Dictionary of Contemporary Slang (41 page)

cool
²
n

sang-froid, imperturbability. A back-formation from the adjective.

cool
³
vb

to calm down. A more fashionable abbreviated form of the colloquial ‘cool down', heard since 2000.

Just cool!

cool it, cool out
vb

to relax, unwind, defuse a situation. A

hipsters
' term which has become a common colloquialism.

coon
n

a black person. Originally (and still) a term of racist abuse common in the southern states of the USA, from ‘raccoon' (a black-faced rural pest). The word has been adopted in Britain and Australia to refer to a person of any supposedly inferior race. In Britain it is a widespread racist epithet in use by the police and other working-class whites;
egg and spoon
is the rhyming-slang version.

‘There were a couple of coons shouting at each other and it's difficult in these circumstances, I suppose.'
(Police officer, quoted in
Inside the British Police
by Simon Holdaway, 1983)

coot
n

a foolish person, idiot

cootie
n American

a head or body louse. The word was originally armed-forces slang, from the Polynesian
kuty
, meaning ‘parasite'.

‘Here you are.
No, not if it has cooties on it.
I don't have cooties!'
(
Roseanne
, US TV comedy series, 1989)

cooze
n American

a.
a woman. A fairly vulgar term, used almost exclusively by men and having overtones of ‘sex object', ‘victim' or ‘slut'.

b.
the female sex organs. The origin of the word is obscure.

cop
¹
n

a police officer. A shortening of
copper
. In Britain, until the 1960s
cop
was felt to be an Americanism and only in the late 1980s did it find its way into print, albeit in the gutter press.

‘Don't cry/Gotta go bye bye/SUDDENLY: DIE DIE/COP KILL A CREEP! pow pow pow.'
(
Concentration Moon
, written by Frank Zappa, recorded by the Mothers of Invention, 1967)

cop
²
vb

to buy illicit drugs, to
score
. A specialisation of the general use of ‘cop' to mean obtain.

‘You wanna take a walk,
You wanna go cop,
You wanna go get
Some chinese rock?'
(
Chinese Rock
, by Dee Dee Ramone and Richard Hell, recorded by the Heartbreakers, 1977)

copacetic, kopasetic
adj American

excellent, satisfactory, hunky dory. Used usually of a situation or state of affairs, copacetic is as likely to be said by a college professor as a New York
cop
. The college professor might think he is using a newish slang term; the cop may suspect that a word ending in -ic derives from Greek or Latin. Both would be wrong. This bizarre word has rarely been written down, but was recorded as early as 1919. Attempts have been made to derive it from Latin, Yiddish or even Amerindian roots, but its true origin is unknown. It has not crossed the Atlantic in its comparatively long history.

‘What's your sign, love?'
‘Stop.'
‘Well that's copacetic.'
(
Beach Party
, US film, 1981)
‘You stick with me and everything will be copacetic.'
(
The Secret of My Success
, US film, 1987)

cop a feel
vb American

to grope (someone) sexually; succeed in heavy petting. A (mainly male) teenagers' term from the 1950s, when this might be the goal, rather than a way-stage in the process of seduction.

I didn't even get to cop a feel.
‘Then when they start gettin' passionate, start coppin a few feels.'
(High-school student,
IT
magazine, June 1972)

cop a plea
vb American

to plead guilty to a lesser offence than the one which is charged to speed up the judicial process (for the prosecutors) and
avoid a heavier sentence (for the defendant). A strategy which forms the basis of plea bargaining, a peculiarity of the US legal system.

The guy copped a goddam plea and only went down for three.

cop off
vb British

to find a sexual partner, to
pull
someone. A term from the north of England that had become widespread elsewhere by the 1990s.

‘Cop off…that beautiful moment when you finally get some snog action…'
(
Just Seventeen
magazine, August 1996)

cop-out
vb
,
n

(to be guilty of) an evasion, avoidance of responsibility. This expression (almost always heard in the noun form) was American slang until the late 1970s, at which time it suddenly gained widespread currency, even among ‘respectable' speakers in Britain. The phrase arose in the 1960s meaning specifically to ‘duck out' of one's obligations to one's peers.

copper
n

a police officer. The word originated in Britain in the 1840s, from ‘to cop' as a humorous or racier alternative to ‘to catch'.

coppish?
question form American

an alternative spelling of

capeesh copshop
n British

a police station. Currently mainly a children's expression.

cop some zees
vb American

to sleep. The phrase, which also occurs in the form
stack some zees/zeds
, uses the repeated letter ‘z' as a cartoon representation of snoring.

corgis
n pl British

(a) ‘couple of really ghastly individuals'. Another in the series of joky acronyms (on the lines of
yuppie, dinkie
, etc.) coined by professionals and the media to epitomise special subgroups of the population in the late 1980s.

cork up
vb British

to keep quiet. A phrase briefly in vogue among adolescents in the mid-1960s, usually in the form of a brusque imperative.

corn
n

money. A variant form of the Caribbean form
carn
which was said to have been the favourite word of the black British boxer Frank Bruno in 1982.

corn (on the cob)
n British

the penis. Rhyming slang for
knob
.

corn-dog
n American

1.
a
swot
. One of many synonyms used in the USA (
throat, grind
) and UK (
Wendy, spod
), principally by male school students, to ostracise misfits. The reference is to a bland-tasting variety of hot-dog.

2.
(a male with) an uncircumcised penis. The expression trades on the supposed resemblance to a type of hot-dog.
Aardvark
and
anteater
are contemporary synonyms.

corn-hole
n American

a.
the anus

b.
a pinch or poke in the anal region. In this sense the phrase has been recorded since the early years of the 20th century.

corpse
vb British

1.
(in acting) to be rendered unable to speak or act by the onset of uncontrollable hysterical laughter, in rehearsal or before an audience. The word has been used in the theatre since the 19th century.

2.
to cause another actor to break down with laughter or giggling during rehearsal or performance These meanings are also true of performers in operas and musicals.

cory, corey
n British

the penis. A vulgarism used particularly by marginals and the poorer elements of the working class. The word, which is from the Romany word for thorn,
kori
, was more widely used in the 1950s and 1960s than today.

cot-case
n

an invalid or someone who has been mentally and/or physically incapacitated. A usually heartless and often derogatory expression, used in Britain and Australia typically by health-care personnel or relatives. The similar term ‘stretcher-case' has become an acceptable colloquialism, whereas
basket case
remains slang.

cotch
vb

to relax

‘I've got some pot, want to cotch round mine tonight?'
(Recorded, student, Devon, 2002)

cotchin'
n

relaxing. A vogue term since 2000 among young speakers of all ethnic groups.

cottage
n British

a public lavatory, in the language of the homosexuals who made contact there. The word and the practice were more common in the 1950s and 1960s before the liberalisation of anti-homosexual laws, but are still in evidence. The term is also used in Australia.

cottaging
n British

visiting, or hanging around in, public lavatories to make sexual contacts. A male homosexual's term from the 1950s which was still in use in the late 1980s.

cotton-top
n American

an old person, especially one with white hair.
Frost-top
and
moss-back
are synonyms.

cotton wool
n British See
on the cotton wool

couch potato
n American

a lazy, greedy person. This expression from the late 1980s describes a person whose only activity is to lie in front of a television and eat and drink. (‘Couch' is an American synonym for sofa.)

‘“Couch-potato”, according to Lindsey Bareham “is American for a television addict”: the potato, once again, is defamed as a symbol of dull lethargy.'
(Patrick Skene Catling,
Daily Telegraph
, Christmas Book Review, 1989)

cougar
n

an older woman who has or seeks a younger sexual partner or partners.
Urban cougar
is an alternative form. The American slang term became a journalistic cliché from around 2005.

‘Older women are increasingly having affairs with younger men because their bodies are looking better in their 40s, says actress Helen McCrory as she defends cougars.'
(
Sunday Telegraph
, 14 April 2013)

cough
vb British

to confess to a crime, to reluctantly give up information. A police and underworld term influenced by the notion of coughing up something stuck in the throat.

‘Look, many times I have known prisoners who have coughed to seven or eight jobs when they have been given a quick thump.'
(Police officer quoted in
Inside the British Police
, Simon Holdaway, 1983)

council
adj British

inferior, of poor quality, shabby. The term, recorded since 2000, is inspired by council estates as a habitat of poor people.

Those big gold hoop earrings make her look so council.

Compare
village

cow
n British

1a.
an unpleasant or obnoxious woman

1b.
a placid, drab or humiliated woman

2.
an unpleasant or extremely irritating task, experience or sensation, etc. In this sense the word is often used in the phrase ‘a cow of a job', etc.

Compare
mare

cowboy
¹
n

a.
a reckless or irresponsible person, especially someone young, inexperienced and/or wild. The term is typically used by older workers referring to younger ones, or by police about a delinquent loner. The term originated in the 1950s, drawing comparisons with western film heroes or with pre-war gangsters' use of ‘cowboy job' or the verb ‘to
cowboy
' to refer to a particularly messy or violent crime.

b.
British
a bad workman. The above sense of cowboy has been extended and popularised in colloquial language to refer to anyone who does a shoddy job in order to make a quick profit.

a cowboy plumber/plasterer

cowboy
²
vb British

to behave or perform recklessly. The word is now used in two main senses; to drive dangerously or to perform a professional task in a slapdash and/or hazardous way.

cowboy job/operation
n

1.
an unauthorised scheme, as in, for instance, the field of espionage

2.
British
a badly finished or skimped example of workmanship

3.
See
cowboy
¹
a

cowboy outfit
n British

a firm or organisation which specialises in shoddy workmanship or dubious business practices. The punchline of a familiar joke among disgruntled businessmen is that a doting millionaire, when asked by his infant son for a cowboy outfit, buys him the company in question.

coyote
n American

a person who preys on those illegally immigrating to the USA from Mexico. The word (literally, prairie wolf) is used in Spanish to describe unscrupulous agents, mainly Mexican, who offer to help
wetbacks
cross the border, but instead rob, defraud, denounce or even kill them. A term from the late 1970s and 1980s.