Dictionary of Contemporary Slang (141 page)

a version of
skedaddle

skids
n pl Australian

the fortunes of fate, hard luck, the ‘breaks'. An encapsulation of the philosophy of the young and callously indifferent, most often heard in the shrug-off sentence ‘them's the skids': ‘that's the breaks'.

‘“Them's the skids,” as the young fry say.'
(Peter Corris,
The Greenwich Apartments
, 1986)

skill
n British

a younger schoolchildren's exclamation of admiration, appreciation or approval, heard in the late 1980s. The word has been extended from its original literal sense to become an all purpose vogue word, sometimes in the phrase ‘skill and brill'.

skimming
n

taking money illegally (e.g. before declaring it for tax purposes, or to defraud the eventual recipients) from income or profits, especially in casinos. The word is part of underworld jargon as used by organised crime in the USA. ‘Skim' was used to mean money or profit in both Britain and the USA in the 19th century, the image evoked being that of taking the cream off the top of the milk.

skimpies
n pl

underwear. The term has been recorded in the UK, US and Australasia.

skin
¹
n

1.
British
a
skinhead

2.
British
a cigarette rolling paper, as part of the makings of a
joint
. A word from the lexicon of drug users since the 1960s, now occasionally heard to describe cigarette papers put to more legitimate use.

See also
skin up

3.
American
a dollar bill

skin
²
vb

to rob or defraud,
rip off
or ‘fleece' someone. The word implies comprehensive and efficient removal of wealth.

He thought he was pretty smart but those guys skinned him.
We got skinned in that deal.

skinflick
n

a pornographic or semi-pornographic film. The skin element of the phrase refers to nudity;
flick
has been a slang term for film since the days of the silent movie. Skinflick is an Americanism which has been understood, albeit not widely used, in other English-speaking areas since the early 1970s.

skinful
n

an excess of alcohol. The word dates from the 18th century and evokes a distended belly or bladder.

We'd better get him home, he's had a skinful.

skinhead
n

1.
a bald person or someone with close-cropped hair. (
Chrome-dome
is a more recent synonym.)

2.
a member of a working-class youth cult originating in the late 1960s. The skinheads (the term was applied scornfully by longer-haired contemporaries, particularly
hippies
) mutated from the
mods
and ‘tickets' of the mid-1960s. They dressed in a functional uniform of American shirts, jeans and, often,
bovver-boots
and espoused soul music and gang violence.

skin it
vb

to shake or slap hands as a greeting and gesture of solidarity. The term, like the action itself (which is sometimes accompanied by the cry ‘give me some skin!' or ‘skin me!'), was part of 1990s youth culture throughout the English-speaking world.

skinny
n American

news, information, gossip. A vogue term among adolescents in the 1980s. This use of the word is said to have originated in the armed forces in the 1940s and might be jocularly based on ‘the naked truth'.

These guys've got the skinny on what's going on after hours.

skin-pop
vb

to inject (an illicit drug) intramuscularly or into flesh, rather than into a vein. An addicts' term.

skin up
vb

to roll a
joint
. From
skin
; a cigarette rolling paper.

skip
n

1.
British
an escape or an instance of jumping bail. This specialised use of the common colloquialism for ‘avoid' is part of underworld jargon.

2.
American
a person who fails to answer a bail bond, an escapee

3.
British
a boss,
guvnor
. A shortening of
skipper
, used typically by police officers in familiar address to a superior or, in sports, by team-members to their captain.

4.
British
a place to sleep or shelter. A shortened form of the tramps' term
skipper
.

5.
British
a dilapidated, old or cheap vehicle, particularly a car. The name of the common large metal refuse containers has been appropriated as a vogue term among schoolchildren since around 1988.

skipper
n British

1.
a captain of a ship or a team. Skipper in this sense is not, strictly speaking, slang,
although it is considered to be so by some. The word has been in use since it was anglicised from the Middle Dutch
schipper
(from
schip
: a ship).

2.
a rough shelter, place to sleep for the night, typically in a derelict building. The word, which may describe no more than a patch of rough ground, is now a near-synonym for
doss house
or
derry
. It is part of the vocabulary of tramps,
dossers
and other down-and-outs, and originated in Celtic words for barn (rendered as
ysgubor
in Welsh,
sciber
in Old Cornish).

‘When you're drunk and face-down in some skipper you just don't think there's much future in it.'
(Recorded, vagrant, Waterloo, London, 1987)

3.
a friend, ‘mate'. A friendly term of address between males, now rarely used except by vagrants.

skippering
n British

sleeping rough, living in derelict buildings or improvised or makeshift shelters. From the second sense of the noun
skipper
.

skippy
n

1.
American
a male homosexual, particularly an effeminate or affected one. the word was previously used to refer to female prostitutes by the US army in the Pacific. ‘Skibby' was an earlier form of the word, the derivation of which is obscure: some relation to ‘skivvy' looks possible, but there is no proof of this.

2.
British
a
chav
. The term was posted on the b3ta website in 2004.

skirt
n

a woman or girl, or females in general. A depersonalising term as used by males in the 20th century. The usage is much older, probably originating in the 1500s.

skite
¹
vb Australian

to boast. The word is a shortened form of
blatherskite
.

skite
²
n
,
adj

1.
(something or someone that is) disgusting, worthless, inferior. A dialect or disguised form of
shit
or
shite
.

2.
(a male who is) fashionable, admirable,
cool
. A term used by young street-gang members in London since around 2000.

skit out
vb

to behave in an erratic, unpredictable, excessive fashion. The phrase, recorded in London in 2001, may be based on the earlier
schizzed-out
, or on skittish.

Every time things get a bit heavy she just skits out.

skittel, skittle, skettle
n

a promiscuous and/or disreputable female

skive, skive off
vb British

to avoid work or duty, malinger. Skive is either from the obscure verb in standard English meaning to shave off (pieces of leather), from the Old Norse
skifa
, meaning to slice, or from another unre-corded dialect term. It has been heard in the sense of shirk since the early 20th century.

skivvies
n pl American

male underwear. The origin of the word is not known.

‘Ordell looked over at Louis Gara having his morning coffee in his skivvies, his bare feet up on the coffee table.'
(
The Switch
, Elmore Leonard, 1978)

skrag
vb

a variant spelling of
scrag.

skull
¹
n American

1.
a synonym for ‘head' in racy speech or
hip
talk. The word most usually occurs in the phrase
out of one's skull
(intoxicated or crazy) or in the following extended specialised sense.

2.
oral sex, especially fellatio. This term, popular among college students since the late 1970s, is either derived from, or an imitation of black street slang; a racier version of
head
in its sexual context. It is usually used as part of the parodic exhortation ‘whip some skull on me baby!'.

skull
²
vb Australian

to drink (alcohol)

skulled
adj

drunk or
stoned
on drugs. The term is a shorter form of
out of one's skull
(although when used by Australian speakers the verb
skull
meaning to drink may also come into play).

skunk
n British

marihuana, cannabis. Originally referring to ‘skunk-weed', a hydroponically grown and extra-strong strain of
grass
, the term became generalised to refer to other marihuana in the 1990s.

sky pilot
n

a priest, particularly a naval or military chaplain. The phrase dates from the later 19th century.

slack
adj Caribbean

immoral, particularly in a sexual context. This use of the word is archaic in Britain
(although it was probably the origin of
slag
) but survives in ‘Jamaica talk'.

‘The spurned wife of Tessa Sanderson's lover called the Olympic athlete “slack” – Jamaican slang for promiscuous.'
(
Guardian
, February 1990)

slackass
adj

lazy, incompetent. An Americanism also heard in the Caribbean.

slacker
n American

a disaffected, apathetic middle-class young person; a member of
Generation X
. ‘Slacker-culture' was promoted as a significant youth movement (supposedly a reaction against
yuppie
materialism and ambition) for a brief period in the early to mid-1990s on the USA's West Coast.

slackness
n Jamaican

immoral behaviour, speech, etc.; obscenity. The term was picked up by devotees of hip hop and
rap
culture in the US during the 1990s.

‘… not all black women take slackness lying down… Rasheda Ashanti… says; we don't want to continually hear explicit details about our anatomy …'
(
Sunday Times
, 2 May 1993)

slag
¹
n British

a.
a (supposedly) promiscuous woman. A derogatory word used mainly by working-class men and women which often carries overtones of slovenliness and coarseness.

‘Self-conscious and self-adoring parodists of slagdom, such as Madonna and Samantha Fox, understand this; that a man who calls a woman a slag isn't saying anything about her, but a lot about his condom size.'
(Julie Burchill,
Elle
magazine, December 1987)

b.
a despicable male. The word conveys real contempt and distaste; it is now generally heard in London working-class or criminal usage. Slag has been used since the 18th century to convey notions of moral laxity and worthlessness. The ultimate source of the word is probably in ‘slack' rather than ‘slag', meaning mining or smelting residue.

slag
²
vb See
slag off

slagging
n British

a bout of criticism, denigration or abuse, a serious dressing-down. The noun comes from the verb to
slag
or
slag off
.

‘Jo Brand gives Chris Moyles a slagging.'
(Headline on
Grassroots Media
website, June 2005)

slag it
vb British

(especially of females) to behave promiscuously or in a dissolute manner, to ‘sleep around'. A term used by young street-gang members in London since around 2000.

slag off, slag
vb British

to denigrate, criticise bitterly or insult. This working-class term probably derives from the dialect ‘slag', meaning to smear, or from the standard English noun ‘slag', meaning refuse or waste material. In the form ‘slag' the modern expression occurs in American speech. US authorities cite the German verb
schlagen
(to beat or lash), but this is an unlikely source for the British usage.

‘We get slagged off something chronic by a lot of people.'
(Recorded, telephone engineer, London, May 1989)