Dictionary of Contemporary Slang (38 page)

chump
²
vb American

a.
to cheat or dupe

The guy was chumpin' me.

b.
to steal, appropriate

First they chumped my car, then they came back for the fuckin' furniture!

In both senses the term was popular in black street slang from the 1990s. It is formed from the colloquial noun sense denoting a ‘sucker'.

chunder
vb Australian

to vomit. This term, in use among Australian
surfies
and others in the 1960s, was imported into Britain later in the decade by the strip cartoon
The Adventures of Barry McKenzie
. The writer, Barry Humphries, derives it from the warning cry ‘Watch under!', perhaps used by sailors. An alternative derivation is from ‘Chunder Loo' as rhyming slang for
spew
, from the name of a character used in advertisements for boot polish fifty years earlier. Already established in Britain, especially among young sportsmen and drinkers, there are signs that this and other Australianisms are making headway in the USA following the success of the Australian comedy film
Crocodile Dundee
in 1987.

chundergrad
n British

a university student studying for a bachelor's degree, undergraduate. The jocular alteration, using
chunder
, to vomit, was reported in the
Guardian
newspaper guide to UK student slang in 2012. According to this article the term was used typically by ‘final-year students who are painfully aware that, in six month's time, vomiting into a pint glass dressed as Santa Claus will no longer be an acceptable form of social interaction'.

chung
adj British See
choong
²

chunk
vb American

1.
to throw away, reject

2.
also
chunk it
to vomit. The term, used by adolescents, is probably derived from the earlier
blow chunks
.

Cissie chunked all over the couch.

chunker
n American

an obese or heavily built person

chunky
adj British

an allpurpose term of approbation briefly in vogue among London
mods
in 1966 and 1967

chunter, chunner
vb British

to nag or complain, especially incessantly and in an undertone. Chunter is a common form throughout Britain, while chunner is a northern and Midlands variant. The word is imitative of the sound.

What are you chuntering on about?

chutney-ferret
n British

a male homosexual. One of a set of synonymous phrases (
fudge-nudger, turd burglar
, etc.) based on the faecal aspects of sodomy.

chutzpah
n

daring effrontery, impressive cheek. The word, pronounced ‘hootspar', is via Yiddish from the Hebrew
huspah
(brazenness, audacity); it has been in use among non-Jewish Americans since at least the mid-1960s, but only appeared in the mid-1970s in Britain.

‘I have valued my fleeting acquaintance with Larry Adler over the years because it has always given me an easy way of explaining the meaning of the Jewish word chutzpah to those who have not met this valuable term. As far as I can define it briefly, it's an elegant opportunism, so fast as to deceive the eye, and so successful as to be totally disarming. Or what cockneys call bloody cheek.'
(Miles Kington,
Independent
, 27 January 1989)

cig, ciggie
n

a cigarette

circle the drain
vb

to be on the point of failing or dying. A term used in medical and business slang.

-city
combining form American

a situation or a state of affairs, as in
barf city
(something revolting) or
edge city
(anxiety)

clack
n
,
vb British

(to) chatter, talk incessantly. A mainly working-class word, popular in the north of England. ‘Clack on' is an alternative verb form.

clackers
n pl Scottish

balls
(in both the literal and figurative slang senses). The word, recorded in the early 1990s, was the name of a fashionable children's toy of the 1970s consisting of two plastic balls on a string wound round the fingers and knocked together.

Conkers
is a synonym of similar provenance.

clag
n British

bad weather. A rural dialect term for clay or mud, clag was first adopted in airforce slang to refer to thick cloud or fog. More recently, TV weather forecasters have employed the term lightheartedly.

Claire Rayners
n pl British

trainers
. The rhyming-slang phrase, first recorded in the late 1990s, borrows the name of the broadcaster and agony aunt.

clam
n American

1.
a dollar. Invariably used in the plural, this is a racier alternative to
buck
, etc.

2.
the vagina

clambrain
n American

a foolish or stupid person. The image evoked is of someone with the brain power of a mollusc.

clam jam
n American

the female equivalent to the
cock block

clamped
adj

(to be) caught out

clam up
vb

to keep quiet, refuse to speak. Originally an Americanism (clams are a popular oyster-like seafood), the term is now widespread.

clang
vb British

to commit a gaffe, make a mistake. A back-formation from the colloquial phrase ‘(drop) a clanger', which shares the meaning of the shortened form.

clanking
adj British

stinking. An item of student slang in use in London and elsewhere since around 2000. Synonyms are
bogging, minging
.

clanking for it
adj British

sexually aroused, desperate for sex. In playground and campus usage since 2000, the phrase is an alternative to the contemporary
arching for it
and the earlier ‘
gagging
for it'.

clap, the clap
n

venereal disease, gonorrhoea. The only widespread slang term for the condition, this word was derived from French
(
clapoir
, meaning a swelling, or
clapier
, meaning a brothel) in the late 16th century. It became a taboo, and therefore slang, term only in the 19th century. The specific reference to gonorrhoea had widened to include other venereal diseases by the 1950s.

‘For while he nibbles at her Am'rous Trap She gets the Mony but he gets the Clap.'
(
Poor Pensive Punck
, poem by John Dryden, 1691)

‘“Ain't got the clap have you?”

“
God no! It's just a sense of cosmic boredom”.'
(Robert Crumb, cartoon in
Head Comix
, 1968)

clapped
¹
, clapped out
adj

worn out, exhausted. The second of these essentially British terms has been adopted in the USA since the 1950s. They are normally applied to machines, particularly cars, although they derive originally from the idea of a person debilitated by the
clap
(venereal disease). As the origin has been forgotten, the terms are now colloquial rather than vulgar.

clapped
²
, clapped up
adj

infected with venereal disease, suffering from gonorrhoea. These rather old-fashioned forms have largely been replaced by ‘got the clap'.

clappin
adj British

a.
worn out, exhausted

b.
outdated, unfashionable

A vogue term in both senses among UK adolescents since around 2000. It is probably based on the older
clapped out
.

clart, clarts
n British

trouble, a mess. This dialect term from the north of England and Scotland – probably a variant of ‘clot' or ‘clod' (of mud, slime, excrement) – is heard occasionally in other parts of Britain, usually in expressions such as ‘too much faff and clart' or ‘(dropped) in the clarts'. ‘Clarty', the dialect adjective meaning dirty, sticky and messy, is also still heard.

class
adj British

excellent. Deriving from the colloquial ‘classy' and top-class, class act, etc., this use of the word has been a vogue term among younger speakers since the mid-1990s – a successor to
wicked
and
safe
and a contemporary synonym of
sound
or
the bollocks
.

clat
n British

a dirty and/or obnoxious person. The term, which is related to the dialect
clart
, is heard particularly in the Scottish Lowlands and the north of England.

‘The little clat gets right up my nose.'
(Recorded, middle-aged woman, York, 1995)

clattering
n British

a kicking. The term is from the jargon of football fans and refers not to kicks in the course of play, but a personal attack by one or more players during a match and, by extension, also by brawlers, hooligans, etc., off the field.

Clematis
n British

the clitoris. The jocular alteration has been popularised and was possibly coined by
Viz
magazine.

clemmed, clemped
adj British

starving, hungry. An old term which is a survival of northern dialect (from the Middle English
clemmen
, meaning ‘to pinch'). Clemmed is still heard occasionally among older speakers (and, incidentally, in the TV soap opera
Coronation Street
); clemped has enjoyed a revival among younger speakers since 2000, sometimes in the form ‘clemped dief' – ‘to death'.

click
¹
n American

a clique, a small group of friends or confederates. A favourite word with high-school and college students.

click
²
vb British

1.
to catch someone (doing something they shouldn't)

I clicked him sconned on peeve. [I caught him drunk]

2.
to make contact with a potential romantic or sexual partner,
score, pull
.

See also
get a click

clink
n

1a.
jail, prison. The most common (in Britain) and least racy synonym; it was the name of a prison on Clink Street in South-wark, London, from at least 1509 until the 18th century. The term may also be inspired by the sounds of metal keys, doors and manacles.

You'll end up in the clink.

1b.
British
detention, in schoolchildren's jargon

I'm in Saturday morning clink again.

2.
British
money, change. Like
chink
it is imitative of the sound of coins.

I'm a bit short of clink.

clip
vb

1.
to take (someone's) money dishonestly by sharp practice, deceit or fraud. The word is a euphemism from the jargon of
tricksters, with the image of ‘trimming' someone of their ‘excess' wealth.

2.
British
to hit someone a glancing blow with an open hand, to smack

I clipped him round the ear.

3.
American
to kill, execute. An item of black street slang from the early 1990s. One of many short ‘tough-guy' euphemisms such as
tag, cap
,
off
, etc.

clip artist
n American

a fraudster, cardsharp or confidence trick-ster. A dated term derived from the verb
clip 1
.

clip joint
n

originally a club or bar which employs hostesses who encourage clients to buy them (inevitably hugely overpriced) drinks in the expectation, rarely fulfilled, that their generosity would be reciprocated with sexual favours. The phrase may now be applied to any overpriced, low-quality establishment.
Clip
, like ‘trim', is an old euphemism for ‘relieve someone of their money'.

clipping
n British

a particular kind of cheating in which a prostitute takes a client's money but does not provide sex in return. A specific sense of the more general slang meaning of
clip
.

clobber
n British

clothes, accessories or equipment. The word is now so widespread as to be colloquial rather than slang. It dates from the 19th century but its origin is obscure; it may be an invention, a dialect form of ‘clothes', or from the Yiddish
klbr
.

clock
vb British

1.
to notice or see, to look at. A working-class usage widespread, especially in southeast England, since World War II. The middle-class fashion since the late 1980s for imitating working-class speech brought the word into some prominence and greater respectability. It probably derives from the obsolete use of ‘clock' to mean a person's face.