Dictionary of Contemporary Slang (139 page)

shook
adj British

frightened, cowardly. Used in street-gang code and its imitations since around 2010.

shookhead
n British

a coward. The term was in use among South London schoolchildren in 2010.

shoomers
n pl British

patrons of clubs playing
acid house
music.
Shoom
was the name of one such club in London in 1988 when the cult was at its height (and before the
orbital raves
of 1989 became established). The word probably evokes the rush of euphoria experienced by users of the drug
ecstasy
.

shoot
vb

1.
also
shoot off
to ejaculate. The word has been used in this sense since the 19th century.

2.
also
shoot up
to inject. A drug user's term, widespread since the late 1950s.

3.
to leave hurriedly. A word used in Britain mainly by young people since the 1970s. It is probably a shortening of ‘shoot off'.

I've got to shoot, I'll see you later.

shoot!
exclamation American

an inoffensive euphemism for
shit
used as an exclamation since the 19th century

shooter
n British

a gun. Neither a colourful nor particularly imaginative piece of slang, but the only term with any real currency, as opposed to the inventions of crime fiction.

‘Standing over two corpses with a hot shooter in your hand.'
(
Twinkle, Twinkle Little Spy
, Len Deighton, 1976)

shooting gallery
n

a place where drug users gather to inject themselves. The word has been applied to open spaces, pubs and communal flats for instance. It is an addict's pun which the police have also adopted both in Britain and the USA.

‘Sam got his leg broken recently in some mysterious street-corner dispute – heading for the shooting gallery they call the Chateau Luzerne.'
(
Sunday Times
, 10 September 1989)

shoot one's bolt/load/wad
vb

to ejaculate. These terms for the male orgasm have been in use since the 19th century.

shoot one's cookies
vb American

an alternative form of
toss one's cookies/tacos

shoot the breeze/bull
vb

to chat inconsequentially

‘They were just standing around shooting the breeze when it all went off.'
(Recorded, US student, Palo Alto, October 2003)

shoot the puppy
vb American

(to dare) to do the unthinkable. An item of corporate slang, occasionally occurring in the variant form
shoot the dog
.

shoot the shit
vb American

to talk, gossip. A vulgarisation of
shoot the breeze/bull
.

shoot through
vb Australian

a.
to die. An expression probably first introduced to an English audience via the lyrics of Rolf Harris's hit record ‘Tie Me Kangaroo Down, Sport'.

b.
to leave, depart. The phrase has been in use in Australia since before World War II and is still heard.

shoot up
vb

to inject (a narcotic)

shootzie
adj British

fashionable, chic. This item of 1960s London
parlyaree
, recorded in the TV documentary
Out
in July 1992, is of uncertain origin. It may derive from
chutzpah
.

shop
vb British

to inform on (someone). The noun shop meant prison in 16th-century British underworld parlance. The verb form was
first used to mean imprison, then (since the first decades of the 19th century) to cause to be imprisoned. The word has become a well-known colloquialism since the 1960s; in school and prison slang it has largely been overtaken by the synonymous
grass
.

short-and-curlies, the
n pl British

the pubic hair(s). The expressions ‘got/grabbed/caught by the short-and-curlies', meaning to be rendered helpless or vulnerable, are common vulgarisms.

short arm
n

the penis. A euphemism heard especially in the armed services; short arm is an archaic variation of ‘small arm' in the sense of a handgun. ‘Arm' also reflects the common notion of the penis as a limb. ‘Short-arm inspection' was the medical examination for symptoms of venereal disease.

shortarse
n

a small person. A contemptuous term heard particularly in London working-class speech and in Australia since the early years of the 20th century.

short-eyes
n American

an underworld and prisoners' term for a child molester; the equivalent of the British
nonce
. The exact significance of the words is unclear; the phrase may be related to ‘shut-eyes', an archaic term for a sex offender.

short hairs
n pl

the pubic hair(s). A euphemism in use since the 19th century. It is most often heard figuratively in phrases such as ‘they've got us by the short hairs' (i.e. at their mercy, rendered helpless).

shortie, shorty
n

a girlfriend. The term, from US usage, is typically used less than respectfully by males to or of their partners.

short out
vb American

to lose control of oneself, lose one's temper, ‘blow a fuse'. The image is of an electrical system developing a short circuit.

He tries to keep his cool, but every now and again he shorts out.

short-stuff
n American

a small person. An affectionate or condescending form of address almost invariably said to a child by an adult.

shorty
n

a girlfriend. The word is often used as a term of endearment by males, especially in black speech since 2000.

sho sho

a shortening of
for sho sho

shot
n

an injection.

See also
hotshot

shottie
n British

a gun. A term used by young street-gang members in London since around 2000.

shotting
n British

dealing drugs. An item of black street-talk used especially by males, recorded in 2003. Synonyms are
cutting
,
serving up
.

shout
¹
n British

1.
a round of drinks or the ordering thereof
It's my shout.

2.
a message indicating an emergency, request for help, etc. (usually by radio). A piece of jargon used by police and the emergency services.

shout
²
vb Australian

1.
also
shout at the floor
to vomit

2.
to buy (someone) a drink, to treat someone to something

‘Real generous…like giving me a job when I was stoney and shouting me all them chilled stubbies the other day.'
(
The Adventures of Barry McKenzie
, cartoon strip by Barry Humphries and Nicholas Garland, 1988)

shower, showa
adj British

excellent. The term is typically heard in youth gang usage. It derives from
shower
meaning gang,
crew
or
posse
, originating in Jamaica, where the ‘Shower Posse' were a notorious criminal group.

He's shower, blud.
My endz are shower.

shpreng
n British

the police. The term, of uncertain origin, was recorded among younger speakers in the Midlands in 2005.

shrapnel
n British

small change, coins. A vogue term among adolescents in the later 1990s. Unsurprisingly, the term may have come from the armed forces. Partridge has recorded that New Zealand soldiers used the word to refer to tattered banknotes in World War I.
Smash
is a synonym from the same period.

shreddies
n pl British

revolting, tattered (shredded) underwear. A mainly middle-class usage among students and schoolchildren, punning on the name of a popular breakfast cereal. The term has been heard since the 1960s. It may possibly derive from the British rugby players' practice of ‘shredding'. This
involves an attempt to remove a pair of underpants from a male victim by pulling them upwards rather than downwards.

shrimping
n American

sucking someone's toes for the purposes of sexual gratification, a jargon term among pornographers, prostitutes, etc.

shrink
n

a psychiatrist, psychoanalyst. Shrink is a shortening of the earlier
headshrinker
, which was imported from America to Britain and Australia in the 1960s.

‘We called in a consultant, a psychiatrist.
A shrink?
A highly respected doctor.'
(
The Dancer's Touch
, US film, 1989)

shrooms
n pl

magic mushrooms
. This abbreviated form describing hallucinogenic mushrooms probably originated in British adolescent slang in the 1990s.

Compare
rooms

shtenkie
n
,
adj British

(a person considered) obnoxious, contemptible. The term is a quasi-Yiddish deformation of ‘stink(y)' and was popular among
acid house
aficionados and
ravers
from the 1990s.

shtick
n

a.
a performance, term, act or routine, in the context of the entertainment business

b.
a piece of (repeated) behaviour characteristic of a particular person

c.
a gimmick, trick or ruse

The Yiddish word
shtik
, from Middle German
stücke
: piece, was passed via American showbiz slang into fashionable speech and journalese in the 1980s.

shtum
adj

silent, unspeaking. Most often heard in the phrase ‘keep/stay shtum': be quiet. A Yiddish term from the German
stumm
: dumb, which entered London working-class slang via Jewish influence in the East End.

shtup
vb

to have sex (with). This Yiddish word meaning press or push (oneself) is from the German
stupsen
(push). In American slang it has come to mean copulate, in which sense it is occasionally heard in fashionable British speech since the 1980s.

‘As any regular reader of Marie Claire magazine knows, some four out of five young French women would rather shop than shtup.'
(Julie Burchill,
Elle
magazine, December 1987)

‘The big question is, did they shtup or didn't they?'
(Posted on online messageboard, 15 February 2005)

shubbs
n British

a party, dance,
rave
. A term from Caribbean speech, also heard in the UK since 2000, especially among younger speakers.

shubzin'
n British

‘partying'. In use among South London schoolchildren in 2010.

shubzin' hard

shufti
n British

a look, glance. The word is Arabic and was imported by armed service personnel before World War II.

shut-in
n

a stay-at-home, recluse, unadventurous person. The term, often referring to avid gamers, was applied by an acquaintance to Adam Lanza, the perpetrator of the Sandy Hook school massacre of 2012.

‘…in which we ask a bunch of pasty-faced shut-ins about their exploits on the sports field. How bad was it for you?'
(B3ta website, 20 April 2012)

shutzie
adj British See
shootzie

shwasted
adj American

very drunk. The term, used on campus in 2011, is a blend of
shitfaced
and
wasted
.

shway, shwey
adj American

nice, elegant, attractive. The term has been popular among younger speakers since 2000.

shyster
n

a dishonest, avaricious, contemptible person. The term is usually applied to unscrupulous professionals, particularly lawyers, who were the original subjects of the epithet in the USA in the mid-19th century. The etymology of shyster is open to several interpretations;
shicer
was a 19th-century anglicisation of the German
scheisser
(literally ‘shitter'); ‘shy' was used in the 19th century colloquially to mean disreputable. In addition there is a historical record of a lawyer named Scheuster who was officially reprimanded in New York courtrooms for obstructive and unprofessional behaviour.

shysty
adj British

good. Of uncertain derivation, the word was used by adolescents in the southeast of England in 2002.

sianara
exclamation

goodbye and/or ‘good riddance'. The Japanese word (more properly
sayonara
) was popularised by its use in the catch-phrase ‘sianara, sushi boy!' in the 2001 film
Tomb Raider
.