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Dictionary of American Slang and Colloquial Expressions PDF

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’ NTC s Dictionary of American Slang and Colloquial Expressions third edition Richard A. Spears, Ph.D. abc McGraw-Hill Copyright © 2000 by The McGraw-Hill Companies. All rights reserved. Manufactured in the United States of America. Except as permitted under the United States Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced or distributed in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher. 0-07-139204-1 The material in this eBook also appears in the print version of this title: 0-8442-0461-7. All trademarks are trademarks of their respective owners. Rather than put a trademark symbol after every occurrence of a trademarked name, we use names in an editorial fashion only, and to the benefit of the trademark owner, with no intention of infringement of the trademark. Where such designations appear in this book, they have been printed with initial caps. McGraw-Hill eBooks are available at special quantity discounts to use as premiums and sales pro- motions, or for use in corporate training programs. For more information, please contact George Hoare, Special Sales, at [email protected] or (212) 904-4069. TERMSOFUSE This is a copyrighted work and The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. (“McGraw-Hill”) and its licensors reserve all rights in and to the work. Use of this work is subject to these terms. Except as permitted under the Copyright Act of 1976 and the right to store and retrieve one copy of the work, you may not decompile, disassemble, reverse engineer, reproduce, modify, create derivative works based upon, transmit, distribute, disseminate, sell, publish or sublicense the work or any part of it without McGraw-Hill’s prior consent. You may use the work for your own noncommercial and personal use; any other use of the work is strictly prohibited. Your right to use the work may be terminated if you fail to comply with these terms. THE WORK IS PROVIDED “AS IS”. McGRAW-HILLAND ITS LICENSORS MAKE NO GUAR- ANTEES OR WARRANTIES AS TO THE ACCURACY, ADEQUACYOR COMPLETENESS OF OR RESULTS TO BE OBTAINED FROM USING THE WORK, INCLUDING ANYINFORMA- TION THATCAN BE ACCESSED THROUGH THE WORK VIAHYPERLINK OR OTHERWISE, AND EXPRESSLYDISCLAIM ANYWARRANTY, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOTLIMITED TO IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITYOR FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. McGraw-Hill and its licensors do not warrant or guarantee that the func- tions contained in the work will meet your requirements or that its operation will be uninterrupted or error free. Neither McGraw-Hill nor its licensors shall be liable to you or anyone else for any inac- curacy, error or omission, regardless of cause, in the work or for any damages resulting therefrom. McGraw-Hill has no responsibility for the content of any information accessed through the work. Under no circumstances shall McGraw-Hill and/or its licensors be liable for any indirect, incidental, special, punitive, consequential or similar damages that result from the use of or inability to use the work, even if any of them has been advised of the possibility of such damages. This limitation of lia- bility shall apply to any claim or cause whatsoever whether such claim or cause arises in contract, tort or otherwise. DOI: 10.1036/0071392041 Contents About This Dictionary v Terms and Symbols xi Pronunciation Guide xiv Dictionary 1 Phrase-Finder Index 485 McGraw-Hill's Terms of Use This page intentionally left blank. About This Dictionary The third edition of this dictionary contains more than 800 new expres- sions. These comprise the expressions that have appeared in the last few years—including many new expressions used in everyday talk on the streets and the college campus. The “Phrase-Finder Index” has been completely revised to make finding the location of new phrasal entries in the dictionary easier. What do we expect of slang in the year 2000 and beyond? Much of the same: sex, scatology, rudeness, and clever wordplay. This dictionary is a collection of slang and colloquial expressions in frequent use in the United States in the twentieth century. It con- tains expressions that are familiar to many Americans and other expres- sions that are used primarily within small groups of people. The entries represent the language of the underworld, the nursery, the college cam- pus, California beaches, urban back streets, and Wall Street. We hear from prisoners, surfers, junkies, Valley Girls, blacks, weight lifters, and just plain folks. Fad words, metaphors, wordplay, and various figures of speech make up the body of the dictionary. There is no standard test that will decide what is slang or collo- quial and what is not. Expressions that are identified as slang are often some type of entertaining wordplay, and they are almost always an alter- native way of saying something. Colloquial expressions are usually spo- ken and are often thought of as being direct, earthy, or quaint. Slang and colloquial expressions come in different forms: single words, com- pound words, simple phrases, idioms, and complete sentences. Slang is rarely the first choice of careful writers or speakers or anyone attempt- ing to use language for formal, persuasive, or business purposes. None- theless, expressions that can be called slang or colloquial make up a major part of American communication in movies, television, radio, newspapers, magazines, and informal conversation. Localized fad words are usually thought to have a short life, but other kinds of slang expressions may spread and last for a long time. The farther they spread, the longer they will last. If they last long v NTC’s Dictionary of American Slang and Colloquial Expressions enough, they may become so well known that they become standard English unavoidably. Most such slangy expressions simply join an enor- mous pool of similar expressions, and they are used until displaced by newer terms. At some point the old ones are put on hold until they are forgotten by everyone or revived by a new generation. Many expres- sions that hang around for decades will pop up again and again in nov- els and movies or in sporadic use in the speech of older generations. For more than two hundred years, the jargon of criminals has been a major source of everyday slang words. Alcohol, drugs, and crime have been firmly fixed in the public consciousness since the time of prohi- bition in the United States. The entertainment value of crime and law enforcement has brought a constant stream of criminal slang into nov- els, movies, and radio and television shows over the last half century. This dictionary contains many of the expressions from these areas that have made public appearances through the years. Even more remain hidden behind closed doors. Matters of social taboo have also provided many slang expressions. Although strictly speaking taboo words are not slang, many taboo expressions have been included in this edition. Young people are responsible for a high proportion of the fad expressions and collegiate wordplay found here. Clever or insulting nicknames for types of people are the major linguistic product of this subgroup. Whereas many of the entries are humorous or clever, others sim- ply represent the everyday turns of phrase common to informal speech in the United States. Where possible, the examples are given in natural slangy language, even if it is ungrammatical in formal writing. The examples are to be taken as representative of slang usage, not of stan- dard, formal English usage. Most slang words that deal with personal type, race, sex, ethnic origins, and so forth, are quite rude—often hateful—and considered by some people taboo. No apology is made for those that are included. They are rude or they wouldn’t be considered slang or colloquial. On the other hand, no attempt is made to include all of them, and many of the worst have been omitted. Slang is slang and anyone looking for an issue will find many of them in nonstandard vocabulary. It is worth- while to include rude words and identify them as such for the sake of vi About This Dictionary innocents who encounter these words on television, in the theater, in novels, in newspapers, in the workplace, in shops, and on the street. The grammar and syntax of each expression are best determined from the examples that accompany each entry. The notion of “part of speech” is relevant to the function of individual words. The words within the clauses and phrases that are entries in the dictionary can be given part-of-speech labels, but it is the grammar and syntax of the entire phrase that is important. Each expression in the dictionary is assigned a “function code” that serves to indicate the functional potential of the entry expression. These codes represent function inde- pendently from form. That is to say, expressions that function the same get the same label. For instance, nouns, noun compounds, noun phrases, and noun clauses are all marked n. for “nominal.” The codes are described in the following section, “Guide to the Use of the Dictionary.” Unlike standard English, few slang or colloquial expressions are standardized in spelling or punctuation. Standard dictionaries differ considerably as to whether a standard English compound is printed as one word, two words, or a hyphenated word. The spelling of slang entries is even more variable. This dictionary usually represents slang expressions in the form in which they were found in print, except for rhyming compounds, e.g., fat-cat or funny-money, which are always hyphenated in this book. The entries come from many sources. Many have been collected and submitted by college students and other individuals. Much of the latest material has come directly from television and a lesser amount from contemporary radio. The Internet has become the newest major source of slang for the collector and reader. Standard reference works have been used to verify the meanings and spellings of older material. A surprising amount of old material has been verified in reruns of old movies. Many attestations have come from contemporary journalism, especially human interest and Sunday supplement material. A few of the examples are verbatim quotes of the original. Some are concocted, and many more have been edited to exemplify an expression’s mean- ing more concisely than the original quote. The examples exist to illus- vii NTC’s Dictionary of American Slang and Colloquial Expressions trate meaning, not to prove the earliest date of print or broadcast dissemination. Guide to the Use of the Dictionary 1. Entries are alphabetized according to an absolute alphabetical order that ignores all punctuation. The hyphen is treated the same as a space. Entries beginning with numerals precede the alphabetic entries. 2. The first step in finding an expression is to try looking it up in the body of the dictionary. Entries that consist of two or more words are entered in their normal order, such as chill someone’s action. Phrases are never inverted or reordered like action, chill someone’s or track, off the. 3. If you do not find the expression you want or if you cannot decide on the exact form of the expression, look up any major word in the expression in the “Phrase-Finder Index,” which begins on page 485. There you will find all the multiword expressions that contain the word you have looked up. Pick out the expression you want, and look it up in the body of the dictionary. 4. Entry expressions appear in boldface type. When words or expres- sions that are not entries in this dictionary are cited, they appear in italics. Function codes and examples appear in italics. 5. A main entry may have one or more alternative forms. The alter- natives are printed in boldface type and are preceded by “and.” 6. Definitions are in roman type. Alternative or closely related defin- itions are separated by semicolons. 7. Some definitions contain restrictive comments in parentheses that help to make the definition clearer. These comments limit the con- text in which the expression can be used. 8. Comments in parentheses after a definition give additional infor- mation about the expression, including any cautions, comments on origins, or indications of cross-referencing. Each numbered sense can have its own comments. 9. Every expression is followed by a function code that indicates the grammatical or syntactic function of the expression. These codes are viii About This Dictionary 00. in italics. The function codes provide a way of determining the grammatical or syntactic function of a particular expression as it occurs in its examples. Expressions functioning as nominals (nouns, noun phrases, etc.) are marked n. Expressions serving to modify, restrict, or qualify (adjectives, adjective phrases, adverbs, adverb phrases, etc.) are marked mod.Expressions that are transitive verbs or transitive verb phrases (a transitive verb, its object(s), modi- fier(s), and auxiliaries) are marked tv. Expressions that are intran- sitive verbs or intransitive verb phrases (an intransitive verb, its auxiliaries, and modifiers) are marked in. Other abbreviations are explained in the section titled “Terms and Symbols.” 10. Some expressions that are modifiers (marked mod.) can occur only before or after the things they modify. Other modifiers can occur both before and after the things they modify. The distribution of modifiers is illustrated in the examples. 11. Many expressions have more than one major sense or meaning. These meanings are numbered with boldface numerals. 12. Sometimes a numbered sense will have an alternative form that does not apply to the other senses. In such cases the “and” plus the alternative forms follow the numeral. 13. Entries that contain unfamiliar words and entries whose spelling is misleading have an indication of pronunciation in International Phonetic Alphabet symbols. See the symbols and their values in the “Pronunciation Guide.” 14. In some entries, comments direct the user to other entries for additional information through the use of the terms “Go to” or “See also.” The expressions mentioned are in special type. 15. If an entry has a grammatical structure that requires a nominal to serve as a subject or object, the nominal is represented by some- one for human nominals or something for nonhuman nominals. When both human and nonhuman nominals are possible, some- one or something is used. ix

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