Dictionary of Contemporary Slang (154 page)

tamale
n American See
hot tamale

tam rag
n British

a sanitary towel or tampon. A variant of
jam rag
influenced by ‘tampon' and the trademark ‘Tampax'.

T and A
n American

tits
and
ass
. The American equivalent of the British ‘B and T', a phrase describing a visual or tactile experience of a naked woman or women. The abbreviation and the expression in full probably originated in the jargon of journalists and/or showmen.

tang
n American

a more recent version of
poon
,
poontang
, heard, e.g., on campus

tanglin'
n British

fighting, from black speech. Synonyms recorded since 2000 are
mixin'
,
regulatin'
,
startin'
.

tank
¹
n

1.
American
a firearm, handgun. A hyperbolic term occasionally used by criminals and law enforcers.

2.
British
a police car or van. The word is used in this way by ironic or self-drama-tising police officers.

tank
²
vb British

a.
to crush, overwhelm

‘They'd all tank Tyson.'
(Headline in the
Sun
, 28 February 1989)

b.
to defeat, trounce

‘England are going to tank Monaco tomorrow!'
(TV sports trailer, February 1997)

c.
to move forcefully and powerfully

‘Tanking up and down the motorway all holiday… but Christmas itself was very quiet… very pleasant…'
(
Biff
cartoon,
Guardian
, December 1987)

All senses of the word became popular in the later 1980s.

tanked, tanked-up
adj

drunk. A common term since the turn of the 20th century; the shorter form is more recent. Tank up evokes the filling of a container or fuelling of a vehicle and parallels such expressions as
loaded
and
canned
.

Man, she was, like, totally tanked last night. ‘I'll do the washing-up tomorrow if I don't get too tanked-up tonight.'
(
Biff
cartoon,
Guardian
, 1986)

tanty
n Australian

a fit of bad temper. The alteration of tantrum, recorded in a Facebook posting of October 2011, is usually heard in the phrase
chuck a tanty
.

tap
¹
, tap up
vb

1.
to borrow or seek to borrow from (someone). To tap meant to spend liberally in archaic slang; by the early 20th century it had acquired the second sense of to solicit, borrow or obtain. The origin of the term is in the tapping of liquid from a container, reinforced by tapping someone on the shoulder to gain their attention and the later slang sense of ‘hitting' someone for a loan. Tap is in international English, while the full form tap up is in British usage.

2.
British
to have sex with, seduce

I'd tap that.

tap
²
adj American

physically attractive, handsome, usually of a male. An expression used on campus in the USA since around 2000. The same term was recorded in Nigeria in 2003.

That guy is just totally tap.

tap city
n
,
adj American

(the condition of being) penniless, broke. A humorous version of
tapped-out
.

It's no good asking me. I'm in tap city.
It's tap city the rest of this month.

tap-dance
n

a clever evasion, devious manoeuvre. The term, which is used all over the English-speaking world, recalls a dancer either
busking it
or improvising in a difficult situation, or merely executing an elegant sequence of steps.

‘That was not an opinion – that was a tap-dance worthy of Fred Astaire.'
(
Hooperman
, US TV series, 1987)

tap-dancer
n

a person who can avoid danger by a combination of clever, if devious or dishonest actions and luck; someone able to talk themselves out of difficult situations

‘That man's a born tap-dancer; he's always out the back door five minutes before the front door's kicked in.'
(Recorded, drug dealer, London, 1988)

tapped-out
adj American

a.
penniless, broke. A term used especially by gamblers and, more recently, by adolescents. It is inspired by the very old slang use of the word to
tap
, meaning both to spend and later to obtain money from another person.

Man, I'd like to help you but I'm all tapped-out. ‘Wall Street's Trust Fund's tapped-out.'
(Headline in
Fortune
magazine, 18 April 2005)

b.
exhausted. From the idea of being ‘drained'.

tapped up
adj British See
get tapped up tapper
n British

an obnoxious or disreputable person. A vogue term recorded in junior schools from 1991. The origin is obscure but may relate to a sexual sense such as
get tapped up
.

tarbrush
n See
a touch of the tarbrush tard
n American

a fool, simpleton. A teenagers' shortening of the popular term of contempt,
retard
. The word was adopted by British adolescents in the late 1980s.

tardy
adj

foolish, irritating. The adjective, from the earlier noun form
tard
, has been in use, especially in the USA, since around 2000.

tart
n

a promiscuous, vulgar or sexually provocative woman. This modern sense of the word has gradually supplanted the older meaning which was simply a woman or sweetheart. As a term of affection (inspired by the pastry sweetmeat and reinforced by ‘sweetheart'), tart was applied to women of
all ages from the mid-19th century. By the early years of the 20th century it was more often used of the flighty or immoral and by the inter-war years often referred to prostitutes. In modern theatrical,
gay
(where it is often used of men), cockney and Australian speech, tart is still used affectionately.

tart about
vb British

a.
to flounce about, behave archly or flam-boyantly

b.
to mess about, behave in a disorganised or irresolute way

Many derogatory or vulgar terms (
arse
,
dick
,
fanny
, etc.) have been converted to verbs on the same pattern.

tash
n British

an alternative spelling of
tache tassel, tassle
n
the penis. An inoffensive term often used by parents and children and referring particularly to the member of an immature male. In older (pre-1950s) British usage, ‘pencil-and-tassle' was a euphemism for a boy's genitals.

tasty
¹
adj British

attractive, desirable, smart. An allpurpose term of approbation, used in working-class London speech for many years and, more specifically, as a fashionable word among the young in the late 1970s and 1980s.

a tasty geezer
Love the threads. Really tasty.

tasty
²
n British

an alcoholic drink. A specific application of the wider notion of something desirable, from the popular cockney adjective.

‘I know a pub that does late tasties.'
(
Only Fools and Horses
, British TV comedy series, 1989)

tat
n British

shoddy, cheap or low-quality material. A colloquialism, originally meaning specifically rags or cloth remnants, which is derived from ‘tatter(s)' and ‘tatty' (both of which are ultimately descended from an old Germanic term meaning tuft).

‘Liverpool comprehensive pupils would not be seen dead in “second-hand tat”, however grand the previous incumbent.'
(
Sunday Times
magazine, 30 July 1989)

taters
n

1.
British
potatoes. A short form most often heard in London and the south of England.

2.
See
do one's nut/block/crust/pieces/taters

3.
American
the buttocks

taters (in the mould)
adj British

cold. This authentic cockney rhyming-slang expression has survived in its shortened form to the present day. It is now common in ‘respectable' jocular speech and is usually thought by users to be merely a shortening of ‘cold potatoes'.

It's a bit taters out there, I can tell you.

tats
¹
, tatts
n pl

1a.
Australian
the teeth, especially false teeth

1b.
British
dice

Both senses of the word are now rare; the first probably postdating the second. The origin of the term is obscure but may imitate the clattering of the objects in question.

2.
tattoos

tats
²
n pl

female breasts. A variant form of
tits
, heard since 2000.

tatters
n pl

female breasts. Used in the UK TV comedy
Absolutely Fabulous
in 2001.

tax
vb

to mug or steal from someone, leaving them with a proportion of their money. A miscreants' jargon term for partial robbery, recorded among street gangs in London and Liverpool since the late 1970s.

t.b.
adj American

loyal, faithful. This abbreviation of ‘true blue' was in use among adolescents in the 1990s and was featured in the 1994 US film
Clueless
.

a t.b. buddy
You don't have to worry about her, she's
t.b.

TBH
phrase

‘to be honest'. The initials are spoken as well as written.

tea
n

marihuana. Tea has been a nickname for herbal cannabis since the early years of the 20th century. Originally an Americanism, the term derives from the close resemblance in all but colour between the two substances. By the mid-1960s tea was a dated word restricted to older speakers, having been supplanted by such synonyms as
pot
,
charge
,
shit
, etc.
Teaed-up
, in the sense of intoxicated by marihuana, survives in teenage use.

See also
T

teabagging
n

the sexual practice of placing one person's scrotum into another's mouth

teeth teaed-up, tea'd-up
adj American

high
on marihuana. A (mainly middle-class) teenagers' term which preserves the otherwise obsolescent
tea
as a euphemism for cannabis.

tea-leaf
n British

a
thief
. A well-known item of rhyming slang in use since the end of the 19th century. It also occurs in Australian speech and is occasionally heard as a verb.

team
n

a street gang. Like
firm
and
crew
, the usage evokes the notion of camaraderie and united effort.

tear-arse (around/about)
vb British

to rush about or otherwise behave hastily and recklessly. The image evoked is of activity so violent that it would tear the bottom out of a vehicle or of one's clothing.

tearaway
n British

a wild, reckless (usually young) person. This previously obscure term, which had referred to a ‘tough-guy' or mugger since the turn of the 19th century, was popularised as a useful epithet for unruly youths or ‘juvenile delinquents' in the early 1960s. It is still heard in colloquial usage.

tear off a piece
vb

to have sex (with). A phrase denoting seduction or sexual achievement from the male point of view. The expression is American or Australian in origin and dates from the end of the 19th century. (The use of ‘tear off a strip' with this sexual sense has been recorded in Britain.) The unromantic image evoked is that of tearing a piece of meat off a carcass for consumption.

tear one off
vb

to succeed in seduction, have sex (with). A less common version of
tear off a piece
and, like that expression, used mostly in the USA and Australia.

tea-towel holder
n British

the anus. From the resemblance to the plastic press-in kitchen attachment.

technicolour yawn
n

an act of vomiting. An Australian expression of the early 1960s, popularised in Britain by the
Barry McKenzie
comic strip by Barry Humphries and Nicholas Garland.

ted
¹
, teddy boy
n British