Dictionary of Contemporary Slang

or ‘be sexually willing’ as in ‘does she fuck?’

2. to make a mess of, destroy. A 1980s shortening of fuck up with slightly more emphatic or drastic connotations.

They fucked the experiment totally.

3. to damn or disregard

‘Fuck art, let’s dance!’

(T-shirt slogan of the 1970s) fuck2 n

a.an act of sexual intercourse. The noun postdates the verb by at least three hundred years.

b.a person when evaluated as a sexual partner

a good fuck/an easy fuck

c. a person, especially when viewed as a fool, victim, villain, etc.

The poor dumb fuck didn’t have a chance.

fuck-a-duck! exclamation

a virtually meaningless expression of surprise or disbelief

fuck-all n British

nothing or almost nothing. An emphatic vulgarism.

‘He walked away with two hundred thousand and I got fuck-all.’

(Recorded, businessman, London, 1987)

fuck around/about vb

to play the fool, behave irresponsibly or irresolutely

OK, let’s stop fucking around and get down to work.

fucked adj

a. (of things) ruined, destroyed, rendered useless

This typewriter is completely fucked.

b. (of people) completely exhausted, beaten or at a loss

I’m feeling fucked. fucked-up adj

a.(of things or situations) in a mess, destroyed, spoilt or ruined. Originally the expression meant seduced and abandoned.

b.(of people) psychologically disturbed, traumatized

‘Sadowitz will soon revert to being the fucked-up nonentity he must have been before people like you started dressing him up in the Emperor’s New Clothes.’

(Letter to Time Out, December 1987)

c. (of people) temporarily deranged by drugs or drink (not necessarily a negative term)

I got really fucked-up on that dope.

fucker n

a person. the word does not invariably imply dislike or contempt, although it may.

The poor fucker never stood a chance.

See also motherfucker

fuckhead n

a stupid or unpleasant person. A term of abuse popular since the 1980s and usually applied to males.

fucking adj

an intensifier used with other adjectives for emphasis. Like bloody it is also one of the very few examples of an ‘infix’ (a word component inserted before the stressed syllable in the middle of a polysyllabic word) in English.

Jesus, it’s fucking cold in here. Abso-fucking-lutely!

fuck-me shoes n pl

provocative female footwear. This obscure term received extensive publicity at the end of 1995 when the former feminist writer Germaine Greer accused the Guardian columnist Suzanne Moore of betraying feminist principles by wearing ‘fuck-me shoes’ among other items. The phrase probably originated in American usage but may be a confusion with ‘fuck-you shoes’, implying a disregard for convention or propriety, or ‘fuck-off shoes’, where fuck-off means both outsize and aggressive.

fucknuckle n

a term of abuse, used of males. The second component is included merely for the purpose of reduplication of sound and signifies nothing.

fuck off vb

to leave, go away. A vulgarism that is used in regular verb forms and as an interjection.

Why don’t you just fuck off!

fuckoff n American

a useless, hopeless or idle person

fuck-off money n

funds with which to escape, retire, etc.

fuck (someone) over vb

to humiliate, discomfit, distress or destroy someone or something

‘Once the income tax guys get their hands on you they can really fuck you over.’

(Recorded, self-employed male, London, 1988)

fuckpig n

a very unpleasant, worthless or contemptible person. This is the British version of the American pigfucker. It has been part of the London working-class slang repertoire since the 19th century.

fuck truck n

another term for passion wagon

fuck up vb

1. to make a mess of things, commit a serious error or blunder

Don’t tell me, you’ve fucked up yet again.

2.See snafu

3.also fuck (someone) up to create an emotional disturbance (in someone), traumatise

‘They fuck you up, your mum and dad.’

(Philip Larkin, This be the Verse) fuck-up n

a.a disaster, blunder, error or failure

b.a bungler or blunderer

c.someone who is emotionally or psychologically disturbed

fuckwit n

an idiot, a halfwit. An Australianism which has caught on in British use since the late 1970s. It usually expresses exasperated contempt.

The guy’s a complete fuckwit.

fuckwitted adj Australian hopelessly stupid, dim-witted

fudge-nudger n British

a male homosexual. The term was one of many synonyms based on the notion of excrement (others include turd burglar, chutney-ferret and jobbie-jabber), denoting ‘active’ or ‘predatory’ homosexuality, heard since the 1990s.

fudgepacker n British

a homosexual. A derisive late 1980s term employing fudge as an image for excrement and equating homosexuality with buggery, on the same pattern as browniehound, chocolate bandit, etc.

fudge-tunnel n British

the anus. The vulgar euphemism was adopted as the name of a British grunge band in the early 1990s.

fufu n

the vagina. The term has been recorded in the USA and UK since 2000. It may originate as, or imitate, baby talk.

fuggin’ adj

a euphemism for fucking

fugly adj American

ugly, repellent. Although the word, which is popular in campus speech, is blended from ‘fucking ugly’, it is generally milder than its components imply.

God, that’s some fugly dog she’s got.

full (as a boot/bull/bull’s bum) adj Australian

drunk. Full or ‘full as a tick’ were euphemisms for drunk in Britain in the 19th century, but are now obsolete. Earlier Australianisms on the same pattern were ‘full as an egg’ and ‘full as a goat’.

full as a state school adj Australian drunk. A more recent variation of expressions based on the notion of full (of drink), heard during the late 1980s, but perhaps older.

full monty, the n British

all that is desired and/or required. The previously obscure phrase suddenly became extremely popular in 1990 and 1991 and many derivations were proposed, ranging from a nickname given to inhabitants of the Potteries region of England to a comment on the quality of the wartime briefings given by the British General Montgomery in North Africa. In fact, the most likely explanation of the phrase is that it is a piece of gamblers’ jargon meaning the entire kitty or necessary ‘pot’ to be bet, from the Spanish monte (mountain). In the US ‘monte’ was adopted as the name of a risky card game, while in Australian horseracing circles ‘monty’ used to mean an accurate tip or certain bet.

‘We had starters, main course, wine, you name it – the full monty…’.’

(Recorded, financial consultant, London, May 1993)

full-on adj, adv British

exciting, powerful, with maximum effort. A vogue term among students, particularly in the Midlands during the later 1990s. The expression is used in the same way as the colloquial ‘all-out’.

funbag n

a.a woman, particularly an attractive woman or a potential sexual partner

b.American a prostitute, in 1980s police jargon

funbags n pl Australian

female breasts. A vulgar term from the 1960s inspired by children’s ‘lucky dip’ sweet packets on the same lines as mystery bags.

fundage n

money. One of many formations using - age for mock pomposity. This example was not confined to North America and was recorded among British students in the 1990s.

fundamental adj American

excellent. A fashionable usage, often in the form of an exclamation, among adolescents from the early 1990s.

funk n

1a. heavily rhythmic, ‘earthy’ music, particularly soul or disco music. A term applied to varieties of urban black music since the 1950s.

1b. an authentic feeling, earthiness, a quality of unsophisticated, raw vitality. The noun form is a back-formation from the adjective funky.

2.British cowardice, fearfulness, a fit of panic. A word which is quite unrelated to the musical sense. Funk here comes from the Flemish fonck, meaning worry or agitation. (A blue funk is a state of extreme fear.) It has been in use since the 18th century.

3.British skunk marihuana. The term has been in use since around 2000.

funky adj

1a. earthy, raw in the style of funk music (characteristically having heavy rhythm and bass and simple repeated melodies). This term, applied to urban soul-music which contained elements of African, jazz, blues and rock music, has been heard since the 1950s. It is sometimes elaborated to ‘funky-butt’.

1b. vital, raw, energetic in an unsophisticated way. A term of approval applied to people, objects, ideas, etc. by extension from the musical sense.

2. smelly, fetid. This is the original sense of the word, dating from the early 17thcentury British noun funk, meaning a stink or ‘fug’ of tobacco smoke. This in turn probably derives from the Latin verb fumigare (to smoke or fumigate), via French. Senses 1a and b originate in this meaning.

funny farm n

a psychiatric hospital or home for mental patients

‘They’re coming to take me away, ha ha, to the funny farm, where life is beautiful all the time.’

(‘They’re coming to take me away, hahaaa!’, song by Napoleon XIV, 1966)

funny money n

a.counterfeit money

b.worthless denominations

c.foreign currency

d.excess or unearned wealth. The words in this sense express disbelief or resigned acceptance in the face of ‘unthinkably’ large amounts of money.

furburger, fur-doughnut, furry hoop, fur pie n

the vagina. Expressions which have been part of the male repertoire of vulgarisms since the 1960s. In the USA, furburger and fur pie are sometimes used to refer to a female or females in general.

furiously adv American

extremely. A hyperbolic vogue term in use among the Vals of the 1990s and featured in the 1994 US film Clueless.

furphy n Australian

a lie, malicious rumour, tall story. The term is said to originate in Irish usage, but has also been derived from a person of the same name, the contractor who supplied garbage disposal wagons for the army camps in Australia during World War I. An alternative eponymous source is the writer Joseph Furphy.

furry monkey n British

the vagina. A jocular euphemism as used by presenter Daisy Donovan on the late night review The 11 O’clock Show on UK TV in 2001.

furry muff! exclamation British

‘fair enough’. An item of student slang in use in London and elsewhere since around 2000.

fusion n British

a state of unhappiness, irritation or agitation. This term became popular among teenagers in the 1990s, who had probably picked it up from an older generation among whom this shortening of the word ‘confusion’ had become almost obsolete. The usage was recorded among North London schoolboys in 1993 and 1994.

She’s in a fusion again. futz1 n American

1.the vagina

2.a disreputable and/or unpleasant male

These noun forms are related to the verb form.

futz2 vb American

to mess or fool around. The word is a deformation of a Yiddish verb arumfartzen, meaning literally and metaphorically to fart around.

fuzz, the fuzz n

the police. A 1960s buzzword nowadays only likely to be used by a hopelessly out-of-date adult attempting to communicate ingratiatingly with young people (who will either not understand at all, or regard the dated term with contempt). It derives either from the likening of a worthless person to mould, fluff or dust, or it is a black reference to white men’s ‘wispy’ head and body hair.

‘You’re more likely to be damaged permanently in a tangle with the American fuzz though, if you see what I mean.’

(Terry Reid, interviewed in Oz magazine, February 1969)

fuzz-butt n American

a novice. The term is used especially to refer to inexperienced members of the armed forces and it refers to the notion of an adolescent with downy hair on the buttocks.

f-word, the n British

a coy reference to the taboo word fuck

‘He was very coarse, always scratching himself and saying the f-word.’

(Recorded, middle-aged female bus passenger, London, 1989)

G1 n American

a friend, peer. This all-purpose greeting used among black speakers (usually, but not necessarily, male) is probably an abbreviation of guy, although gangsta has been suggested as an alternative.

G2 n

1.a gram (of some illicit substance). The abbreviation is typically used in referring to cocaine, which is sold in grams.

2.a thousand, a grand

It cost me two g’s.

3. American a friend, peer. The abbreviation (probably of ‘guy’) is used as a greeting between males, particularly in black street usage.

gadger n British

a male friend, unnamed male. A term of address or affection between males, heard predominantly in the north of England.

He’s a good gadger.

gadgie, gadgy n, adj British

(an) old, infirm or senile (person). A schoolchildren’s word mainly heard in the north of England. The source is in dialect of the 19th century or earlier but the precise original meaning is lost.

gaff n British

a home or house. In 19th-century slang a gaff was a fair, fairground or any place of cheap entertainment. These notions were expanded in the argot of actors, tramps, market stallholders, criminals, etc. and the word came to be used to describe any place or location, hence the current meaning which was racy underworld jargon from the 1920s to the 1950s when spivs, teddy boys, etc. gave it wider currency. (It is still mainly used by work- ing-class speakers.)

Nice gaff you’ve got here.

‘If I was you I’d go round his gaff and pour brake fluid all over his paintwork – see how that goes down.’

(The Firm, British TV play, February 1989)

See also blow the gaff

gaffer n

a. a boss. A rustic term of address or descriptive word for an old man or master current in Britain since the 16th century, gaffer is a contraction of ‘grandfather’. It is still widely used, particularly by work- ing-class speakers.

If I were you I’d go and fetch the gaffer; he’s the only one who knows what’s going on.

b.an old man. This is probably the most common sense of the word in the USA, where it is also used to refer to a father (but rarely specifically a grandfather), and to a foreman as in the first sense.

c.British a police officer. The term was recorded among London criminals in 1993.

gaffle vb American

1.to confound, defeat, cheat. A term heard in black street slang in the 1990s, perhaps derived from the use of ‘gaff’ in black slang to mean a swindler or crooked betting scheme.

2.to steal, take without permission. An expression used on campus in the USA since around 2000.

Hey, who gaffled my smokes?

gag vb

to vomit. A teenager’s specialised use of the colloquial term for choking or retching. Its use is not entirely restricted to the speech of teenagers.

gaga adj

senile, crazy, besotted. The word has come into world English from French, via upper-class or educated British English of the 1920s. In French it was probably originally a nursery word, influ-

enced by grand-père (grandfather) and gâteux (feeble-minded, infirm).

‘She’s gone completely gaga over this appalling creep.’

(Recorded, wine bar habituée, London, 1986)

gage, gauge n

marihuana or hashish. Gauge is a now obsolete slang term for an alcoholic drink and later also for a pipe or a pipeful of tobacco, coming presumably from the idea of a ‘measure’ (of something intoxicating). The survival of these senses in American and Jamaican English led to the use of the same word for cannabis.

‘You want to blow that gage this way? We’d love it.’

(Chrissie Hynde of the Pretenders rock group, shouting from the stage at Glastonbury music festival, 25 June 1994)

gagging adj British

desperate (for relief, typically in the form of sex or alcohol). Like its synonym choking, gagging (literally, retching) became a popular vulgarism in all social circles during the 1990s. The phrase ‘gagging for it’ refers specifically and invariably to sex.

gag me with a spoon! exclamation American

a favourite Valley Girl expression of exaggerated or thrilled disgust or astonishment

Wow, gag me with a spoon! How gross can you get?

galah n Australian

a fool, a silly, empty-headed person. The galah is a species of Australian cockatoo which characteristically congregates with others and ‘chatters’. A rural catchphrase in currency before World War II was ‘as mad as a (gum)tree full of galahs’. The word is pronounced with the stress on the second syllable.

‘Let’s forget the whole thing, I feel like a right galah.’

(The Flying Doctors, Australian TV series, 1987)

gallis n

a group of females, girls. In black British speech since 2000 the term is the female counterpart of mans. It may derive from the Scottish gallus.

gallus adj Scottish

cheeky, assertive, feisty. A Scottish dialect term applied particularly to women, it

was used specifically to refer to TV presenter Muriel Gray in 1995. It is said to derive from the observation that someone was ‘fit for the gallows’.

gam vb British

to perform oral sex. A shortening of gamahucher, a 19th-century French term for this practice which was adopted into the specialist jargon of prostitutes, pornographers and their customers. The word is now a rather old-fashioned working-class and schoolchildren’s vulgarism.

game adj British

working as a prostitute, available for sex. The word in this sense is a back-forma- tion from the earlier ‘on the game’. It is used by punters and those involved professionally in prostitution.

She’s game.

game on! exclamation British

a cry of enthusiasm or encouragement. Since the late 1990s the phrase has been used in association with competition and merrymaking, or as a euphemistic reference to sex. It was the title of a TV comedy series.

game over! exclamation

an assertion that an attempt has failed or that an activity has been definitively terminated. The expression, first featuring on pinball machines, has been a catchphrase since the mid-1990s.

gamer n American

an irritating, foolish and/or inept person. An expression used on campus in the USA since around 2000. The word first described a devotee of video games, thus someone despised by would-be sophisticates.

gams n pl

legs, especially a woman’s legs when considered shapely. A jocular word which now sounds old-fashioned, unsurprisingly in that it originates in the medieval heraldic term for leg, gamb, which in turn comes from Old Northern French dialect gambe (modern French is jambe, Italian is gamba). Gams is sometimes thought to come from ‘gammon’, a word which features in several cockney slang expressions; it does not, but it is distantly related etymologically. It is still heard occasionally throughout the English-speaking world.

‘Oo Nudge, check out those gams.’

(Beach House, US film, 1981)

gander n

a look. The word, which is usually part of phrases such as ‘take/have a gander at this’, comes from the bird’s characteristic craning of the neck.

Gandhi adj See Mahatma (Gandhi)

ganef, gonef, gonof n American

a thief, petty criminal. A word from the Hebrew gannath; thief, via Yiddish. In the 19th century variant forms of this word were heard in Britain and South Africa, but are now archaic.

‘I’m curious, what do you remember about the man who robbed you…I want to know what the ganef looked like.’

(Hill Street Blues, US TV series, 1986)

ganga, ganger adv American

extremely. A campus synonym for hella and grippa recorded in North Carolina in 2002.

gang bang1 vb, n

(to take part in) sex involving several males sequentially with one woman; group sex. The word received publicity in the 1960s, largely as a result of articles describing the rituals of Hells Angels and others.

gang bang2 vb American

to take part in the activities of a street gang. A term from the 1980s which is a play on the well-known sexual term, and bang in the sense of gunshot. The word has been brought to public attention by TV documentaries describing the activities of such gangs in the era of crack. (The phrase is now sometimes shortened to bang.)

gangbanger n American

a loyal and committed member of a street gang. This 1980s term is used by and about the members of street gangs in Los Angeles. The bang in question is a gunshot; shooting a victim is often part of the initiation process.

gangbusters n pl, adj American

(something) superlative, excellent, impressive. A schoolchildren’s word which is a shortening of the jocular adult phrase ‘like gangbusters’, meaning very strongly, energetically or dynamically. The terms originate in the violently heroic actions of the anti-mob law enforcers (nicknamed gangbusters) of yellow journalism and crime fiction.

Hey you know, that set they played was gangbusters!

gangie n Australian

a gang bang or group-grope

gangsta n, adj American

(someone) belonging to black streetgang culture. The term, which denoted an admirable gang member, became generalised as an all-purpose categorisation in street-gang, hip hop and rap culture.

ganja n

marihuana. This is one of the many names for cannabis which has been heard in various milieus over the last fifty years or so. At present the term is popular in the Caribbean and among blacks and young white smokers in Britain. It comes originally from the Sanskrit gañja, via Hindi.

gank vb American

to steal or borrow without permission. An expression used on campus in the USA since around 2000. It may be a blend of ‘grab’ and ‘yank’.

I can’t believe she ganked your boyfriend.

Stop ganking my clothes.

gannet n British

a person who eats greedily, someone who bolts their food. Gannet is a 1970s and 1980s term derived, possibly via comics’ adaptation of navy argot, from the voracious habits of the fish-gorging seabird.

‘If you’ve got any sense you’ll keep the best stuff away from those gannets.’

(Recorded, teacher, York, 1981)

garbo n Australian

a garbage man, dustman. The word’s first use seems to have coincided with the height of the fame of the Swedish movie actress, Greta Garbo.

garbonzas n pl American

female breasts. One of many invented terms used lightheartedly by males (gazungas is another version). This may conceivably be influenced by the Spanish garbanzos: chickpeas.

gargle n Irish and British

(an) alcoholic drink. A joke on the lines of lotion and tincture which is at least 100 years old and is still commonly heard in Dublin, for instance.

‘Fancy a gargle, John?’

(Posy Simmonds cartoon, Guardian, 1981)

‘I’ll have some gargle, if you don’t mind, sir.’

(Recorded, Irish pub habitué, London, 1987)

See also Arthur Scargill

garms n pl

clothes. The clipped form of ‘garments’ was an important part of the hip hop and rap subculture’s lexicon from the 1980s, later crossing the Atlantic and eventually heard among UK adolescents. Older synonyms were rags, threads and vines.

‘Grab your flash garms!’

(Touch magazine, September 1993)

Gary Glitter n British

the anus. The vulgarism uses the name of the disgraced 1970s rock star as rhyming slang for shitter. (Previously the name of the cowboy star of the 1950s, Tex Ritter, had been employed.)

‘What male priests can do – give choirboys one up the Gary Glitter.’

(Comedienne Jo Brand, Christmas 1994)

gas n

1. something which is exhilarating, stimulating or highly enjoyable. In the phrases ‘it’s a gas’ and ‘what a gas!’, this word became one of the clichés of the hippy vocabulary. It probably originated in American black street slang of the late 1950s, inspired by the exhilarating effects of nitrous oxide (laughing gas), although the same word, with the same meaning and origin, already existed in Irish speech.

‘But it’s all right now, in fact it’s a gas…I’m jumping Jack Flash, it’s a gas, gas, gas.’

(‘Jumping Jack Flash’, Rolling Stones, 1968)

2. an idle conversation, a period of empty chatter

gas guzzler n

an uneconomical car. A term originally applied to American non-compact cars of the 1970s.

gash1 adj British

1.spare, available. This now almost obsolete use of the word was common in the armed services in the 1950s and probably has the same origins as the following senses.

2.attractive, impressive. The origin of this sub-sense of gash is obscure, but may be inspired by the attractiveness of ‘spare’ or available women. It was heard

among working-class Londoners until the late 1960s.

3. useless, worn out, broken. In this sense gash is still heard, especially in London, among workmen, technicians, musicians, etc. and in the armed forces.

‘There’s nothing in there but a pile of gash tapes.’

(Recorded, video technician, London, 1988)

The various meanings of the term probably all derive from a 19th-century adoption of the French word gâcher (to waste or spoil) or gâchis (mess) for rubbish on board ship. The meaning was ironically extended to cover extra portions, then anything spare. The original French is preserved in the third sense above.

gash2 n

a.a woman or girl. A male term of sexual origin but not necessarily used with sexual connotations. The term existed in the argot of the streets in the 1950s, both in the USA and in working-class Britain (where it usually occurred in the phrase ‘a bit of gash’). It was revived in the 1980s by aficionados of rap music and hip hop as a fashionable synonym for girlfriend. The origin of the word lies in b, which is unknown to many users.

b.a woman’s genitals, or women as sex objects. The fearful or dismissive male image of a woman’s external sex organs as a wound is an ancient one. Gash in this sense was a widespread vulgar euphemism in the 19th century.

gasper n

1.a cigarette. An ironic witticism from the days before the anti-smoking lobby, when shortness of breath was still a possible subject for levity. (It is probably unconnected with the more recent British cliché ‘gasping for a fag’.) The word was at its most popular in the 1950s in the language of spivs, cads, etc., but is not yet obsolete.

2.British a devotee of self-asphyxiation as a sexual stimulus. The term, from the lexicon of prostitution, received publicity at the time of the death in 1994 of the Tory MP Stephen Milligan while indulging in this practice (known in slang as scarfing).

gassed adj

drunk. A popular word among middleclass, middle-aged drinkers in the USA from the mid-1960s, gassed was also a synonym for tipsy in Britain after World

War I (probably from ‘laughing-’ rather than ‘mustard-gas’).

gasser n

1.something which is highly amusing or impressive. This sense of the word is inspired by the properties of laughing-gas and is used to denote, e.g., a good joke. This is an Americanism which is also heard in Britain and may have been coined there independently. It was first used before World War II, and is now heard particularly among teenagers.

2.American a depressing experience, person or situation. The word is rare in this sense, in which the image evoked is presumably of a poisonous, asphyxiating or anaesthetic gas.

gat n

a pistol, revolver. A piece of obsolete underworld slang from the early 1900s derived from ‘Gatling’ gun (an early revolving-barrel machine-gun). The word is occasionally resurrected by writers invoking the atmosphere of the gangster era, and was the trademark name of a cheap British air pistol of the 1950s.

gata n South African

a police officer. Recorded as an item of Sowetan slang in the Cape Sunday Times, 29 January 1995.

gate fever n British

terror at the prospect of release from prison. An item from inmates’ jargon describing a familiar condition.

gatted, gattered adj

drunk, possibly from the notion of ‘gunned down’ from gat, a gun. An item of student slang in use in London and elsewhere since around 2000.

gay adj

1. homosexual. In late-medieval English gay often had the sense of showy or affected as well as happy and lighthearted. In British slang of the 18th and 19th centuries it was a euphemism for sexually available or living an immoral life, and was invariably applied to women, usually prostitutes. In the early 20th century it was adopted as a code word by the British and American homosexual community, an innocent-sound- ing term which they could use of themselves and each other. The word had the secondary purpose of reinforcing homosexuals’ positive perception of their sexual identity as opposed to the derisive or disapproving terminology of the heter-

osexual world. Gay was widely used in the theatrical milieu by the mid-1960s and, when homosexuals began to assert themselves openly in the later 1960s, it supplanted all alternatives to become the standard non-discriminatory designation. 2. bad, in poor taste, socially inept or unsophisticated. This non-homophobic use of the term has been in vogue among teenagers in the USA since the 1980s and in the UK since 2000. It was given prominence by its use in 2006 by British radio DJ Chris Moyles.

That show was, like, so gay. Don’t be gay!

gaydar n

the (supposed) ability to detect homosexuality in others. The blend of gay and ‘radar’ suggests an instinctive appreciation of invisible qualities.

gaylord n British

an effete or homosexual male. A schoolchildren’s term of the late 1980s. The word, which is an embellishment of gay, may derive from Jamaican argot.

gazillion n American

a very large number or quantity. An alternative form for zillion, squillion and bazillion.

gazing n British

relaxing. A fashionable term among adolescents from the later 1990s, the word may be related to ‘shoe-gazing’, a phrase earlier used to describe the posturing of indie musicians who would slouch almost motionless while performing staring down at the stage.

gazump vb British

to cheat (in a house purchase) by raising the price at the last moment, after agreement has been reached but before contracts have been formalised. An old expression from the language of swindlers, revived to denote a practice which became widespread during and after the dramatic rise in property prices in 1972. The word formerly existed in several forms (gazumph, gazoomph, gazumf, etc.) and is from Yiddish.

gazumped adj British

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

gazunda, gazunder, gazunta, gozunder n a chamber pot. A perennial humorous euphemism heard in Britain and Australia, based on the fact that the un-

nameable article in question ‘goes under’ the bed. By extension these words are sometimes used to refer to other un-named gadgets, containers, implements or contraptions.

gazungas n pl

female breasts. A male term.

gear1 adj British

excellent, absolutely right, first rate. An ephemeral vogue word that spread with the popularity of the Beatles and the ‘Mersey sound’ from Liverpool in 1963 to be picked up by the media (a fact which incidentally marked its demise as a fashionable term). It is related to ‘the gear’, meaning the ‘real thing’ or top quality merchandise.

gear2 n

1.clothes, accessories. Now a widely used colloquialism, gear was slang, in the sense of being a vogue word in restricted usage, in the early 1960s, when its use paralleled the new interest in fashion among mods.

2.illicit drug(s). Since the early 1960s gear has been used by drug abusers, prisoners, etc. to denote, in particular, cannabis or heroin. In this sense the word is a typical part of the drug user’s quasi-military or workmanlike vocabulary (works, equipment and artillery are other examples).

Got any gear, man?

3a. top quality merchandise, the ‘real thing’

3b. stolen goods. A specific usage of the standard colloquial sense of the word.

Stash the gear in the garage.

gee n American a version of G

geeb n American

an unfortunate, inept and/or unattractive individual. It is probably a blend of geek and dweeb.

gee-gee n British

a horse. A nursery term adopted by adults to refer ruefully or facetiously to racehorses. In British films of the 1950s the word was characteristic of spivs and cads.

I lost thirty quid on the gee-gees. geek1 n

1. American a freak, an insane or disgusting person. This old word originated with fairground folk to describe someone willing to abase themselves or perform disgusting acts, such as biting the heads

off live chickens, or a grotesque person exhibited for money. The word is now firmly established in teenage and schoolchildren’s slang, helped by the preponderance of geeks in the horror films of the late 1970s and 1980s. It may be derived from German, Dutch or Yiddish words for ‘to peep’, or from Dutch and English dialect words for a fool.

‘I’m gonna marry the geek tycoon.’

(Cheers, US TV series, 1988)

2. a menstrual period. This use of the word, indicating distaste and/or fascination and used by both sexes, originated in the USA. ‘On the geek’ (having one’s period), ‘geek pains’ (period pains).

geek2, geek out vb American

a.to behave eccentrically, like a geek

b.to search desperately for drug remnants, particularly crack. This sense is a specialisation of the first, used by drug users since the late 1980s to describe the actions of a crack addict in extremis.

‘You just want more and more. That’s when you go geeking – looking for specks on the floor, just to get some more.’

(Drug-user, Guardian, 5 September 1989)

geek collector n

a panty liner or tampon

geek rock n American

another name for crack. Rock is a generic term for narcotics in (lumpy) powder or granule form; geek is a crazy person.

geet n British

a contemptible and/or tedious person

‘Those geets at the ACF [Army Cadet Force] deserved what happened. If they want to join the army, why don’t they go and do it.’

(Delinquent youth quoted in the Daily Telegraph magazine, 15th June 1996)

geeze bag n American

an old fart, old geezer. A term of mild abuse or derision, mainly in adolescent use in the 1990s.

geezer1 n

a man. A common word in Britain, where slang users often assume that it derives from a bathroom geyser (water heater), by analogy with boiler. In fact it probably originates in ‘guiser’ or ‘gizer’, a word for a masquerader or mummer who wears a (dis)guise. In the 19th century geezer could be applied to women. The word is also used in the USA, where it is regarded as rather colourful.