Dictionary of Contemporary Slang (144 page)

snart
vb
,
n British

a.
(to) snigger or snort (with derision)

b.
(to) sniff or inhale. (In the latter sense,

‘snart up' is an alternative form.)

c.
(to) sneeze

A rare expression heard among students and others since the early 1970s. It is a humorous corruption of
snort
in both its standard and slang senses.

snash
n British

money. The usage has been recorded among schoolchildren, students and army cadets since 2000.
Smash
is a contemporary synonym.

snatch
n

1a.
the vagina

1b.
women in general. In the 16th century this word was used to denote an impromptu and/or hasty (‘snatched') sexual encounter. The meaning was transferred to the female pudenda, and in the 20th century extended to refer to females as sex objects. The use of snatch in these senses has never been common but enjoyed a brief vogue in the late 1960s and early 1970s, first in the US and Canada, subsequently in Britain.

2.
British
an instance of bag-snatching, in the argot of teenage muggers

‘The child muggers told with chilling frankness how and why they resorted to muggings or “snatches” as they are sometimes called.'
(
Observer
, 22 May 1988)

3.
a kidnap or abduction, in underworld jargon

snazz
n

elegance, smart showiness, élan. The noun, most commonly encountered in American speech, is a back-formation from the adjective snazzy.

snazzed-up
adj

smart, elegant, dressed-up, embellished or enhanced. A more recent derivation of snazzy.

sneaks
n pl American

trainers, sneakers. A teenage abbreviation heard in the 1990s.

sneeze
n

cocaine. A term used by
yuppies
in the late 1980s.

snide
adj British

illegal, counterfeit, dishonest or unacceptable. The word's exact origins are obscure but it is related to the German
schneiden
(or its Dutch or Yiddish equivalent), meaning clip, and was used in the context both of coin-cutting and of cutting remarks. The former sense gives rise to the modern slang usage and the latter to the standard English meaning. Snide was first heard in Britain in the mid-19th century. Interestingly, young speakers have begun to revert to a Yiddish or
Germanic pronunciation of the word as.

shnide

‘Are you accusing me of selling snide gear?'
(Recorded, street trader, Portobello Road, London, 1986)

snip
n

a small, insignificant and/or irritating person. The word usually implies aggression and pettiness. It is derived from the notion of snip meaning to cut.

some little snip throwing her weight around

snippy
adj

irritatingly critical, brusque or presumptuous. Snippy is a dialect word for ‘cutting' in origin.

She struck me as a little snippy snitch.

snit
n

1a.
a small, obnoxious or devious person. The term is typically used of a smug or devious child.

1b.
an insignificant person. The word is an invention influenced by
snip
,
snitch
and possibly
snot
.

2.
a fit of irritation, a tantrum

snitch
¹
vb

to inform on (someone). Snitch was originally a slang term for the nose, which was itself used to signify a police spy or
grass
in the 18th century (as was
nark
). Snitch began to be used in the verb form in the 19th century and is still in use in the USA, although in Britain it survives mainly in children's speech, meaning to ‘tell tales'.

snitch
²
n

an informer. The word (like
nark
, originally meaning nose) was first used in this sense in the 18th century. It is still used in the USA to mean a paid police informer, whereas in Britain it is largely confined to the language of children, in which it denotes a ‘tell-tale'.

SNM
phrase British

‘say no more'. The written and sometimes spoken abbreviation was in use among South London schoolchildren in 2010.

snockered
adj

1.
an alternative form of
schnockered

2.
American
completed, finalised, solved. A term heard particularly among school-children, students and parents.

snog
¹
vb

to kiss (‘snog up', used transitively, is a racier late 1980s version). This lighthearted word, used typically by children and adolescents, first appeared in Britain before World War II. It is probably a variant of ‘snug' and ‘snuggle (up)'. In the 1950s, particularly in the USA, snog took on a more general sense of flirt. It retains its specific sense in Britain.

‘And I expect she's seen you walking out with Dolly Clackett, and snogging on the front porch.'
(
Hancock's Half-hour
, BBC radio comedy, May 1960)

snog
²
n British

a kissing session. (For the origin of the term, see the verb form.)

They were having a quick snog while the lights were out.

snoot
¹
n

1.
the nose. A humorous variant form of ‘snout'. (In Middle English ‘snout' was written as
snute
and pronounced ‘snooter'.)

a punch on the snoot

2.
a snooty person

snoot
²
adj British

showy, expensive, luxurious. The word is a shortening of the colloquial ‘snooty'. An item of student slang in use in London and elsewhere since around 2000.

Look at all his snoot gear, I bet that guy doesn't do Byrite.

snooze
n

something boring or tedious. A synonym of
yawn
.

‘I must admit that last Tuesday's board meeting was a bit of a snooze.'
(
Maid to Order
, US film, 1987)

snore
n

a boring experience. A synonym of
snooze
and
yawn
, typically used by adolescents.

A three hour talk on the EU; God, what a snore!

snork
¹
n Australian

1.
a baby or immature person. The word is said to be a distortion of ‘stork', but may also be influenced by such words as ‘snort', ‘snicker', ‘snit', ‘snot' and the following sense of the word.

2.
a sausage. This rare use of the word may be related to the synonymous
snag
.

snork
²
vb

to kiss. An imitative term from adolescent usage.

snorker
n Australian

a.
a sausage

b.
the penis

The term is obviously related to the Australian
snork
, and perhaps to
snag
, but the exact origin of all of these terms is obscure.

snort
vb

to sniff or inhale (illicit drugs such as heroin, cocaine, amphetamines, etc.). An Americanism which spread to Britain and Australia in the 1960s. The word supplanted the more sedate ‘sniff', used previously.

‘And am I dreary if I think that showing someone snorting coke on the telly is not such a great idea?'
(Janet Street-Porter,
Today
, 19 March 1988)

snot
n

1.
mucus from the nose. The word is from the Middle English
snotte
, itself from the Old English
gesnot
, variant forms of which existed in all Germanic languages. These terms are related either to ‘snout' or to an Indo-European root meaning to flow. Snot is a widespread term but, because of its distasteful context, is considered a vulgarism.

Wipe the snot off your face and cheer up.

2.
an obnoxious person, usually a young or diminutive and self-important individual

That little snot.

snot-nosed, snotty-nose(d)
adj

obnoxious and immature; young and over-confident

I'm not letting some snot-nosed kid tell me what to do!

snot-rag
n British

a handkerchief

snotted
adj American

intoxicated, drunk

snotty
adj

1.
suffering from catarrh, afflicted with a runny nose

2.
obnoxious, self-important, snooty

snout
¹
n British

1.
the nose

2.
a paid police informer. ‘Nose' was used to denote a police spy or informer and so were slang synonyms such as
nark
,
snitch
and
snout
. Snout is of more recent origin than the other terms, dating from between the world wars.

3.
tobacco, a cigarette. The use of snout to mean tobacco dates from the end of the 19th century when it originated among prison inmates. It was inspired by convicts touching their noses, either while cupping a surreptitious smoke or as a silent sign requesting tobacco. (The explanations are not mutually exclusive, one may have given rise to the other.) In the 1950s the use of ‘a snout' for a cigarette became widespread in working-class speech.

snout
²
vb British

to inform, especially regularly in return for pay. The verb is derived from the earlier noun form.

‘Naff ways of making money – snouting for a gossip columnist (esp. Nigel Dempster).'
(
The Complete Naff Guide
, Bryson et al, 1983)

snow
¹
n

1.
cocaine. The white crystalline drug resembles snow and its anaesthetic effect numbs like cold. The slang term dates from the turn of the 20th century. (‘Snow-bird' and ‘snowball' were elaborations used in some circles.)

‘A little snow at Christmas never did anyone any harm.'
(Legend on a 1969 Christmas card sent out by the record producer Phil Spector, featuring a still from the film
Easy Rider
, in which he had a cameo role as a cocaine dealer)

2.
a
snow job

3.
Australian
a nickname for a blond male, usually used pejoratively

snow
²
vb

to fool, cheat, bamboozle, especially by overloading someone with information. This Americanism (now occasionally heard in Britain) is based on the notion of ‘snowing someone under' in order to deceive or manipulate them. It may also have originally evoked a ‘snowstorm' of documentation.

‘When you go into town on a false pass who do you think you're snowing?'
(
Battle Cry
, US film, 1954)

snowdrop
vb

to steal clothes, typically underwear, from a clothes line. The underworld and police term may refer to a fetishistic practice or the actions of vagrants.

‘We busked on street corners and snowdropped clothes from the backyard Hills Hoists of trendy Paddington.'
(
Girls' Night Out
, Kathy Lette, 1989)

snowdropper
n British

someone who steals clothing, usually lingerie from washing lines, in the language of vagrants, police and prisoners. The term first referred (in the early 19th century) to the theft of clothes due to poverty; it now often denotes the act of a fetishist.

snow job
n American

a case of deceit, browbeating or manipulation, particularly by means of glib or over-whelming
persuasion or flattery. The phrase has been common since World War II.

snuff
¹
vb

1.
to kill. An old term, derived from the notion of extinguishing a candle. The curt ‘tough guy' use of the word remains popular in street slang and crime fiction, particularly in the USA.

See also
snuff movie

2.
to sniff cocaine. An item from the drug user's vocabulary.

snuff
²
n

cocaine

snuff it
vb British

to die. Inspired by the snuffing out of a candle, this expression has been heard in British English, particularly in working-class usage, since the turn of the 20th century.

snuff movie
n

a violent,
hardcore
pornographic film supposedly featuring the actual death of one of the actors. Rumoured to have been made in the early 1970s, the actual existence of such a movie has never been proved. In the 1980s the term began to be applied to
splatter movies
, where the death and mayhem is indisputably faked.