Dictionary of Contemporary Slang (172 page)

an American, a native or inhabitant of the USA. Yankee is the older form of the word and seems to be connected with the early Dutch settlers in Connecticut and the rest of New England. It may be a familiar form (Jan-Kees) of the common forenames Jan and Cornelius, a diminutive Janke (‘Johnny'), or an invented epithet Jan Kaas (‘John Cheese'), all applied to Dutchmen in general. Other suggestions are that it is from a nickname given to English-speaking pirates and traders by the Dutch, or a deformation of the word ‘English' by Amerindian speakers. It may possibly be connected with
yonker
, which is Dutch for young (noble-)man. In the USA Yankee is used as an epithet by which old-school southerners damn northerners and also as a straightforward designation of an inhabitant of the northeastern states.

yank someone's crank/weenie/zucchini
vb American

to mock, mislead or irritate someone. These expressions are all vulgarisations of ‘pull one's leg'.

yap
¹
vb

to talk incessantly and/or inanely. An echoic term also used to depict the persistent high-pitched barking of small dogs.

yap
²
n

1a.
incessant talk, idle chatter

1b.
the mouth

This echoic term is often heard in the form of the British working-class exclamation ‘shut your yap!'.

2.
American
a country bumpkin. This sense of the word is from an archaic British rural dialect term for a simpleton.

yard
n

1.
the penis. A usage said to be archaic by most authorities, but still revived from time to time by those in search of a robust or rustic-sounding euphemism.

2. the Yard
British
Scotland Yard, the headquarters of the London Metropolitan Police

3.
American
one thousand. Also one hundred (dollars).

4.
Jamaica. A nickname used by the local inhabitants, probably deriving from the notion of ‘my own backyard'.

5.
a home

‘This is going to be someone's yard – it used to be a morgue, unfortunately.'
(
Exodus: The Diary
, Channel 4 TV documentary programme, 12 November 1995)

6.
American
money

yard (on)
vb American

to cheat, be unfaithful to (one's spouse). A black American slang term, deriving from the notion of adulterous trespassing in someone's back yard.

Compare
backdoor man

yardbird
n American

a.
a military recruit or other person assigned to menial outdoor duties

b.
a convict, prisoner

c.
a hobo frequenting railyards

yardie
n Jamaican

a.
a member of a secret Jamaican crime-syndicate or gang, said to operate in Britain and the USA since the late 1980s

b.
a person from Jamaica or the Caribbean. In Jamaica itself the term has had this more generalised meaning, it comes from the use of
yard
to denote Jamaica or someone's home (probably deriving from ‘my own backyard').

yards
n British

a home, flat or accommodation. From Caribbean usage, since around 2000 this form has been more fashionable than the singular.

I'm heading for my yards man
.

yarko
n British

a synonym for
chav
, in vogue in 2004. The derivation of the term is obscure but it seems to have originated in East Anglia.

yarning
n British

telling stories, especially tall stories. The word, based on the phrase ‘to spin a yarn' (itself from nautical rope-making or spinning cloth), is heard particularly among adolescent girls since the later 1990s and probably originated in black usage.

‘Yarning is telling your girlfriends all about this amazing bloke you met on holiday and what a deep experience you had…when nothing actually happened.'
(Recorded, London student, 2003)

yarra
¹
adj Australian

crazy, mad. There is a psychiatric hospital at Yarra Bend in the state of Victoria.

yarra
²
n Australian

a stupid and/or obnoxious individual. This usage derives ultimately from the Yarra river, upon which Melbourne is situated, and refers either to the opacity of its water or, like the adjectival form, to a psychiatric hospital on its banks.

yass, yaas
exclamation

an exclamation of derision, defiance or provocation in black Caribbean English. It is a conflation of ‘(up) your
ass
'. The expression was briefly adopted by some black Americans and white British speakers in the early 1970s. (The Rolling Stones' use of the term ya-yas in the title of their 1970 live album,
Get yer Ya-Yas out
, was a misreading of this expression.)

yatter, yatter on
vb

to talk incessantly, frivolously or inanely. This colloquialism is a blend of
yap, yak
, ‘chatter' and ‘natter'.

yatties
n pl

girls. A term from Caribbean speech, also heard in the UK since 2000, especially among younger speakers.

She hangs out with those posh yatties
.

yawn
¹
n

something extremely boring, dull or uninspiring. A colloquial term, particularly prevalent in middle-class usage. It is either a noun, as in ‘the film was a total yawn' or an interjection, as in ‘they took us round the exhibition – yawn!'. A racier alternative is
yawnsville
.

yawn
²
vb
,
n

(to) vomit. Although particularly popular in Australia, where it is often embellished to
technicolour yawn
, the usage also exists in Britain and the USA.

yawnsville
n

a boring thing, person or situation. An American teenage expression adopted in Britain and Australia. It uses the common slang suffix
-ville
to denote a place, situation or state of affairs.

yay-yeah, yeye
n British

‘something that you are excited about or agree with'. Used by teenagers and young adults at Redbridge College, Essex, in 2010.

‘like yeye chipmunk's fire alie'
(Lyrics to
Fire Alie
by UK rapper Chipmunk, 2008)

yecch!
exclamation American

an alternative form of

yuck! yecchy
adj American

an alternative form of
yucky

Yehudi
adj British

authentic, trustworthy. A jocular item of middle-class rhyming slang using the name of the late Israeli musician Yehudi Menuhin to mean
genuine
.

yell
n British

1a.
a good joke or source of hilarity

That's a yell
!

1b.
a riotous party or good time

We had a real yell last night.

Both usages were heard among young people from the late 1970s. The first is also in use in upper-class and theatrical milieus.

2.
an instance of vomiting

He's up in the bathroom having a yell.

yellow
adj

cowardly, afraid. This now common term is of obscure origin. It is an Americanism of the late 19th century which was quickly adopted into British and Australian English. (In English slang of the 18th and early 19th centuries, yellow meant jealous and/or deceitful.) Some authorities derive the modern sense from the activities of the sensationalist ‘yellow press'; other suggestions include a racial slur on the supposedly docile Chinese population of the western US or a reference to a yellow-bellied submissive reptile or animal, but it seems more likely that it is an extension of the earlier pejorative British senses.

yellow-belly
n

a coward. This phrase, adopted by modern schoolchildren from the language of western movies, was probably coined after the turn of the 20th century. The use of the word
yellow
to denote cowardice is a 19th-century development.

yenta, yentl
n

a shrewish woman, a gossip or crone. The word is a middle-European Jewish woman's name or title (probably related to forms of the word ‘gentile'). The yenta became a comic figure in Jewish folklore, particularly in the American Yiddish theatre before World War II.

yeti
n British

a primitive, repellent or stupid person. A term from the repertoire of schoolboys, army recruits, etc. since the 1970s. The word can be used both with facetious affection (e.g. as a nickname) or to express strong contempt.

yey, yay, yeyo
n American

cocaine

yid
n

a Jew. The word is the Yiddish term for a Yiddish-speaking Jew (Yiddish being a Germanic dialect influenced by Hebrew). When used in English the word is invariably racist and derogatory.

yike
n Australian

a brawl or violent quarrel

yinyang, ying-yang
n American

1a.
the anus

1b.
the sex organs

Yang
and
w(h)ang
are both common expressions for the penis. Yinyang may be either an embellished version of these, a genuine nonsense nursery word for any unnameable thing or part (it was used in a pseudo-Chinese music-hall chorus in the earlier years of the 20th century) or, alternatively, an adult imitation thereof influenced by ‘yang' and ‘yin' as describing the Chinese masculine and feminine principles respectively (given currency in the early 1970s via the
I Ching
and subsequently in therapy and sex manuals).

2.
a fool, dupe, an inept person, a
yoyo
. This use of the term probably postdates its other sense of the anus or genitals, by analogy with most other words of similar meaning.

‘Well, if it's a yinyang you want, you've got three much better guys for this job.'
(
Vice Versa
, US film, 1988)

yip
n American

cocaine

yippy, yippie
n

a
hippy
activist, a member of the so-called ‘Youth International Party' founded by Abbie Hoffman and Jerry Rubin in 1968, the date of the Chicago Democratic Convention where they put forward a pig as a presidential candidate. This short-lived movement was a loose coalition of radicals, anarchists, libertarians and left-wingers concerned with ‘situationist' and confrontational political methods. The term was sometimes applied to other politically involved hippies and was one of the sources (albeit a heavily ironic one) of the later word
yuppie
.

‘Yippy politics, being made up as it goes along, are incomprehensible.'
(
Oz
magazine, 1970)

yitted
adj British

drunk. A neologism used by, and probably invented by, word-buff and comedian Alex Horne in 2010.

yitten, yittney
n
,
adj British

(someone who is) afraid, cowardly. The term is from northern English dialect.

Ya big yitten!

yo
exclamation

an allpurpose greeting, also indicating solidarity, enthusiasm, etc.

yob, yobbo
n British

a thug, lout, brutish youth. This is one of the only pieces of
backslang
to enter the popular lexicon; it was heard occasionally in working-class and underworld milieus from the 19th century until the early 1960s, when it became a vogue word and was extensively used in the newly-liberalised entertainment media. ‘Yobbishness', ‘yobbery' and even ‘yobbocracy' are more recent derivations, often used to refer to brutal behaviour in a social and political
context as well as in connection with juvenile delinquency and hooliganism.

‘The London International Financial Futures Exchange, terrible place, full of the most frightful yobs.'
(
Serious Money
, play by Caryl Churchill, 1987)

yo-boy
n British

a hooligan, adolescent male. The term was recorded in the south of England, particularly in the Slough area, from the mid-1980s and is probably a variation of the older term
yob
.

yock
n

an alternative spelling of
yok

yodel
vb
,
n

(to) vomit. An expression used particularly by teenagers and college students.

yodel in the canyon/valley
vb

to perform cunnilingus. The first version is a jocular expression originating with American college students in the 1960s and now heard elsewhere. The second version is Australian and British.

Compare
yodel

yoff
vb British

to vomit. An item of student slang in use in London and elsewhere since around 2000.

yogurt-weaver
n British