Dictionary of Contemporary Slang (27 page)

‘Although I was bricking it, when the light came on on top of the camera, it was like this fifth gear…'
(
Evening Standard,
2 September 1988)

brickwit
n British

a fool. A less offensive version of
fuckwit
recorded since 2000.

brief
n British

1.
a lawyer. Derived from the ‘briefs', or documents containing a résumé of each case, with which the lawyer is prepared or ‘briefed'. A working-class term used since before World War II by both police officers and criminals.

2.
a passport. A word from the lexicon of drug smugglers, among others.

‘They picked him up with a suitcase full of cash and three false briefs.'
(Recorded, convicted cocaine smuggler, London, 1987)

brights
n American

intelligence, awareness. The term is a near synonym for
smarts
and is often used in the admonition ‘turn up your brights!'.

brill
adj British

wonderful, exciting. A teenagers' shortening of brilliant, used as an allpurpose term of approval since the late 1970s.

‘They are a wicked group and steam up the charts with brill singles in the US.'
(Heavily ironic reader's letter,
NME
, 8 July 1989)

‘I am having a completely utterly brill time…'
(Postcard from a 9-year-old, London, 1989)

brillo-pads
adj British

excellent. An elaborated form of
brill
, used by London schoolchildren from the late 1980s, borrowing the trademark name of kitchen scouring pads.

bring down
vb

to depress or disappoint. A black American and
beatnik
term, like the other phrasal verbs ‘come down' and
put down
, adopted in Britain in the early 1960s by jazz enthusiasts among others. The phrase became one of the standard items in the
hippy
vocabulary. The past form ‘brought down' was also used in Britain to mean suddenly depressed, especially after an initial drug
high
.

‘Don't Bring Me Down.'

(Title of song by the Pretty Things, 1964)

bringdown
n

a.
a disappointment, a depressing experience. A black American and
beatnik
term popular among
hippies
in Britain. The word implies high expectations unfulfilled, or depression following elation.

‘What a Bringdown'

(Title of song recorded by Cream, 1969)

b.
a depressing or morose person
Don't invite John – he's a real bringdown since Sally dumped him
.

bring it on!
exclamation British

a cry of defiance, encouragement or invitation, in vogue in 2004

bristols
n pl British

female breasts. A common vulgarism, from the rhyming slang ‘Bristol City':
tittie
. (Bristol City is the name of the city's chief football team.)

Britney (Spears)
n pl British beers

(rhyming slang). From the name of the American singing star.

Are you coming out for a few Britneys?

bro'
n American

a shortening of ‘brother'. An affectionate term of address used typically by black Americans to each other, and also by their imitators in other anglophone areas.

broad
n American

a woman. A disparaging term in that it is exclusively used by men and implies a lack of respect for the woman in question.
The origin of the word is not documented but is probably from ‘broad-
ass
' or something similar, denoting an accommodating woman. (Immorality is not an integral part of the meaning in modern usage.)

‘We've got Dustin Hoffman fighting Meryl Streep for a four-year-old in “Kramer vs Kramer”…Thirty years ago, the Duke would have slapped the broad around and shipped the kid off to military school.'
(
Real Men Don't Eat Quiche
, Bruce Feirstein, 1982)

broccoli
n

1.
money

2.
marihuana

Both usages, inspired by the colour of the vegetable, are popular in the argot of hip hop aficionados and on campus.

brok
adj British

broken, damaged, in disarray. This alteration of ‘broke(n)' probably originated in black dialect. It was a vogue term among teenage gangs (
bruck
[ers] is an alternative form). The term was recorded in use among North London schoolboys in 1993 and 1994.

bromance
n

a close and affectionate, but nonsexual, typically public, relationship between two males. The blend of brother or
bro
and romance, which became a media cliché after 2010, was defined by one British speaker in 2007 as ‘when two heterosexual lads are such good mates they spend as much time together as a couple'. The word, attributed to Dave Carnie, editor of the skateboard magazine
Big Brother
, was coined in the later 1990s and was borrowed as the title of a US reality MTV show in 2009.

Bronx cheer
n American

a
farting
noise made with the lips and tongue; a
raspberry
. The Bronx is a mainly working-class borough of New York City.

broom-broom
n British

a car. A nursery word sometimes used facetiously by adults.

He's got himself a new broom-broom.

brothel creepers
n pl British

shoes with thick crepe soles, fashionable among
teddy boys
and others in the 1950s (‘brothel stompers' is an American version). Brothel creepers has sometimes also denoted suede shoes or ‘desert boots'.

‘Red tiger-stripe brothel-creepers are all the rage.'
(
Tatler
, March 1987)

brother
n

1.
a friend, often shortened to
bro'
in
rap
and
hip hop
parlance

2.
British
a lesbian. Although a fairly predictable coinage, it may in fact be an ironic male response to the feminist use of ‘sister' to indicate solidarity.

‘They're all brothers in the canteen.'
(Recorded, London student, September 1995)

brown
¹
n

1.
American
the anus. In this sense the word is probably an abbreviation of
brown eye
.

in/up the brown

2.
British
a ten pound note or an amount of £10, from the colour of the banknote

3.
British
a cigarette, almost invariably used in the plural form, presumably from the colour of the tobacco

I'm going to pick some browns.

4.
British
heroin

brown
²
vb American

to sodomise, perform anal intercourse

The idea of browning really geeks me out!

brown bread
adj British dead
.

A rhyming-slang expression which probably originated in the 1960s and which is still in working-class use in London.

brown envelope
n British

a full confession. The term, used by criminals and police officers in the 1990s, derives from the phrase ‘to give (someone) a/the brown envelope' and typically describes the action of a ‘supergrass' who confesses in return for a light sentence. The envelope in question probably evokes a mysterious package (e.g. containing a note or payment).

brown eye
n

the anus. An Australianism also heard in Britain, not to be confused with ‘big brown eyes', a colloquialism denoting female breasts or nipples.

brown hatter
n

a male homosexual. A derogatory term from the 1950s, still occasionally heard. The term refers both to the idea of contact between the head of the penis and excrement and to the archaic upper-class notion that the wearing of brown hats on certain formal occasions marked out a man as socially unacceptable.

brownie
n British

a Scotch, drink of whisky. A word used by middle-class and usually middle-aged drinkers.

brownie-hound
n

a male homosexual. One of several 1980s epithets combining humour and hostility and evoking an image of a predatory sodomite (‘chasing' or ‘stealing' excreta).
Turd burglar
and
chocolate bandit
are synonyms.

brownie points
n pl

credit for good deeds, an imaginary award for virtuous actions. An American colloquialism which has caught on in Britain since the late 1970s.

brown-nose
vb, n

to flatter, behave sycophantically (towards), or a flatterer or sycophant. A vulgarism common in all English-speaking countries at least since World War II. ‘Brown-noser' is an alternative version of the noun form. From the image of kissing another person's backside. (
Private Eye
, the satirical magazine, has instituted a regular column in which the ‘order of the Brown Nose' is awarded for nauseating sycophancy.)

brown-nosing the boss
‘Now he is on his knees, brown-nosing
with the rest of them.'
(
Private Eye
, 1 April 1988)

brown trousers
n, adj British

(a situation that is) very frightening. A lighthearted reference to the terrified person losing control of their bowel movements. Now mainly middle class in usage, the term probably dates from World War II, but has not previously been recorded in writing.

a brown trouser job
Getting up in front of all those people was
brown trousers.

bruck
adj British

broken, destroyed. A dialect form of ‘broken' in the speech of the southern USA and of the Caribbean, this term passed from black British usage into general adolescent usage in the 1990s. ‘Bruckers' is an elaborated form of the same word.

bruck out
vb

to dance, especially frenetically. The phrase, heard since around 2000, originates in Jamaican usage and is a dialect pronunciation of ‘break out', in the sense of erupt, burst free.

bruck up
vb British

to beat (someone) up. Originally from black speech, the phrase was adopted by younger speakers of other backgrounds from around 2000.

Brummie, Brummy
n
,
adj British

a.
(someone) from Birmingham. From the city's nickname
Brummagem
.

b.
the speech of Birmingham

brutal
adj

excellent. A typical appropriation of a negative (compare
bad, wicked, chronic
) as a faddish adolescent form of allpurpose approval. Brutal has been recorded at different times in the UK, USA and Australia.

bruv
n British

friend, companion, fellow gang-member

B.S.D.
n See
Big Swinging Dick

BTW
phrase

‘by the way'. The initials are spoken as well as written.

bubba
n American

a young man, especially an uncomplicated extrovert. The jocular term, evoking beer-and sport-loving, possibly well-to-do
redneck
youths, was applied in the mid-1990s to US president Bill Clinton and there was a brief attempt to promote the idea of a new social category under the same name (a magazine called
Bubba
was published) along the lines of the
laddish
tendency in the UK The word originated as a ‘baby-talk' pronunciation of ‘brother' used as a nickname or term of endearment applied to young adult males in the southern states of the USA.

bubble
¹
n British
a
Greek
.

Rhyming slang from ‘bubble and squeak', an inexpensive dish of fried leftover mashed potatoes and greens. The term probably dates from the 19th century, but is still in use in London. In spite of its friendly sound, bubble is not a jocular term and can be used abusively.

‘They also call him [George Michael] the bubble with the stubble.'
(
News of the World
, 29 May 1988)

bubble
²
vb British

to weep. The term is now heard particularly in the Scottish Lowlands and the north of England. It occurred in public-school slang as long ago as the 1920s.

For God's sake, stop your bubbling, you big softie!

bubble-bath
vb
,
n British

laugh
.
Bobble hat (and scarf)
is a contemporary synonym,
tin bath
an archaic version.

You're havin' a bubble-bath, aren't you?

bubble-head
n

a version of
airhead

bubbly
n

Champagne, or any other sparkling wine

a bottle of bubbly