Dictionary of Contemporary Slang (17 page)

big house, the
n American

a prison, especially a federal prison. This underworld euphemism was publicised by its use as the title of an Oscar-winning film of 1930 starring Wallace Beery.

big jimmies
n Scottish

a large backside, prominent buttocks. Jimmies refers to the actor/musician Jimmy Durante, whose name was borrowed as a rhyme for pantie(s) in Glaswegian slang. The phrase big jimmies was used by Scottish singer Sharleen Spiteri in 1999.

Look at the big jimmies on those two
.

big jobs
n pl British

excrement, defecation. A mainly middle-class nursery term, in use since the 1940s.

big licks
n pl

(a display of) enthusiasm or energy, e.g. on the dancefloor. A term from late 1990s club culture.

She was givin' it big licks
.

big man on campus
n American See
BMOC

big-note
vb Australian

to boast or to praise. The term probably referred originally to large denomination bank notes.

‘I big-noted myself.'
(Mel Gibson, Australian actor, 1987)

big-noter
n Australian

a braggart, boastful person. From the verb form.

bigs, biggins
n British

something of no importance, often as a dismissive exclamation, probably from the phrase ‘(no) big deal'. Others claim a reference to the ubiquitous minor celebrity and party-goer, Christopher Biggins.

big spit, the
n

an act of vomiting

Big Swinging Dick
n

a forceful, powerful individual. The term evokes a large virile male and is in use particularly among financial traders, first in Wall Street, and subsequently in the City of London. Impressive female colleagues were known in London as
Honorary Big Swinging Dicks
. The term was sometimes disguised as
B.S.D.

big time
adj

very much, a lot

‘Have you got a lot of work?' ‘Yeah…big time!'
You're in trouble big time
.

big (someone) up
vb British

to boost someone's confidence, praise someone. This fairly widespread slang phrase of the late 1990s probably originated in black British usage.

‘She were biggin' 'im up, goin' gwaarn, gwaarn! at 'im…'
(Recorded, black teenage girl, London, March 1997)

big ups
n

praise, praising, congratulations. The noun form, originally from Caribbean speech and popularised by DJs, MCs and
hip hop
and dance-culture aficionados, has been widespread in youth slang in the UK and US in the noughties decade and subsequently.

bike
n See
town bike/pump

biked
adj British

deceived or defrauded. This item of taxi-drivers' jargon often refers specifically to the driver's dilemma when the passenger disappears into a building without paying. It was recorded in the
Evening Standard
, 22 April 1996.

bikie
n Australian

the Australian version of
biker

bikkie
n British

an
ecstasy
tablet. A diminutive version of
disco biscuit
.

bill
¹
n British

1.
a £100 note or an amount of one hundred pounds. An item of black street-talk used especially by males, recorded in 2003.

I gave him two bills to take care of it.

2.
the penis. The word was used in this sense by adolescent males in 2000.

bill
²
vb

1.
American
to depart, leave. One of many fashionable synonyms in use in black street slang, later adopted by white adolescents in the late 1990s. It is probably an alteration of the earlier
bail
. A variety of euphemisms (like its contemporaries
bail
,
book
,
jam
and
jet
) for ‘run away' are essential to the argot of gang members and their playground imitators.

Someone's coming, we better bill!

2.
British
to have sex (with). The word was used in this sense by adolescent males in 2000.

Bill, the Bill, the Old Bill
n British

the police. A working-class London term which slowly entered common currency during the 1970s, partly owing to television police dramas. The term's origins are obscure. It seems to have passed from ‘Bill' or ‘Old Bill', a mock affectionate name for individual police officers, via ‘the Old Bill', a personification of the police force as a whole, to ‘the Bill'. It can also be used in expressions such as ‘(look out) (s)he's Bill!', meaning he or she is a police officer. Coincidentally or not, in 1917 the Metropolitan Police used Bruce Bairnsfather's famous cartoon figure
Old Bill
(he of ‘If you know of a better 'ole, go to it') on a recruiting campaign. It may also be significant that when the Flying Squad was first
motorised, all their licence plates had BYL registrations.

‘A banner was draped from cell windows [at Wandsworth prison where police had taken over from striking warders] reading: support the screws – Old Bill out.'
(
Guardian
, 3 January 1989)

Bill and Ben
n British

yen
(Japanese currency). An item of rhyming slang from the lexicon of London City traders in the 1990s. The names are those of the two ‘Flowerpot Men', heroes of a 1950s children's TV puppet show.

billiards
n pl See
pocket billiards/pool

billies
n pl American

money, dollar bills. A popular term among
Valley Girls
and other teenagers since the early 1980s.

billit
n British

a marihuana cigarette,
spliff
. A term used by young street-gang members in London since around 2000.

bills
n pl British

male underpants. The term, in use in the Liverpool area in 2003, is said to refer especially to boxer shorts. It has given rise to the expression
chill one's bills
; relax, calm down.

bill up, build it up
vb British

to construct a
spliff

You built up yet?

Billy
n British

speed
. The term is a shortening of ‘Billy Whizz', the name of a character from the children's comic
Beano
; whizz is an earlier nickname for the drug.

Billy (Bunter)
n British

an ordinary member of the public, a customer. This item of rhyming slang meaning
punter
– borrowing the name of the fat schoolboy hero of children's stories – was widely used in the service industries in the 1990s.

‘Billies is our name for the clients…no disrespect.'
(Club 18–30 representative,
Sunday Times
magazine, 24 September 1995)

Billy-and-Dave
n

a friendless individual, misfit, outsider. The phrase is formed from the witticism ‘Billy no-mates, Dave all gone!'. An item of student slang in use in London and elsewhere since around 2000.

Billy no-mates
n

a friendless individual, misfit, outsider. A very widespread usage since the late 1990s.
Norman no-mates
is synonymous.

bim
n

a shortened form of
bimbo
and
bimboy

‘He wanted some bim to be skating down the slopes in a bikini.'
(
Blind Date
, TV dating show, March 1997)

bimbette
n

a silly, empty-headed young girl. A jocular diminutive of
bimbo
, popular in the mid-1980s, first in the USA and then, via magazine articles, in Britain, where it has been enthusiastically taken up and overused in the tabloid press.

bimbetude
n

combined physical attractiveness and intellectual vacuity. This humorous combining of
bimbo
and ‘pulchritude' was briefly recorded in the early 1990s.

bimble
vb

to proceed aimlessly or clumsily

‘Well done mate. What's the point in just bimbling onto a conversation, half-reading it, making an inane comment and then p**sing off? I really don't know if I can be a**ed with this anymore.'
(Online chatroom posting, March 2002)

bimbo
n

1.
a silly, empty-headed or frivolous woman. This is the sense of the word in vogue since the late 1980s, imported to Britain and Australia from the USA. The origin is almost certainly a variant of
bambino
, Italian for baby. In the early 1900s a bimbo, in American colloquial use, was a man, especially a big, unintelligent and aggressive man or a clumsy dupe. By the 1950s the word was used as a nickname for boys in England, perhaps inspired by a popular song of the time. By the 1920s bimbo was being applied to women, especially by popular crime-fiction writers, and it is this use that was revived in the 1980s with the return to fashion of glamorous but not over-cerebral celebrities. In the late 1980s the word was again applied occasionally to males, although with less brutish and more frivolous overtones than earlier usage.

‘Daryl Hannah plays an interior designer and Gekko's part-time mistress who turns her attention to Bud Fox's apartment and bed. She's meant to be a rich man's bimbo.'
(Oliver Stone, US film director,
Sunday Times
magazine, February 1988)

2.
British
the bottom, backside. A nursery and schoolchildren's word of the 1950s, now rarely heard.

bimboid
adj

vacuous, having the attributes of a
bimbo

bimboy
n

a male
bimbo
. This humorous item of journalese is a synonym for the (possibly more common)
himbo
.

bin
¹
n

1.
a pocket, usually in trousers. This example of the jargon of cat burglars was recorded in
FHM
magazine in April 1996.

2. the bin
British
a mental hospital or asylum. A shortening of
loony bin
.

‘If she goes on like this she's going to end up in the bin.'
(Recorded, housewife, London, 1988)

3.
British
a prison. The term is used by prisoners, prison staff and others.

bin
²
vb British

to throw away, reject. A sharper or more imperious version of ‘chuck it' or ‘dump it' is ‘bin it', heard since the late 1980s, especially in offices and in a broader business context.

bin-diving
n British

rummaging in rubbish in search of food or valuables

bingle
n Australian

a car crash

bingo
n British

an arrest, a successful search. A customs officers' term employing the triumphal cry from the popular game of chance.

We got a bingo finally after three weeks
.

bingo bling
n British

cheap, ostentatious jewellery as worn, e.g., by
chavs
. A synonym of
Argos bling
recorded in 2005.

BINGO seat
n British

the seat at the back of a police carrier where the laziest officer sits. The initials of the acronym, used by police personnel, stand for ‘
b
ollocks,
I
'm
n
ot
g
etting
o
ut seat'.

See also
BONGO

bingo wings
n pl British

flabby upper arms. The mocking pejorative term is typically applied to females. It was popularised by the TV comedy
Bo Selecta
in 2003 and 2004. The bingo reference may be to elderly women waving their arms at bingo sessions.

binner
n British

a vulgar person. A middle-class term of social denigration ‘used about people in tracksuits on council estates' since 2000.