Dictionary of Contemporary Slang
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T n
marihuana. An alternative form of tea.
tab n
1. a tablet, specifically a tablet or dose of the drug LSD, from the jargon of users in the late 1960s and 1970s
‘Well, the one that stopped me from doing acid forever was when I dropped seven tabs. I completely lost my mind and went to Muppetland – the whole trip lasted for about six months.’
(Zodiac Mindwarp, I-D magazine, November 1987)
2. British a cigarette. The word, probably from ‘tab-end’, appeared in northern British usage before World War II but, since its use in Viz comic from the 1980s, has been used in other regions, mainly by adolescents.
‘He pulls out the tab … he’s trying to get the packet into his top pocket …’
(Jack Docherty’s talk show, Channel 4 TV, March 1997)
tabby n
a female, especially an attractive and/or lively girl
table-ender n
a sexual act, especially when impromptu and/or in a public place, but not necessarily on, against or under a table
tache, tash n British a moustache
tack n
1.squalor, shabbiness, seediness, bad taste. A back-formation from the earlier Americanism, tacky. ‘Tackiness’ is an alternative noun form. (Very often ‘tackiness’ refers to the quality, ‘tack’ to the evidence thereof.)
2.British cannabis. A term used by adolescents, particularly in the northeast of England, during the 1990s. It may be a
shortening of ‘tackle’ as used to mean equipment or heroin.
tack attack n British
a fit or bout of bad taste. A witticism based on tack and tacky heard among fashionable ‘young professionals’ and media circles in London in 1988 and 1989. (Rack attack and snack attack are other rhyming phrases.)
Judging by the décor of his flat, I’d say he’d had a tack attack.
tacker n British
a child. A northern English dialect word of obscure origin but possibly related to ‘thumb(tack)’. It is occasionally heard in other parts of Britain.
tackies n pl Irish sports shoes, trainers
tackle n British
1.a short form of the humorous euphemism wedding tackle (the male genitals). Tackle alone was used in this sense from the 18th century, if not earlier.
2.heroin. An item of prison slang.
tacky adj
shabby, seedy, inferior, vulgar. An American term which had existed in southern speech in the USA since the late 19th century, before being understood (in the early 1970s) and partially adopted (in the late 1970s) in Britain. The origin is not in ‘tacky’, meaning sticky or viscous, but in a dialect word for an inferior horse, hence a shabby yokel. ‘Tack-e-e-e’ is the last word and final verdict in the main text of Kenneth Anger’s Hollywood Babylon (1975), an exposé of show-business scandal.
taco-bender n American
a Mexican or other person of Hispanic origin. A derogatory term coined on the lines of spaghetti-bender or bagel-bender. (A taco is a Mexican fried bread pancake.)
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take berties |
tacos n pl American See toss one’s cookies/tacos
tad n, adj, adv
a small or slight amount, a little, slightly. An American expression now fairly widespread in British use, especially in phrases such as ‘a tad hungry’. In American English tad has been used to mean a small boy since the late 19th century. It is probably from earlier British dialect, in which it is related to ‘toad’ or ‘tadpole’.
tadger n British
the penis. A vulgarism of unknown origin (probably from a lost dialect verb) used for many years in the north of England and revived by students, alternative comedians, etc. in the 1980s. Todger is an alternative modern version.
tag
1. vb, n (to spray) a graffiti artist’s personalised signature or motif. The word has been a colloquialism for a person’s name for many years. It was adopted by teenage graffiti artists in the 1970s in the USA, whence it spread with the craze.
‘If you go to one of the big guys of hip hop art and they have not heard of your tag, you are nothing. But if they’ve seen it and like it then you are bad.’
(15-year-old graffiti artist, Evening Standard, 11 November 1987)
2. vb
2a. American to hit or knock out
2b. American to kill, especially by shooting. In the latter sense the term was used in the cult US 1993 film Reservoir Dogs.
tagger n
a graffiti artist. From the use of tag to mean one’s name or pictorial signature.
tail n
a.a woman or women seen as (a) sexual object(s). The word usually occurs in phrases such as ‘a bit/piece of tail’, tail being a euphemism dating from the 14th century for the less polite arse or ass.
b.(particularly in Caribbean or gay usage) a man or men seen as (a) sexual object(s)
‘She spend all her time chasin’ tail!’
(Recorded, Trinidadian student, London, 1988)
tail-end n British
the penis. Confusingly, since the term usually denotes the backside, it may also, particularly in the northeast of England, refer to the male member.
tailpipe n American
the anus. A US teenagers’ term. This predictable use of the word (‘exhaustpipe’ in British English) is possibly influenced by the car driver’s experience of having another driver ‘up one’s tailpipe’, i.e. driving too close.
Taiwan n British
an upper second or 2.1 (‘two-one’) honours degree. A student nickname on the lines of Desmond, Pattie, Douglas, etc. coined in the mid-1980s. A made-in is a synonym from the same source.
take a bath vb
to suffer a financial loss or commercial setback. A piece of business jargon that has become fairly widespread. The image evoked seems to be of a drenching rather than just washing.
take a dive/tumble/fall vb
to deliberately lose a boxing match or other contest. Expressions in use since the inter-war years, originating in the USA.
take a dump vb See dump take a leak vb See leak
take a pill vb American
to relax, luxuriate. The phrase was popularised by the 1992 US film Wayne’s World.
take a pop (at) vb
to attack, hit, lash out at. A phrase popular in working-class London speech in the late 1980s.
‘Now you’re taking a pop at my business partners.’
(EastEnders, British TV soap opera, 1988)
take a powder vb
to leave (quickly), go away. A now dated expression originating in the USA in the 1920s. The powder in question refers to a laxative or stimulant medicine.
take a raincheck vb
to accept a postponement, put something off to a future date. An Americanism which entered international English in the mid-1970s. The raincheck in question was originally a ticket stub entitling the holder to entry to a ball game at some future date if the fixture is rained off.
take berties vb British
a. to behave in a presumptuous or intrusive way
take down |
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b.to take advantage (of someone)
You can stay but just don’t go taking berties.
The jocular phrase, used by university students from the later 1990s, is a shortening of the colloquial ‘take liberties’.
take down vb American
to kill or immobilise. A ‘tough-guy’ euphemism.
take it in the shorts vb American
to suffer a direct hit, literally or metaphorically. A phrase used typically in sports, business or military contexts.
take names vb American
to act resolutely and/or primitively, chastise. The image evoked is that of an authority figure noting the names of miscreants. The phrase is often placed after kick ass.
Listen, you’re going to have to go in there and kick ass and take names!
take one’s lumps vb American
to suffer misfortune or harsh treatment
take out vb
to kill or destroy. A military euphemism which came to public notice in the USA during the Vietnam War. The term was subsequently appropriated for use in the context of crime and law enforcement.
‘I thought, if I could get my hands around his throat… I’d just take him out right now.’
(Female contestant in US TV series The Apprentice, 2004)
‘You got a couple of options: piss off out of town, or take him out, mate.’
(Blackjack, Australian TV crime drama, 2004)
take the mick/mickey/michael vb British to mock, deride, poke fun at. These expressions are milder versions of take the piss. Unbeknownst to most users, they employ rhyming slang; Mickey is short for a mythical ‘Mickey Bliss’, providing the rhyme for piss. ‘Michael’ is a humorous variant. The phrases, like their more vulgar counterpart, have been in use since the 1940s.
take the piss (out of someone) vb British to mock, deride, poke fun at. This vulgarism has been in widespread use since the late 1940s. The original idea evoked by the expression was that of deflating someone, recalling the description of a self-important blusterer as all piss and wind.
take the shame vb British
to accept the blame (publicly and/or wholeheartedly) or face the criticism of one’s peers. A key phrase in the playground vocabulary of London teenagers since the later 1970s. The concept is from black speech; ‘shamed-up’ is another derivation from the same source.
talent1 n British
attractive potential sexual partners. A generic term first applied before World War II to women and men. Since the mid-1960s female speakers have also applied the word (sometimes ironically) to desirable males.
Let’s check out the local talent.
talent2 adj British
excellent. An adjectival use of the noun, heard among schoolchildren since the 1990s.
talk dicks vb
to speak in an elegant way, talk ‘posh’. Dicks may be an alteration of diction.
talking-brooch n British
a police-officer’s personal radio, also known as a squawker and batphone. An item of police slang recorded by the London Evening Standard magazine, February 1993.
talk on the big white telephone vb
to vomit in a toilet. This colourful expression probably originated among US college students, like the synonymous ‘kneel’/pray to the porcelain god.
talk turkey vb
to perform oral sex. A 1980s pun on the slang usage gobble and the well-known colloquial American expression meaning to discuss openly (it is also perhaps influenced in US usage by turkey-neck: the penis).
tall poppies n pl Australian
‘over-achievers’, persons of prominence. The expression originates in the 1930s when the Lang government threatened to enforce tax laws which would ‘cut off the heads of the tall poppies’.
tamale n American See hot tamale
tam rag n British
a sanitary towel or tampon. A variant of jam rag influenced by ‘tampon’ and the trademark ‘Tampax’.
T and A n American
tits and ass. The American equivalent of the British ‘B and T’, a phrase describing
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tard |
a visual or tactile experience of a naked woman or women. The abbreviation and the expression in full probably originated in the jargon of journalists and/or showmen.
tanglin’ n British
fighting, from black speech. Synonyms recorded since 2000 are mixin’, regulatin’, startin’.
tank1 n
1.American a firearm, handgun. A hyperbolic term occasionally used by criminals and law enforcers.
2.British a police car or van. The word is used in this way by ironic or self-drama- tising police officers.
tank2 vb British
a.to crush, overwhelm
‘They’d all tank Tyson.’
(Headline in the Sun, 28 February 1989)
b.to defeat, trounce
‘England are going to tank Monaco tomorrow!’
(TV sports trailer, February 1997)
c.to move forcefully and powerfully
‘Tanking up and down the motorway all holiday … but Christmas itself was very quiet … very pleasant…’
(Biff cartoon, Guardian, December 1987)
All senses of the word became popular in the later 1980s.
tanked, tanked-up adj
drunk. A common term since the turn of the 20th century; the shorter form is more recent. Tank up evokes the filling of a container or fuelling of a vehicle and parallels such expressions as loaded and canned.
Man, she was, like, totally tanked last night.
‘I’ll do the washing-up tomorrow if I don’t get too tanked-up tonight.’
(Biff cartoon, Guardian, 1986)
tap1, tap up vb
to borrow or seek to borrow from (someone). To tap meant to spend liberally in archaic slang; by the early 20th century it had acquired the second sense of to solicit, borrow or obtain. The origin of the term is in the tapping of liquid from a container, reinforced by tapping someone on the shoulder to gain their attention and the later slang sense of ‘hitting’ someone for a loan. Tap is in international English, while the full form tap up is in British usage.
tap2 adj American
physically attractive, handsome, usually of a male. An expression used on campus in the USA since around 2000. The same term was recorded in Nigeria in 2003.
That guy is just totally tap.
tap city n, adj American
(the condition of being) penniless, broke.
Ahumorous version of tapped-out.
It’s no good asking me. I’m in tap city. It’s tap city the rest of this month.
tap-dance n
a clever evasion, devious manoeuvre. The term, which is used all over the Eng- lish-speaking world, recalls a dancer either busking it or improvising in a difficult situation, or merely executing an elegant sequence of steps.
‘That was not an opinion – that was a tapdance worthy of Fred Astaire.’
(Hooperman, US TV series, 1987)
tap-dancer n
a person who can avoid danger by a combination of clever, if devious or dishonest actions and luck; someone able to talk themselves out of difficult situations
‘That man’s a born tap-dancer; he’s always out the back door five minutes before the front door’s kicked in.’
(Recorded, drug dealer, London, 1988)
tapped-out adj American
a. penniless, broke. A term used especially by gamblers and, more recently, by adolescents. It is inspired by the very old slang use of the word to tap, meaning both to spend and later to obtain money from another person.
Man, I’d like to help you but I’m all tapped-out.
‘Wall Street’s Trust Fund’s tapped-out.’
(Headline in Fortune magazine, 18 April 2005)
b. exhausted. From the idea of being ‘drained’.
tapped up adj British See get tapped up
tapper n British
an obnoxious or disreputable person. A vogue term recorded in junior schools from 1991. The origin is obscure but may relate to a sexual sense such as get tapped up.
tarbrush n See a touch of the tarbrush
tard n American
a fool, simpleton. A teenagers’ shortening of the popular term of contempt, retard.