Dictionary of Contemporary Slang (151 page)

The word has been used to mean ‘upright' or honest, fair, scrupulous, etc. for more than a century. The subsenses above, not always used approvingly, were established in the 1950s and 1960s. The following sense is in ironic contrast.

2.
restored to one's desired state of drunkenness or drugged euphoria

Just one shot and I'll be straight again.

straightened-out
adj

bribed, suborned or otherwise corrupted. A euphemism in underworld and police usage.

‘Their tip-off was supported by a tape recording of a bugged conversation involving an American criminal, referring to “a top man” who had been “straightened out in Scotland Yard”.'
(
Observer
, 16 August 1987)

straighten (someone) out
vb British

to bribe or corrupt (someone). A euphemistic term in use among criminals and police officers.

We wanted to straighten out a magistrate, but we couldn't get to any of them in time.

straight-up
adj

honest, reliable. This usage is an extension of the use of the phrase as an exclamation meaning ‘It's the truth.' or ‘Honestly.'

He's a straight-up guy.

strain the potatoes
vb Australian

to urinate. The phrase is a survival of a 19th-century British euphemism inspired by the resemblance to the resulting colour of water. In Britain, the phrase ‘strain the greens' was heard before the 1950s.

stralley
n British

a gun. The term is used in street-gang code and its imitations.

‘Like for a gun, you could say a gat but that's quite an old term. Most young people now would say stralley, a tool or a bucky.'
(BBC News website, 21 October 2011)

strap
n American

1.
a gun, in the argot of street gangs and other criminals. By 2005 the term was in use in London, too.

‘I'm hoping to hook up with some more straps …'
(
Gang War
, Channel 4 TV documentary, August 1995)

2.
a humorous synonym for
jock

strapped
adj

1.
short of money, broke. A short version of the phrase ‘strapped for cash'.

2.
armed with a gun. In this form the word crossed the Atlantic eastwards, so that by the early 1990s criminals in the UK were referring to ‘going strapped'.

3.
good-looking, physically fit. In this sense the word has been used appreciatively by UK adolescents, especially females, since around 2000.

strapping
n American

carrying a firearm

strawberry
n American

a prostitute who sells sex for drugs

‘All the vice girl victims [of a Los Angeles serial killer] were known as strawberries – American slang for hookers who trade sex for drugs.'
(
Sunday Mirror,
3 March 1989)

stray
n British

a heterosexual who associates with
gays
. The term was defined in the
Modern Review
, June 1994 and was still in media use a decade later.

Compare
metrosexual
;
stromo

street
adj American

‘streetwise' or having ‘street credibility'. A term of approbation originating in black argot of the 1970s.

She's OK, she's street.

street apple
n See
road apple

street pizza
n See
road pizza

stressed-out, stressy, stressin'
adj British

a.
unwell, uncomfortable, discontented. In secondary school playground slang this use of the colloquialism is generalised from its normal sense to incorporate almost any negative feeling.

b.
inferior, inadequate. A further generalisation of the original sense of the word, used as a vogue term by teenage gang members from the late 1990s.

stretch
n

1.
American
a tall, thin person. A term of cheerful mockery. The equivalent of the British
streak
, or rather the nickname ‘Lofty', since stretch is often a term of address.

How're y' keeping, Stretch?

2.
a period of imprisonment. This underworld term originally referred specifically to one year's incarceration; it has now been generalised to mean a term of indeterminate length.

He did a four-year stretch.

strides
n

trousers. The word has existed in raffish usage since the turn of the 20th century. Originally an Americanism, it is now heard in Britain and Australia.

‘Fair crack of the whip! Lady, I'm not taking me strides off for anyone.'
(
Bazza Pulls it Off
, cartoon by Barry Humphries and Nicholas Garland,
Private Eye
, 1970)

stripe
n

a scar, especially as the result of a knife or razor slash

stroke book
n American

a pornographic or semi-pornographic publication. ‘Stroke' in this context refers to male masturbation.

stroller
n British

an easy task. The term, heard on campus in 2011, derives from the colloquial phrase a ‘stroll in the park'.

stroll on!
exclamation British

a cry of dismissal or disbelief. The phrase usually conveys indignation.

stromo
n

a
gay
male who behaves like or appears to be a heterosexual. The term is a blend of
straight
and
homo
.

strong it
vb British

to behave aggressively, presumptuously or excessively. A working-class expression heard particularly in the London area in the 1980s. It is a variation on the colloquial phrases ‘come on strong', ‘come it strong' and ‘go it strong'.

You been strongin' it again down our boozer?

strop
n British

a bout of bad temper. A back-formation from the earlier adjective
stroppy
.

put on/throw a strop
‘She got herself into a strop about it, d'you know what I mean?'
(
Big Brother
, UK TV show, 23 July 2004)

stroppy
adj British

obstreperous, aggressive, uncooperative. The word is an alteration of obstreperous, perhaps via a fanciful deformation of this word, such as ‘obstropalous'. Stroppy appeared in the 1940s. Various deformations of obstreperous have been recorded since the 18th century.

strudel
n British

the male genitalia, a term in use among London students in 2008.
Pie
is the female equivalent.

strumping
n British

promiscuous behaviour (on the part of a female). This back-formation from ‘strumpet' was used in the 1990s TV comedy
Birds of a Feather
.

strung out
adj

a.
tense, nervous and upset

She was strung out inside, nibbling on her lower lip and smoking one cigarette after another.

b.
suffering from the effects of an illicit drug or from withdrawal

strung out on morphine

The first, now widespread, usage derives from the second, which is a drug user's slang expression dating from the 1950s.

strung up
adj

a less common variant of
strung out

stubbies
n pl Australian

short trousers, as worn by men

stubby, stubbie
n Australian

a small bottle of lager

stud
n

a sexually active, powerful, potent male. Only slang when applied to men as opposed to (real) animals, the term often indicates a degree of approval or admiration, even if grudgingly. In black American street parlance the word was sometimes used in the 1960s and 1970s simply to mean a ‘guy'. There seems to be no female equivalent that stresses sexual power rather than degeneracy.

‘The eternal teenage sexual paradox is that boys who “put it about” are called “studs” by their admiring friends but girls who do the same are “slags”.'
(17-year-old public-school pupil,
Harpers and Queen
magazine, August 1978)

studly
adj American

cool
. The term is typically applied to people, particularly males.

stud-muffin
n American

a.
an attractive male

b.
a male seducer (of females)

In both senses this elaboration of
stud
was heard from the early 1990s, first among adolescents and later among adult speakers.

studsley
n American

a smart, dapper or sophisticated male. A term of address between males which seems to have originated as a black elaboration of
stud
in the sense of a ‘fine fellow'.

stuff
vb

1.
to have sex (with). The verb has very seldom been used in the active or transitive form since the 19th century (and it was never common). The abusive exclamation ‘get stuffed' is its main legacy.

2.
to dismiss, throw away, destroy. This adaptation of the sexual sense of the word, or of the expression ‘stuff it up your arse!', has proved useful as a non-taboo means of conveying strong rejection, impatience, etc. It often occurs in the allpurpose exclamation ‘stuff it!'.

‘Stuff the wedding!'
(Anti-royal-wedding slogan written on walls and reproduced on badges in Britain in 1981)

Stuff is currently fashionable in media, sporting and raffish circles with the sense of to defeat or humiliate.

stuffed
adj British

ruined, abandoned, ‘kaput'. A brusque but fairly inoffensive derivation of the verb
stuff
.

stumblebum
n American

a vagrant or derelict, literally a stumbling, helpless tramp. The word is now usually generalised to denote an inept, incompetent or clumsy person.

stumpy
n British

a small person. The word is generally a term of abuse, e.g. in playground usage.

stunned mullet
n Australian

(the facial expression of) a gormless, slow-witted or stupid person. The phrase is common in Australian speech and was used in Parliament by the Premier Paul Keating, among others, when describing the supposedly vacuous expression of political opponents.

stunting
n British

showing off. An item of youth slang recorded in 2009.

styler
n British

a person who attempts to be stylish and fashionable, a ‘trendy'. This vogue term of the later 1990s is invariably used by adolescents to indicate derision or disapproval. It is probably influenced by the black American concept of
styling
.

styling
n American

showing off, behaving ostentatiously. A vogue term in the 1990s in
hip hop
and dancefloor culture which originated more than thirty years earlier in black American speech.

Compare
profiling
;
vogu(e)ing

substance
n British

cannabis, hashish or marihuana. A euphemism adopted by users of the drug from the legalistic description (employed particularly in sentences such as ‘Certain substances were taken away for analysis.').

Got any substance?

suck
vb American

to be repellent, inferior or worthless. An extremely common term of strong disparagement or denigration in American English, suck is both a euphemism for
fuck
and an amalgam of notions contained in words such as ‘sucker',
cocksucker
, etc.

‘To say something or someone “sucks” is to use America's most common term of disparagement… The term suck originally had as its prefix the word for a male hen.'
(Simon Hoggart,
Observer
magazine, 1989)

‘Is it me, or does the party all of a sudden suck?'
(
10 Things I Hate About You
, US film, 1999)

sucked
adj British

a.
stolen

b.
deprived by theft. In use among South London schoolchildren in 2010.

sucked in
adj Australian

fooled, duped, ‘conned'. A racier version of ‘taken in'.

sucker-punch
vb American

to attack from behind or without warning, to land an unfair or surprise blow. From the colloquialism ‘sucker', denoting a dupe or easy victim.

‘You're a witness, Alex. I just came here to talk to you and Fruitfly sucker-punched me.'
(Jonathon Kellerman,
Over the Edge
, 1987)

suck face
vb American

to kiss. An adolescent euphemism on the lines of
swap spit
.