Dictionary of Contemporary Slang (131 page)

God, it doesn't half ronk in here.

roof-rack
n British

a Pakistani. A partially rhyming phrase in use among working class adults since 2000.
Jim Raki
is a contemporary synonym.

rookie
n

a learner, neophyte or newcomer, particularly to a job or a sports team. The term originated in Britain in the armed forces of the late 19th century, but more recently rookie has been in more widespread use in the USA. The word is said to be a deformation of ‘recruit', perhaps influenced by the noisy chattering of rooks.

‘Are you crazy? You're just a rookie. I've been on night patrol for years.'
(
Night Patrol
, US film, 1984)

rooms
n pl American

mushrooms. This abbreviation refers to innocuous mushrooms as eaten on pizzas rather than
magic mushrooms
, which are known as
shrooms
.

rooster
n

a male homosexual, particularly a predatory prison inmate who dominates or victimises younger fellow prisoners. In
gay
and prison jargon, roosters or
chicken-hawks
prey upon
chickens
. Rooster is American for ‘cock' in the sense of a male chicken.

root
¹
vb

to have sex (with). A vulgar euphemism which occurs in working-class English speech and which is common in Australia. It derives from the archaic use of root to mean the penis and from ‘root/rootle around' in the sense of searching in crevices. The term, first recorded in the 19th century but probably older, is hardly ever used in a homosexual context or by women.

root
²
n

1a.
an act of sexual intercourse

1b.
a sexual partner or available ‘sex object'

The noun senses postdate the verb and are widespread in British and Australian usage.

2.
American
a cigarette or
joint
. A rare term which may originate in ‘cheroot'.

3.
British
the penis, in playground parlance

rooted
adj Australian

a.
ruined, destroyed, broken. Used in the same way as the more offensive
fucked
and
buggered
, this expression derives from the verb to
root
.

Christ, now the engine's rooted!

b.
exhausted

roots!
exclamation

goodbye. In use among UK adolescents since 2000.

rope
n

1a.
American
a cigar

1b.
tobacco

1c.
marihuana

The connection and resemblance between tobacco, hemp and rope has given rise to these usages.

2.
American
a decorative metal chain, especially a heavy golden chain as worn by males. This item of hip hop regalia dates from the early 1980s. A synonym is
cable
.

ropeable
adj Australian
furious or berserk. A slang interpretation of the notion contained in the colloquial expression ‘fit to be tied'.

Well when we broke the news to her – I tell you, she was ropeable.

rort
¹
n Australian

1.
a swindle, a small-time confidence trick. This term of uncertain origin, until recently used mainly by people over 40 years of age, is undergoing something of a revival in media circles.

2.
a noisy, riotous and wild party or celebration. In this sense the noun is probably a back-formation from the adjective
rorty
.
See also
rorter

rort
²
vb Australian
to cheat, manipulate or bamboozle

‘The Federal Government is to crack down on abuse of English language courses to rort the migrant selection system following examination of an inter-departmental submission to Cabinet.'
(
LAW
[
London Australasian Weekly
] magazine, 4 September 1989)

rorter
n

1.
Australian
a swindler, a small-time confidence trickster or cheat. The origin of the Australian terms based on the word
rort
is unclear; one suggestion is that they are in fact based on ‘wrought(er)', an archaic British term for trick(ster).

2.
British
a market trader who shouts his or her wares. This category, like the
lurker
and the
pitcher
, was defined in a Channel 4 TV documentary, 28 July 1994.

rory
adj

flat broke. The word is from the rhyming slang for ‘(on) the floor': ‘Rory O'Moore'. ‘On the floor' is itself rhyming slang for
poor
. The Rory O'Moore in question is probably a fictional Scots/Irish personification from the 19th century.

rosie, Rosie Lee
n British tea
.

A genuine example of cockney rhyming slang which has been adopted for light-hearted use by non-cockneys. The term seems to have originated at the turn of the 20th century, from a common proper name, and was reinforced by the later fame of the American striptease artist Gypsy Rose Lee.

A nice cup of rosie should do the trick.

rot-gut
adj
,
n

low quality alcoholic drink. A fourhundred-year-old term which was applied formerly to weak beer, but which more recently has usually denoted inferior spirits or wine.

rotten
adj

very drunk. A euphemism in British and Australian usage.

rough
adj British

1.
unpleasant, distasteful, disgusting. The standard term became an allpurpose pejorative in working-class speech and then a vogue word among adolescents and then younger schoolchildren from the mid-1990s.

That girlfriend of his is well rough if you ask me.

2.
excellent. The process whereby negative becomes positive operated particularly rapidly in the case of rough, which by the late 1990s was being used appreciatively.

‘…“wicked” (for good) has vanished, replaced by the new term of high praise, “rough”, invariably accompanied by a jerky wave of the right hand at shoulder level.'
(
Guardian
, 19 October 1996)

rough end of the pineapple, the
n Australian

a disadvantageous position, the worst of a deal. A colourful alternative to such phrases as ‘the sharp end of the stick' or ‘the shitty end of the stick'.

roughneck, ruff-neck
n British

a youth, especially a tough, admirable male. A 1990s synonym for
rude boy
or
bad-boy
first used by black gang members before being adopted by other schoolchildren and teenagers. Like those terms, it is typical of the tendency by transgressive subcultures to adopt, for the purpose of irony and bravado, the pejorative language of their critics (as in
bad
,
wicked
, etc.).

rough trade
n British

a.
a homosexual lover (usually a casual pick-up) considered to be lower class, uncouth and/or violent. From the homosexual underground slang of the 1950s, used for instance by male prostitutes about their customers. The phrase was later used to characterise a stereotypical homosexual icon, i.e. the muscular, aggressively masculine ‘working man'.
b.
an uncouth or violent client of a heterosexual prostitute

‘Behind the throat-level peep-holes eyes took in the body swathed in Ralph Lauren finery trailing after her piece of rough trade.'
(
Platinum Logic
, Tony Parsons, 1981)

roundeye
n American

the anus, especially as a focus of sexual attention

roundhead
n British

(a male with) a circumcised penis. A schoolboy counterpart to
cavalier
.

round the houses
adv British

a.
on a (long and) futile mission

b.
all over the body. The phrase is prostitutes' and pornographers' code for all-over sexual stimulation.

round the twist
adj
,
adv British

crazy, deranged. A racier version of the colloquial ‘round the bend', this phrase moved from limited working-class usage to general currency in the 1960s.

roust
vb American

to disturb, harass and/or arrest. The word is usually used to describe the actions of police against suspects. Roust was first used by criminals or street-frequenters in the early 20th century, later by the law-enforcers themselves; it is from the noun ‘rouster', a version of ‘roustabout', employing a strong form of ‘rouse'.

rozzer
n British

a police officer. This word originated in the 19th century and is still in limited use. The standard derivations offered by reference sources (Romany
roozlo
, meaning strong, or ‘roosher', a supposed corruption of ‘rusher') are not entirely convincing.

rub-a-dub, rubbidy
n

a public house. These rhyming-slang phrases (with
pub
) are heard in both Britain and Australia. Rub-a-dub(-dub) has also been used in Britain, especially in underworld circles, as rhyming slang for
club
.

rubber, rubber johnny
n

a condom. The first version is international English, the second British.
Johnnie
,
johnny
and ‘johnnie bag' are synonyms.

rubbish
vb

to deride, condemn, tease. Originally Australian, the expression has established itself in British English since the early 1970s.

rubblehead
n American

an idiot. A term, like
rock-head
, which evokes the notion of having rocks rather than brains in one's head. This version was popular among teenagers and college students in the late 1980s.

rube
n American

a yokel or rustic simpleton. A short form of the male Christian name Reuben.

rub off
vb

(of a female) to masturbate

rub out
vb

to kill, murder. A euphemism from the language of the American underworld of the 1920s and 1930s, enthusiastically adopted by crime novelists. In modern street parlance the phrase is often shortened to ‘rub'.

Ruby (Murray)
n British

a
curry
. This item of rhyming slang comes from the name of an Irish-born popular singer of the 1950s. The word or phrase is perpetuated by some speakers too young to be familiar with its inspiration.

‘I'm really fond of 'going for a ruby' (Ruby Murray, curry) – mainly because nobody has heard of Irish singer Ruby Murray since her 1950s heyday, yet her name is kept alive by ghastly Hoxton trendies who'd probably die of shame if caught listening to her records.'
(Posting on
Guardian
website, 22 February 2013)

ruck
n British

an undisciplined brawl, a gang fight. A characteristic London working-class use of a mild-sounding term (from ‘ruckus') to denote something often involving extreme violence. (
Bother
and
aggro
are examples of the same tendency.) The word is an important element in the football hooligan and
skinhead
vocabulary.

‘He [a hooligan] brags about his “rucks” with Millwall's notorious F troop.'
(
News of the World
, 17 July 1988)

rucking, ruck-up
n British

a brawl, row or dressing-down. These are variant forms of
ruck
.

ruddy
adj British

an inoffensive intensifying adjective, now dated but used extensively from the turn of the 20th century until the mid-1960s as a milder euphemism for
bloody

rude
adj

1.
excellent. In this sense the term, probably adapted from or imitating black speech, was used by Californian adolescents in the mid-1990s, often in the form ‘totally rude'.

2.
shockingly bad, horrible. In this generalised sense a vogue term among younger British teenagers since 2000. It probably represents an ironic borrowing of an older generation's term of prissy disapproval.

3.
belonging to someone who thinks they're hard

a rude car
rude clothes

rude bits
n pl British

the breasts and/or genitals. A coy quasi-nursery term in middle-class use.

rude boy, rudie
n

a.
Jamaican
a gangster, gang member

‘Interestingly, there is a theory that the word “reggae” was originally derived from its Kingston rude boy exponents being derided as “ragamuffin men”.'
(
Independent
, 1 September 1989)

b.
British
a would-be tough and/or fashionable youth