Dictionary of Contemporary Slang (143 page)

killed. The term was in use by youth gang members in London in 2011.

sly
adj British

an allpurpose term of disapproval fashionable in the later 1990s. It was defined on the internet by
Bodge World
in March 1997.

smack
n

heroin. Originally an American term, the word spread to Britain and Australia at the time of the Vietnam War. It is derived from the Yiddish
shmek
, meaning a sniff, whiff or taste, reinforced by the English word's suggestion of a sudden, violent effect.

‘I don't think Jimmy Hendrix was on smack 'cos I was with him last Saturday night and I know when a man's on smack and he wasn't.'
(Murray Roman, quoted in
Oz
magazine, June 1969)

smacked it!
exclamation

an expression of triumph or success, e.g. in passing a test, solving a difficult problem quickly

smacked-out
adj

addicted to or under the influence of heroin (
smack
)

‘Nathan had staked everything he had ever worked for on this loser who was too smacked out to worry about taking MOM Records into the bankruptcy court.'
(
Platinum Logic
, Tony Parsons, 1981)

smacker
n

1.
a kiss

2.
British
an active or potential sexual partner. In this sense, the term was used by aficionados of London dancefloor culture in the early 1990s.

smackers
n pl

pounds or dollars. Like
smacker
in the sense of a kiss, this lighthearted term is often embellished to give ‘smackeroos' or ‘smackeroonies'. The original word probably refers to the slapping of coins or notes onto a table or counter or into the palm of an outstretched hand.

‘Do you wanna take the thousand smackers or try for the sensational bathroom suite?'
(
Biff
cartoon, 1986)

smack-head
n

a heroin addict, a
junkie
. A combining of
smack
with the ‘-head' suffix meaning a habitué. (‘Smack-freak' was a synonymous term of the late 1960s and early 1970s, subsequently yielding to smack-head in popularity.)

‘If a smack-head tries to chat you up, what's he really after?'
(UK Government anti-heroin advertisement, 1986)

smack it, smacked it
exclamation

a cry of triumph or congratulation. It may be accompanied by, or inspired by the victorious slapping of hands.

‘Can't believe I even bothered revising for that zam – it was massively easy, I smacked it.'
(Guardian student slang guide, April 2012)

smams
n pl British

female breasts. A term used by younger speakers of both sexes since 2000.

‘Jackie was being all oily, but he just wanted to touch her smams.'
(Recorded, male teenager, Richmond, UK, April 2005)

smartarse, smartass
n
,
adj

(a person who is a) know-all, smug or insolent. The word describes someone whose display of real or supposed cleverness renders them obnoxious. ‘Smart alec' or ‘wise-guy' are politer synonyms.

‘If she felt like giving them a smartass answer, why didn't she? Because she couldn't think of a smartass answer fast enough.'
(
The Switch
, Elmore Leonard, 1978)

smartmouth
vb American

to cheek, speak disrespectfully or insolently (of someone)

smarts
n

intelligence, wits. A coinage inspired by the word wits itself and/or ‘brains'. The word is American, but is occasionally heard in Britain.

She's got more than her share of smarts.

smash
¹
n British

small change, money in the form of coins. The term is heard particularly in the Scottish Lowlands and the north of England.
Shrapnel
is a southern equivalent.

smash
²
vb British

to have sex with, penetrate. An item of black street-talk used especially by males, recorded in 2003.

I smashed her.

smashed
adj

drunk or intoxicated by drugs

‘Having discovered that it is possible to be smashed, keep on the stereo headphones AND read, I have managed to… get through… several books.'
(Jim Anderson in
Oz
magazine, February 1970)

smashed it!
exclamation

a cry of triumph

smashing
adj British

excellent. The colloquialism of the 1950s was revived, often with ironic overtones, after 2000.

smash mouth
vb American

to kiss. A humorous equivalent to the better known ‘chew face' in use among adolescents.

smeg, smeggy
n British

a foolish and/or dirty person. These terms, deriving from smegma, are vulgarisms which have been popular with schoolboys, students,
punks
and other youths since the mid-1970s. Despite their origin the words do not usually indicate great distaste but rather mild contempt or even affection. Smeg and various derivatives such as ‘smeg-head' were used in the cult British TV comedy series of the late 1980s
Red Dwarf
as an allpurpose swearword, a euphemism for
fuck
or
shit
.

smellie
n British

a beggar or homeless person, a
crustie

Smiley Culture
See
Big L

smok
n South African

a flirtatious or unconventional female. Recorded as an item of Sowetan slang in the
Cape Sunday Times
, 29 January 1995. In 19th-century British slang ‘smock' could be used to denote a ‘loose woman'.

smoke
¹
vb American

a.
to kill. A euphemism in underworld and police usage since the 1940s, this unsentimental term was fashionable in teenage speech and crime fiction in the 1980s.

b.
also
smoke out
,
smoke off
to defeat or to better (someone). In the
hip
jargon of the rock music business since the 1970s.

‘Out-playing the headliner is known in the trade as “smoking”…Thin Lizzy were notorious for smoking their superiors – and consequently for being mysteriously removed from bills.'
(
Independent
, 27 January 1989)

smoke
²
n

1a.
tobacco

1b.
hashish or marihuana

2. the Smoke, the big Smoke
London or any large town or city (in British and Australian usage). The word was first recorded in this sense in 1864 referring to London. It usually evokes the city as seen by those who are not native to it or are in temporary exile from it.

‘This is one of the things they have come for – an escape from the Smoke and a whiff of the sea.'
(
Town
magazine, September 1963)

smoker
n British

1.
an old, worn-out or mechanically unsound motor-car. A piece of jargon from the vocabulary of second-hand car dealers and enthusiasts.

2.
a cannabis smoker

smoke up
vb American

to smoke cannabis. An East Coast expression in contemporary use.

smokey, smoky
n American

a police officer. The term derives from ‘Smokey the Bear', a cartoon character wearing the hat of a Forest Ranger, who issued warnings against careless behaviour that could cause forest fires; it was then applied, jocularly at first, to any uniformed authority figure. Smokey became the CB (Citizens' Band) radio code word for a highway patrol officer in the 1970s.

smoocher
n

a sycophant. The term is typically used in office slang in the US and sometimes in the UK.
Suck-up
is a contemporary synonym.

smoodge
vb Australian

a variant form of
shmooze
in the sense of ingratiate oneself or flatter

Don't try and smoodge me, it won't work.

smooth
adj

good. An allpurpose term of approbation used by adolescents.

smudger
n British

1.
a friend, ‘mate'

All right me old smudger?

2a.
a photographer. A jocular reference to inept developing and printing.

2b.
also
smudge
a photograph. This old item of press slang came, in the 1990s, to refer specifically to an illicit paparazzi snap of, e.g., a star
en déshabille
.

3.
a flatulent person

All three senses of the word are from working-class speech; the first and third are specific to the London area. All are now dated but not obsolete.

smuggling peanuts
n

(of a female) displaying the nipples through clothing

smurf
¹
n

a.
British
a black person. A racist pejorative.

b.
British
an unfortunate, contemptible person or misfit, in working-class and schoolchildren's usage

c.
a smuggler of drugs, specifically a lowly courier or dupe

d.
British
another term for
jub

The Smurfs were ugly, plump, gnome-like cartoon creatures marketed as a children's craze in the early 1970s and revived in the late 1990s.

smurf
²
vb

a.
to transport illicit narcotics

b.
to launder money

Both terms are from underworld usage, probably originating in North America.

smutty
adj British

a.
excellent, good

a smutty time

b.
serious

a smutty fracas

c.
‘deep'

well smutty music

A vogue synonym for
heavy
,
diesel
,
sick
. An item of black street-talk used especially by males, recorded in 2003.

snack attack
n

a bout of compulsive eating,
(the) munchies
. A late 1980s vogue term, still in limited circulation (as is its contemporary,
tack attack
).

I'm afraid in the middle of the night I had a snack attack.

snafu
n

an impossible situation, a foul-up, a labyrinth of incompetence. The expression, from ‘Situation Normal, All Fucked Up' was developed in the US army in World War II (in imitation of that institution's passion for acronyms) to describe the quotidian effects of bureaucratic stupidity.

‘I tell you, its been snafu after bloody snafu here.'
(Recorded, businessman, London, 1987)

snag
vb American

to steal, appropriate. A term from street slang that was adopted by middle-class adolescents during the 1990s, often to describe the seduction of another's partner.

snags
n pl Australian

sausages. A word in use since the 1940s and still heard, particularly at
barbies
.

snake
vb American

to seduce and/or have sex with. The term's recent usage may have originated in black slang, but the same word was employed with the sense of ‘steal surreptitiously' in British slang of the 19th century.

‘He goddam tried to snake my old lady.'
(Recorded, Californian male, September 1995)

snakes
n Australian

a.
urine or an act of urination. The word is native Australian rhyming slang from ‘snake's hiss':
piss
.

b.
a toilet

snakey
adj Australian

angry. The usage may derive from the old phrase ‘as mad as a cut snake'.

snanny
n
,
adj British

(someone) insincere, untrustworthy, ‘slimy'. The term was used by teenage girls in 2001.

snap
n British

food. Formerly a dialect term for a packed lunch or snack, since 2000 the word has been generalised in teenage parlance to refer to any food.

snap one's gums
vb American

to talk. An alternative form of
bump/flap one's gums
.

snapper
n

1.
British, Irish
a child. The term, popularised by the Irish writer Roddy Doyle's story and 1993 film of the same name, may have originated as a shortening of ‘whip-persnapper' or ‘bread-snapper'.

2.
a male homosexual, in armed-forces' usage

snarf
vb

a.
to eat, devour

b.
to appropriate, adopt wholesale. In the language of
cyberpunks
and
net-heads
, the term refers to incorporating information from elsewhere into one's own documents and files, etc. It is probably a blend of ‘snort' or
snag
and
scarf (up/down)
.