Dictionary of Contemporary Slang (43 page)

creatures, the creatures
n pl British

prison warders. A prisoners' term conveying more bitterness than the more usual
screws
.

cred
adj
,
n British

(having) ‘street credibility'. A 1980s adolescent vogue term inspired by the earlier cliché.

creep
vb

1.
American

to attempt to seduce, make unwelcome sexual advances (towards)

2.
to cheat on a man An expression used on campus in the USA since around 2000.

3.
American
to engage in unfaithful or adulterous behaviour

If you sneakin' to go see a girl, that mean you creepin'.
My neighbor at home is divorcing her husband for creeping with his secretary.

creeper
n American

a stalker, someone who makes others feel unsafe or uncomfortable. The expression, recorded on campus in 2010, is typically used of males by females.

I had to leave the party because this creeper kept staring at me from the corner of the room.

creeping Jesus
n

an unpleasantly insincere, untrustworthy or complaining person; a creep, sneak or
whinger
. This strange expression of distaste is mainly heard among middle-class speakers in Britain and Australia; it
dates, according to the
Oxford English Dictionary
, at least to 1818.

creep on (someone)
vb American

to follow or harass with sexual intentions. The term, in use in black speech since the 1990s, was more recently popularised by the MTV reality show
Jersey Shore
.

That guy kept creeping on me at the bar.

creep (someone) out
vb

to disgust, disquiet someone. Formed from the colloquial ‘creepy', the phrase is popular among younger teenagers.

‘I don't care: he creeps me out, plus he smells gross…'
(
The X-Files
, US TV series, 1996)

creepshow
adj

frightening, grotesque or merely unpleasant. An American teenagers' word, from the title of a horror film released in 1982. The adjective is an elaboration of ‘creepy' and the earlier term ‘creepsville', and has been heard among British teenagers since the late 1980s.

a creepshow party
her creepshow boyfriend

cremated
adj British

ruined, destroyed, defeated, trounced. A coinage of the 1980s combining the notions of ‘killed' and
burned
. The term was briefly in vogue among
yuppies
.

‘If the market moves in a big way we'll get cremated.'
(
Serious Money
, Caryl Churchill, 1987)

creps, crepz, crep
n pl British

footwear, especially stylish trainers

cretin
n British

someone who is craving a drug or drugs. A term used by young street-gang members in London since around 2000.

crew
¹
n

a.
British
a gang. A word used since the 1960s by street gangs, especially
skinheads
and football hooligans, to refer to themselves. It was a synonym for a band (of ruffians) 300 years earlier.

b.
American
a group of young people. Unlike the British sense which implies violence, this 1980s usage usually referred to
hip hop
artists, break dancers or
scratch
musicians.

crew
²
vb American

to belong to a gang or social group. An item of black street slang of the 1990s, the verb is formed from the earlier noun usage.

crib
n

a.
American

a home, flat or accommodation. A common term in black street slang sometimes adopted, usually facetiously, by white adolescents.

I'm going crib.

b.
a room in a student hostel

c.
American
a person from the same hometown

He's my crib.

This extended sense of the term has been heard since the end of the 1990s.

crim
¹
n

a criminal. A term heard increasingly from the late 1980s; it is probably originally an Australian usage.

crim
²
, crimble, crimbo
n British

Christmas. These are adults' nursery words (probably originally from Liverpool) which were popularised, particularly by radio disc jockeys, in the 1970s.

‘Stevie's determined to have a well wacky Crimble do – even by his standards.'
(
Just Seventeen
magazine, December 1987)

cringe
adj British

disappointing,
lame
. The term was in use among South London schoolchildren in 2010.

cringe (someone)
vb British

to embarrass, discomfit or excruciate. A mainly middle-class usage of the late 1980s.

‘Would it cringe you too much if I used my [cell-]phone here?'
(Recorded, yuppie to companion in opera-house bar, London, June 1988)

crinkle
n British

banknotes, money. This term was used by bookies,
spivs
, etc. in the 1950s and is now probably obsolete.
Crackle
was a synonym.

I need some crinkle in a hurry.

crinkly
n British

1.
an elderly person or adult. A young person's dismissive (or sometimes grudgingly affectionate) term. It forms part of the group of post-1970 vogue terms which includes
dusty, crumbly
and
wrinklie
.

2.
a banknote, especially formerly a £1 banknote. The term was used by
Sloane Rangers
in the late 1970s.

crippled
adj

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

cris, criss, crissed, crisp, kris
adj

1.
excellent, attractive

That dress is so cris.

2.
suffering from a hangover or exhaustion

I woke up feeling really criss.

In both senses the words have been in vogue since around 2000.

crispy
adj American

1a.
suffering from a hangover. A teenage and adolescent vogue word of 1988. Its provenance is uncertain; it may evoke the notion of ‘brittle' or ‘fragile'.

1b.
unpleasant, inferior. The generalised term, in use among American adolescents in the 1990s, seems to postdate the more specific sense above.

2.
smart, neat

criss-kross
n

a foolish and/or obnoxious person. A term used by young street-gang members in London since around 2000.

critter
n Canadian

an unattractive, unsophisticated male. The usage, recorded in 2004, employs the North American dialect pronunciation of ‘creature'.

croak
vb

1.
to die. An unsentimental term presumably derived from the choking death rattle or rasping dying words. The usage dates from the 19th century.

He croaked before he could tell us anything useful.

2.
to kill. An American gangster and prison term.

The guy threatened to croak his business partner.

croc(k)
n British

a stupid and/or irritating person. The word occurred in the speech of London school-children in the early 1990s. Its exact etymology is uncertain, although in early 19th-century dialect the word denoted a worthless or worn-out animal and it was later used in public-school slang to refer to a weak or unsporting fellow pupil.

crock, crock of shit
n American

nonsense, something worthless and unpleasant. ‘It's a crock!' is an expression (inoffensive enough to be used on TV) which was employed in the 1970s and 1980s to dismiss, deride or reject something such as false information. In North America the word crock, for container, is not archaic as it is in Britain and Australia.

crocked
adj

1.
American
drunk. A word used, e.g., by college students, in the 1980s. It probably comes from the old use of ‘crocks' as containers for pickling or preserving in alcohol or, particularly in Canada, as containers for whiskey. Alternatively, the derivation may be the same as that of the following sense.

2.
American
angry. This use of the word is connected with an archaic or dialect use of ‘crock' and ‘crook' to mean an old, infirm, cantankerous and complaining person.

3.
British
broken or injured, used particularly of sportsmen incapacitated through injury. From the standard English sense of crock as a potsherd, or from a dialect term for a decrepit animal.

croggie
n British

a ride on the crossbar or handlebars of another rider's bicycle. An item of school-children's slang recorded in 2003.

Come on, give us a croggie home will you?

cron(z)
n American

a gun. The term, which usually refers to a handgun, originated in black street argot in the 1990s. Its derivation is obscure.

cronk
n
,
adj American

(something) excellent, powerful. In use since 2000, the word may be an alteration of
chronic
, as applied, e.g., to high-grade marihuana. It might alternatively be related to
crunk
, but that seems to be a more recent coinage.

crook
adj Australian

unwell, unhealthy, wrong, dubious. A common term in Australia, crook is either an alteration of the archaic slang term ‘cronk' (from the German and Yiddish
krank
) meaning ill, or of crooked, meaning bent out of shape.

crovey
adj British

excellent. A term of unknown origin in use among teenagers since the late 1990s. It could conceivably be a deformation of
groovy
.

Croydon facelift
n British

a tightly scraped-back hairstyle such as a ponytail or bun. Croydon, or ‘Croydz' to its younger inhabitants, is an unglamorous southern suburb of London.

‘Kate Moss return to the catwalk in spectacular fashion during Paris Fashion Week. So it seems rather fitting that Lily Collins arrived at the Louis Vuitton show on Wednesday sporting a Croydon facelift.'
(Daily Mail, 6 March 2013)

See also
chav

crubbing
n

a less common synonym for
grinding

crucial
adj British

a Jamaican code word from the radical self-dramatising slang of
rude boys
and reggae devotees, crucial became a vogue term of appreciation in London around 1979, first among black youth and later their white imitators. Lenny Henry, the black comedian, brought the word to a wider audience by including it in the scripts of his television series, in the mouth of the character ‘Delbert Wilkins'.

crud
n

a.
anything filthy, disgusting or worthless, including excrement, any encrusted or coagulated substance and (in American English) the effects of skin infection. Crud is from the Middle English
crudde
, a dialect word related to the standard English ‘curd'.

b.
a worthless, despicable person (usually male). A word used widely in the 1960s, in place of taboo synonyms such as
turd
.

cruddy
adj

unpleasant, inferior, worthless. A word in vogue in the mid-1960s. It is now heard mainly among schoolchildren.

cruel
vb Australian