sally Belfrage, 1987)

‘Big Alex is a minder and a fixer. In his words, he knows all the crack.’

(Guardian, 12 December 1987)

crack a brown vb Australian

to fart. A fairly rare post-World War II male vulgarism.

crack a chubby vb See chubby

crack a fat vb Australian

to have an erection. A vulgarism known in Britain through Barry Humphries’

Adventures of Barry McKenzie. There are a number of mostly obsolete expressions in Australian English using the word ‘crack’ to mean achieve or produce.

crack a stiffie vb British

to have an erection. An expression used in Sloane Ranger and yuppie circles.

cracker1 n American

1. a white person. In black street argot the term, from the colour of savoury biscuits, is almost invariably pejorative and

often refers to an unsophisticated or bigoted white person.

2. a computer programmer who breaches systems for fun or profit, in the patois of cyberpunks and net-heads.

Compare hacker

cracker2 adj British

excellent. A vogue adjectival version of the colloquial noun usage (denoting something or someone outstanding, admirable) which dates back to the late 19th century.

crackerbox n American

a.a psychiatric hospital

b.a crazy person

‘I’m stuck in some private crackerbox.’

(Man Trouble, US film, 1993)

The terms are a pun on the colloquial adjectival sense of ‘crackers’.

crack house n

a place where the drug crack is prepared, sold or consumed

‘In the depressed inner-city areas of Los Angeles or New York, crack is frequently consumed in “crack houses” or “rock houses” – derelict buildings, often occupied by squatters, where addicts can buy and consume the drug.’

(Sunday Times, 10 September 1989)

crack it vb British

to succeed in a seduction. Used by and about men, this is a specific use of the general colloquial sense of to succeed, especially to suddenly succeed after long effort, as in ‘cracking’ a safe or a code.

crackle n British

money, banknotes. A word used by street traders, bookies, spivs, etc., particularly in the 1950s and 1960s. An alternative to crinkle, similarly inspired by the sound of crisp new notes.

crackling n British

an attractive female, or women in general seen as sex objects. This male expression was particularly popular in the 1950s and early 1960s, usually in the phrase ‘a bit of crackling’. It derives from the idea of pork crackling being a ‘tasty morsel’, perhaps reinforced by the vulgar sense of crack.

crack on vb British

1. to talk incessantly, browbeat or boast. The phrase, which is now generally used by middle-class speakers, is a successor to a colloquial use of crack to mean gossip, brag or tell tales which is at least 300

years old and survives in Scottish and American speech.

‘He was cracking on about his job and his responsibilities.’

(Recorded, city financier, London, 1987)

2a. to establish contact with a potential romantic partner, seduce

‘You can’t crack on to that many people here.’

(Away the Lads, BBC 2 TV documentary, February 1993)

2b. ‘crack on someone’: to flirt with, have and/or express an infatuation with someone. An item of slang in use in girls’ public schools in the early 1990s.

crack wise vb

to make witty or cheeky remarks. A back-formation from the noun and verb ‘wisecrack’.

crafty butcher n British

a male homosexual. The pejorative expression is inspired by the notion that ‘he takes his meat in through the back door’. The term was posted on the b3ta website in 2004.

crank n

1.the penis. A rare usage, mainly heard in the USA among sailors, truckers, ‘hard-hats’ and others in the 1960s and 1970s.

2.speed (methedrine or amphetamine), heroin. A drug users’ term from the late 1960s which could also be used to refer to any drug which ‘cranks up’ or re-stim- ulates a person’s system.

3.American an irritable, bad-tempered person. The slang noun is derived from the colloquial adjective ‘cranky’ (itself from the Scottish dialect word for bent or distorted).

cranking, cranked adj

exciting, stimulating, powerful. The words come from the image of cranking up an engine and, by extension, the colloquial ‘cranking up the volume’.

crank up vb

to inject (a dangerous drug). A junkies’ term from the early 1970s derived from the image of inserting a handle into an engine to jerk it back into life.

crank up some smack They’re going to crank up.

crap1 n

1a. excrement, shit

1b. dirt, rubbish

1c. worthless nonsense, bullshit

In modern usage crap is generally seen as a more moderate synonym for shit; in fact the word comes from Middle English crappe, which meant scrapings, scale, residue or chaff; this in turn came from words existing in Old French, German and Dutch, distantly related to ‘crop’ and ‘crabbed’. (The fact that the flush toilet was invented by a Thomas Crapper appears to be pure coincidence.)

2. oppressive, petty or unpleasant behaviour; by extension from crap 1a and 1b. This idea is usually expressed in such phrases as ‘he doesn’t take any crap from anyone’ or ‘she’s not going to put up with this crap any more’.

crap2 vb

to defecate, shit. The verb form, which began to be used in the late 18th century, is derived from the earlier noun crap, which originally meant rubbish, rather than excrement.

crap-ass adj

very bad. An intensified form of crap, using the American ass as a combining form. The term was in use among British speakers in 2003.

crap on vb British

to nag, harangue or talk incessantly. A near synonym for the verb to bang on, with the added suggestion that the content of the monologue or harangue in question is worthless or frivolous.

‘The only moments of light relief we get are when you come in and we crap on about anything we like.’

(Recorded, London University student, July 1988)

crapper, the crapper n

a toilet. This vulgarism appears to derive from crap and not from the name of Thomas Crapper, a Victorian manufacturer of lavatories who is claimed to be the inventor of the flush toilet.

crappy, crappo adj

worthless, contemptible, of very low quality. From crap. Crappo is a more recent variant.

crash1 vb

1. to go to sleep, lie down and lose consciousness. This word was very popular in the hippy era, perhaps because the suggestion of sudden collapse coincided with drug-induced sleep or simply curling up on a floor exhausted. Crash sounded rather dated by the late 1990s; it originated in armed-services slang in World War II, probably among airmen, and was

adopted by bohemian travellers and beatniks during the 1950s.

2.to gatecrash. A word made especially popular by the teenage custom (from the 1960s onward) of arriving uninvited at parties.

3.British to cadge, borrow or lend. In use among working-class speakers and members of the armed services in the 1950s, this term became popular among adolescents in the 1990s. It is heard particularly in the Scottish Lowlands and the north of England.

Can you crash me a tenner?

I just wanted to crash a couple of biffs.

crash2 adj

excellent, attractive, exciting. In this sense, fashionable since 2000, the word may be a shortening of crash-hot or an unrelated coinage.

crash and burn vb

to fail spectacularly. A military metaphor which became an item of journalese in the early 1990s.

crasher n British

a (crashing) bore. An upperand, more recently, middle-class term. It has existed in limited circulation since the 1950s and has been fashionable among

Sloane Rangers, yuppies, etc.

crash-hot adj Australian

excellent, first-rate. This fairly popular expression is probably a euphemism for shit-hot.

crashpad n

a place to sleep (temporarily). This term, combining crash, meaning to sleep, and pad, meaning a home or shelter, was popularised by the hippies; it usually referred to a communal building where sleeping space was available to travellers.

crater-face n

a person suffering from facial acne or spots. ‘Pizza-face’ is a synonym, similarly used by or of adolescents.

cream1 n South African

an attractive young female. Recorded as an item of Sowetan slang in the Cape Sunday Times, 29 January 1995.

cream2, cream one’s jeans vb

to have an orgasm or to become sexually excited (while dressed). The vulgarism can be used of either sex (and now, by extension, can even sometimes mean to become over-excited or over-enthusias- tic without the sexual connotation). Cream has been a euphemism for

semen or sexual lubricant for at least a century. Cream one’s jeans dates from the late 1960s.

cream-crackered adj British

knackered; exhausted, worn out. A humorous rhyming-slang version of the more common word. It was probably coined in the 1970s, inspired by the savoury dry biscuits called ‘cream crackers’.

crease n British

the anus, buttocks, the female genital area. The vulgarism, in use especially in the northwest of England, is often heard in phrases such as ‘a kick up the crease’.

creasing, creasing up adj British overcome by laughter. The terms have become fashionable, especially in black speech, since 2000.

‘You tell me it’s OK for whites to imitate black culture? I’m creasin’.’

(Recorded, black female, London, March 2004)

creature-features n

a mild term of abuse among schoolchildren. It may originate in ‘creature-fea- ture’, a show-business jargon term for a horror film of the 1950s.

creatures, the creatures n pl British prison warders. A prisoners’ term conveying more bitterness than the more usual screws.

cred adj, n British

(having) ‘street credibility’. A 1980s adolescent vogue term inspired by the earlier cliché.

creep vb

1.American to attempt to seduce, make unwelcome sexual advances (towards)

2.to cheat on a man

An expression used on campus in the USA since around 2000.

creeping Jesus n

an unpleasantly insincere, untrustworthy or complaining person; a creep, sneak or whinger. This strange expression of distaste is mainly heard among middle-class speakers in Britain and Australia; it dates, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, at least to 1818.

creep (someone) out vb

to disgust, disquiet someone. Formed from the colloquial ‘creepy’, the phrase is popular among younger teenagers.

‘I don’t care: he creeps me out, plus he smells gross…’

(The X-Files, US TV series, 1996)

creepshow adj

frightening, grotesque or merely unpleasant. An American teenagers’ word, from the title of a horror film released in 1982. The adjective is an elaboration of ‘creepy’ and the earlier term ‘creepsville’, and has been heard among British teenagers since the late 1980s.

a creepshow party

her creepshow boyfriend

cremated adj British

ruined, destroyed, defeated, trounced. A coinage of the 1980s combining the notions of ‘killed’ and burned. The term was briefly in vogue among yuppies.

‘If the market moves in a big way we’ll get cremated.’

(Serious Money, Caryl Churchill, 1987)

creps n pl British

trainers, sports shoes. Heard in London since 2000, the word may derive from ‘creep’ or, conceivably, from ‘crêpe(- soles)’.

cretin n British

someone who is craving a drug or drugs. A term used by young street-gang members in London since around 2000. crew1 n

a.British a gang. A word used since the 1960s by street gangs, especially skinheads and football hooligans, to refer to themselves. It was a synonym for a band (of ruffians) 300 years earlier.

b.American a group of young people. Unlike the British sense which implies violence, this 1980s usage usually referred to hip hop artists, break dancers or scratch musicians.

crew2 vb American

to belong to a gang or social group. An item of black street slang of the 1990s, the verb is formed from the earlier noun usage.

crib n

a. American a home, flat or accommodation. A common term in black street slang sometimes adopted, usually facetiously, by white adolescents.

I’m going crib.

b.a room in a student hostel

c.American a person from the same home-town

He’s my crib.

This extended sense of the term has been heard since the end of the 1990s.

crim1 n

a criminal. A term heard increasingly from the late 1980s; it is probably originally an Australian usage.

crim2, crimble, crimbo n British

Christmas. These are adults’ nursery words (probably originally from Liverpool) which were popularised, particularly by radio disc jockeys, in the 1970s.

‘Stevie’s determined to have a well wacky Crimble do – even by his standards.’

(Just Seventeen magazine, December 1987)

cringe (someone) vb British

to embarrass, discomfit or excruciate. A mainly middle-class usage of the late 1980s.

‘Would it cringe you too much if I used my [cell-]phone here?’

(Recorded, yuppie to companion in op- era-house bar, London, June 1988)

crinkle n British

banknotes, money. This term was used by bookies, spivs, etc. in the 1950s and is now probably obsolete. Crackle was a synonym.

I need some crinkle in a hurry. crinkly n British

1.an elderly person or adult. A young person’s dismissive (or sometimes grudgingly affectionate) term. It forms part of the group of post-1970 vogue terms which includes dusty, crumbly and wrinklie.

2.a banknote, especially formerly a £1 banknote. The term was used by Sloane Rangers in the late 1970s.

crippled adj

drunk. An item of student slang in use in London and elsewhere since around 2000.

cris, criss, crissed, crisp adj

1.excellent, attractive

That dress is so cris.

2.suffering from a hangover or exhaustion

I woke up feeling really criss.

In both senses the words have been in vogue since around 2000.

crispy adj American

1a. suffering from a hangover. A teenage and adolescent vogue word of 1988. Its provenance is uncertain; it may evoke the notion of ‘brittle’ or ‘fragile’.

1b. unpleasant, inferior. The generalised term, in use among American adolescents in the 1990s, seems to postdate the more specific sense above.

2. smart, neat

criss-kross n

a foolish and/or obnoxious person. A term used by young street-gang members in London since around 2000.

critter n Canadian

an unattractive, unsophisticated male. The usage, recorded in 2004, employs the North American dialect pronunciation of ‘creature’.

croak vb

1. to die. An unsentimental term presumably derived from the choking death rattle or rasping dying words. The usage dates from the 19th century.

He croaked before he could tell us anything useful.

2. to kill. An American gangster and prison term.

The guy threatened to croak his business partner.

croaker n British

a doctor who prescribes for addicts. A drug addicts’ and prisoners’ term in use since the 1960s, although the notion of the death-dealing doctor thus expressed goes back to the 19th century.

croc(k) n British

a stupid and/or irritating person. The word occurred in the speech of London schoolchildren in the early 1990s. Its exact etymology is uncertain, although in early 19th-century dialect the word denoted a worthless or worn-out animal and it was later used in public-school slang to refer to a weak or unsporting fellow pupil.

crock, crock of shit n American nonsense, something worthless and unpleasant. ‘It’s a crock!’ is an expression (inoffensive enough to be used on TV) which was employed in the 1970s and 1980s to dismiss, deride or reject something such as false information. In North America the word crock, for container, is not archaic as it is in Britain and Australia.

crocked adj

1. American drunk. A word used, e.g., by college students, in the 1980s. It probably comes from the old use of ‘crocks’ as containers for pickling or preserving in alcohol or, particularly in Canada, as con-

tainers for whiskey. Alternatively, the derivation may be the same as that of the following sense.

2.American angry. This use of the word is connected with an archaic or dialect use of ‘crock’ and ‘crook’ to mean an old, infirm, cantankerous and complaining person.

3.British broken or injured, used particularly of sportsmen incapacitated through injury. From the standard English sense of crock as a potsherd, or from a dialect term for a decrepit animal.

croggie n British

a ride on the crossbar or handlebars of another rider’s bicycle. An item of schoolchildren’s slang recorded in 2003.

Come on, give us a croggie home will you?

cron(z) n American

a gun. The term, which usually refers to a handgun, originated in black street argot in the 1990s. Its derivation is obscure.

cronk n, adj American

(something) excellent, powerful. In use since 2000, the word may be an alteration of chronic, as applied, e.g., to highgrade marihuana. It might alternatively be related to crunk, but that seems to be a more recent coinage.

crook adj Australian

unwell, unhealthy, wrong, dubious. A common term in Australia, crook is either an alteration of the archaic slang term ‘cronk’ (from the German and Yiddish krank) meaning ill, or of crooked, meaning bent out of shape. By 1988, due to the influence of Australian soap operas, the word could be used in a British newspaper or magazine, although it has not as yet penetrated British speech.

crovey adj British

excellent. A term of unknown origin in use among teenagers since the late 1990s. It could conceivably be a deformation of groovy.

Croydon facelift n British

a tightly scraped-back hairstyle such as a ponytail or bun.

See also chav

crubbing n

a less common synonym for grinding