Dictionary of Contemporary Slang (35 page)

checkers
n pl British

clothes. The term was employed by some teenagers in the 2000s decade. Its derivation is unclear but the same word has been a brand name used by various clothing manufacturers.

check out
vb

to die. The notion of leaving a hotel or motel has been carried over into an eternal context. An old euphemism in American English which is now international.

cheddar
¹
adj

cheesy
. A pejorative vogue term in use in the USA and UK since around 2000.

cheddar
²
, cheddars
n American

money. An expression used on campus in the USA since around 2000.

I need to grab some cheddar before we hit the bars.
‘Don't take all my cheddars.'
(Recorded, US student, 2003)

cheeba
n See
chiba

cheekies
n pl British

alcoholic drinks, especially pints of beer. The term, popular particularly in the southwest of England, was recorded in 2001. In 2004 the b3ta website reported its use in Australia.

cheese
¹
n Australian

one's partner or one's wife.

See also
cheese and kisses

cheese
²

1.
n
a cheese, the cheese
an important person. This is a shortened version of the colloquial ‘big cheese'.

2.
n
something or someone unpleasant or unsavoury, particularly distasteful bodily secretions. From the smell and texture of ripe cheese.

3.
n
,
exclamation British
another spelling and/or pronunciation of
chiz!

4.
n
a Dutch person. A humorous or derogatory term heard in one form or another (‘cheese-head' or ‘John Cheese' are alternatives) since the 19th century.

cheese
³
, cheez
n American

money, in the argot of hip hop aficionados, teenagers and students.
Cheddar
and
fetta
are synonyms.

cheese and kisses
n Australian

one's wife. This rhyming slang for
the missus
is probably the origin of the synonymous
cheese
and
old cheese
, referring to a mother.

cheeseball
n

an unsavoury or contemptible person. An allpurpose term of abuse borrowing the name of the cocktail biscuit and the notion of
cheesy
.

cheese it
vb American

to beware, hide or run away. This old phrase, normally used in the form of an exclamation such as ‘cheese it – the cops!', has become a comic cliché in the USA. It may once have been used by members of the underworld (in Britain) or it may be a pre-1900 invention by writers or journalists. In any case it is actually heard in use today, usually somewhat facetiously by adults and straightforwardly by children.

cheesin'
n American

smiling. The term is used in, e.g.,
rap
lyrics.

cheesy
adj

a.
unpleasant, unsavoury, squalid, disreputable, underhanded. The original notion of smelly cheese has encompassed a number of nuances of distaste. The word became extremely fashionable in 1990s youth slang.

a cheesy place
a cheesy thing to do
‘It was a degrading, lying, cheating piece of cheesiness.'
(John Lydon [characterising Alec Cox's film
Sid and Nancy
], BBC television, 1989)

b.
outdated and/or in poor taste in a pleasant or amusing way

cheesy quaver
n British

1.
a
raver
, in the sense of a devotee of post-1980s dance culture

2.
a
favour

The rhyming slang borrows the name of a savoury snack.

cheez
adj British

‘really good'. The term was recorded in playground use in East London in 2009.

chenzed
adj British

exhausted (or sometimes, intoxicated)

cherries
n pl American

flashing lights on a police car. ‘Hit the cherries!' is the command to turn them on.

cherry
¹
n

1a.
South African
an attractive young female. Recorded as an item of Sowetan slang in the
Cape Sunday Times
, 29 January 1995.

2.
British
the tip of a lit cigarette

cherry
²
adj

new, fresh and attractive. A term used by teenagers and young adults since the 1970s in the USA and subsequently elsewhere. It evokes both the shininess of the fruit and the figurative sense of virginity.

cherry
³
, cherry up
vb British

to blush. In playground usage since 2000.

Cheryl Cole, Cheryl
n British

1.
the dole, unemployment benefit payments. The rhyming slang, heard in 2011, borrows the name of the TV celebrity.

She's been on the Cheryl for more than a year.

2.
rhyming slang for a hole

There's a Cheryl appeared in the middle of the road.

Chevy Chase
n British

the
face
. The rhyming-slang phrase uses the name of the US comic actor, who borrowed the name of a suburb of Washington DC (itself named after the site of a battle in Northumberland, UK).

chew (someone) out, chew (someone's) ass, chew
vb American

to chastise, tell off, give someone a severe ‘dressing-down'. A colloquial expression heard typically in educational institutions and the armed services.

chi-ack, chi-ike, chiake
vb

to tease or taunt. A rather dated term derived from ‘to cheek'. It has been more common in Australia where the noun form, meaning impudence or insolence, is also heard.

chiba
n

cannabis, marihuana. A fashionable term heard among
hip hop
and
rap
aficionados since the early 1990s. It was first recorded in the 1970s and may derive from Hispanic slang.

Chicano
n

a Mexican American.
Méjicano
or
Méxicano
in Spanish has been anglicised to this word which, by the 1980s, had few pejorative overtones. It has to a large extent been superseded by
Latino
or ‘Hispanic'.

chi-chi
adj

excessively cute, pretentious or twee. The word is a direct borrowing from French.

chi-chi man
n Caribbean

a homosexual male

‘The worst thing is when you see children of three or four singing songs about killing the chi-chi man.'
(
Guardian
, 26 June 2004)

chick
n

a.
a girl, girlfriend. The word has been used as a term of affection for hundreds of years, but was readopted by British slang from America in the
teddy boy
era. It was used unself-consciously by
hippies
until the mid-1970s, since when it has been disapproved of by the majority of women. The term is now dated.

‘This year two chicks and I got enough bread together and flew to Eilat (Israel) to see what was happening out there.'
(Reader's letter,
Oz
magazine, February 1970)

b.
American also
chickie, chicken
a passive homosexual partner or sodomised victim of a
rooster
. An American prison term of the 1970s and 1980s.

chicken
¹
n

1.
a coward. In this sense the word has been in use for several centuries, although the children's taunt or exclamation was an Americanism of the early 1950s.

2a.
a young male who is, or is likely to be, preyed on by an older homosexual, in
gay
, police and prison usage.

Compare
chickenhawk

2b.
an underage girl as a sex object or partner in the jargon of pornography. (‘Chicken' was a common term of endearment, especially to a younger or vulnerable lover, in the 19th and early 20th centuries.)

2c.
a girl

3.
a game in which young people dare one another to attempt something dangerous (e.g. to stand in the path of an oncoming train or car); the chicken, or first to withdraw, is the loser. When motor vehicle races are involved
chicken run
is the usual phrase.

chicken
²
adj

afraid, cowardly

chickenhawk
n

a.
a male homosexual who ‘preys on' younger men. This American term from the
gay
lexicon was given wider currency by press articles in the late 1980s when Scott Thurston, the entertainer Liberace's lover, referred to him as a chickenhawk in revelations after his death.

b.
a heterosexual seducer or exploiter of underage girls

‘Lolita at twelve, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen – and chickenhawk Charlie [Chaplin] never far away, mistily watching the bud unfold.'
(
Hollywood Babylon
, Kenneth Anger, 1975)

chicken-head
n American

a foolish female

chicken run
n American

a teenage game in which drivers aim their cars at each other to see which one will swerve first;
chicken
is used here in the colloquial sense of coward(ly)

chickenshit
¹
n

anything worthless, petty or contemptible. In American usage the word originally had the specific meaning of oppressive minor regulations and other effects of bureaucracy, particularly in the armed forces in World War II. The noun sense is now rarer than the adjectival use of the word, except when describing paltry amounts of money.

chickenshit
²
adj

a.
cowardly, afraid. An Americanism which was adopted in Britain, mainly by school-children and teenagers, in the late 1980s.

b.
petty, contemptible. This sense derives from the American and Canadian armed-forces' expression to describe small-minded regulations, orders, etc.

chief
¹
, chief-bod
n

a foolish or obnoxious individual, a misfit. A vogue term from the language of adolescent gangs, also recorded in the late 1980s among aficionados of dance culture. The term was in use among North London schoolboys in 1993 and 1994. (‘Chief' occurs in North American usage, the ‘bod' form is exclusively British.)

chief
²
adj British

stupid or pretentious. The adjectival use has been fashionable among younger speakers across the UK since the late 1990s.

chill
¹
vb

1.
to kill someone. A ‘tough-guy' euphemism originating in US street slang.

‘Teachers report that teenagers talk about “packing a barrel” or “chilling someone with a pipe”.'
(
Sunday Times
, 31 August 1992)

2.
to relax, become calm. This shortening of the earlier
chill out
(itself adopted from American usage) became popular among British adolescents during the 1990s.

chill 92 chill
²
adj

1.
relaxed, relaxing, unstressed. Derived from the verb form, this adolescent vogue term has been in use since the 1990s.

feeling chill
a chill party

2.
American
excellent. An expression used on campus in the USA since around 2000.

Hey, your new car is chill.

chillax
vb American

to ‘take it easy'. A blend of
chill
and relax first used by younger speakers in the USA, later adopted elsewhere, even, embarrassingly, by some adults.