Dictionary of Contemporary Slang (54 page)

drop-out
n

someone who has opted out of society. In this sense the word and the concept date
from the late 1960s when
hippies
renounced capitalism, the education system, etc. to form an ‘alternative society'.

dropped on
adj

punished, reprimanded. The expression in full is ‘dropped on from a great height'; the ‘dropping' in question may refer to the weight of authority, or may be a euphemism for
shitting
. Predominantly a middle-class term, it is generally used in the context of a hierarchy.

drop trou
vb American

to take down one's trousers, usually as part of an undergraduate ritual or
hazing
, as an expression of high spirits sometimes, but not necessarily, involving
mooning
; or in preparation for sex. A
preppie
term.

drossy
adj British

unpleasant, inferior, disappointing. Formed from the noun, this term has been in use among students since around 2000.

drum
n

1.
British
a house, home or building. The word, which is used especially in police and underworld circles, may come from the Romany word
drom
, meaning ‘highway', but is possibly a back-formation from
drummer
, referring to someone who knocks (‘drums') on people's doors, either to buy or sell goods or to find somewhere unoccupied to rob. In the past the word has also meant ‘prison cell' and ‘brothel', especially in Canada and Australia respectively.

‘Go and turn over his drum while we keep him locked up here.'
(Recorded, Detective Sergeant, Canterbury, 1971)

2.
Australian
a tip, piece of information or news, probably from the notion of ‘jungle drums'

I got a drum that she was in town
.

drumsticks
n pl South African

legs. The word is used typically by young males commenting mockingly on young females. It was first recorded in this sense in English slang of the 18th century and later in black American argot of the 1940s.

dry
n British

rubbish,
shit
. The origin of this vogue term among adolescent gangs is uncertain. The term was recorded in use among North London schoolboys in 1993 and 1994 as an allpurpose adjective signifying anything unpleasant, disappointing, etc. It was still in vogue in 2006.

dry-hump, dry-fuck, dry root
n
,
vb

(to perform) a sexual activity (often while standing up) in which the partners simulate intercourse while they (or at least their genitals) are fully clothed. The term usually describes the behaviour of consenting heterosexuals rather than ‘perversions' such as frottage (where the activity is performed on an unwilling victim, as for instance in a crowded lift or train), tribadism (between lesbian partners) or frictation (between male homosexual partners). Dry root is an expression peculiar to Australian speakers.

‘You can't dry hump good in the car. Unless you're a midget.'
(High-school student,
IT
magazine, June 1972)

‘…for £20 a head the “cuddle party” is bringing together lost souls…there are strict rules: no alcohol, no nudity and emphatically no “dry humping”.'
(
Sunday Times
, 25 July 2004)

DTP
adj American

ready for fun. The abbreviation, standing for ‘down to party', can be written or spoken.

‘I thought Megan was lame, but it turns out that she is totally DTP'.

D.T.s, the
n

delirium tremens; trembling as a result of alcohol abuse

dub
¹
n

1.
a kind of heavy reggae music in which instrumental tracks already recorded are electronically altered and overlaid (‘dubbed' one on another) with vocals and sound effects to create a new piece of music. The form was popular in Jamaica and Britain in the late 1970s and early 1980s.

2.
American
a cigarette

3.
a fool, an incompetent. An almost archaic word which survives among older speakers in the USA and Australia.

dub
²
adj American

fashionable, aware. In this sense the word was a vogue term of the lexicon of the grunge movement originating in Seattle in 1993 and functioned as a synonym of
hip
and
dope
, etc.

dubbed (up)
adj British

locked up, incarcerated. A 1950s underworld usage probably deriving from an archaic use of dub to mean ‘key' or ‘lock'.
Tucked up
is a more recent alternative.

dubber 144 dubber
n American

a cigarette. The word's etymology is unclear.

dubbo
n Australian

a fool. An embellishment of the archaic
dub
meaning an awkward or incompetent person, especially a rustic simpleton.

ducats
n pl American See
duckets

duchess
n British

a woman, usually one's wife. The image is of a dignified, respectable female who is no longer young. This cockney usage is still in evidence although roughly a century old. The word is either a straightforward simile or a shortening of a rhyming-slang phrase, ‘Duchess of Fife':
wife
.

duck
¹
, duck egg
n

a score of nil or zero in sport, especially cricket. The term is at least a century old and derives from the resemblance between the written or printed 0 and the egg.

duck
²
n American

an unattractive female. The term, which may be connected to the notion of a waddling gait, is in use among college students. In the late 1950s and early 1960s the same word was used by
beatniks
as a neutral synonym for
chick
.

Compare
mucky duck

duck (out)
vb British

to leave. Used in street-gang code and its imitations since around 2010.

I'm duckin', peace.
He jus' ducked out
.

duckburg
n American

a rural, provincial town. A mildly contemptuous term.

duckets
n pl American

money, dollars. An appropriation of the archaic ‘ducats' (Venetian gold coins used all over Renaissance Europe) heard in black street argot and campus slang, and high-school slang from the 1990s.

‘He earns minor duckets in a thankless job.'
(
Clueless
, US film, 1995)

ducks, ducs, duc-duc
n pl American

variant forms of
duckets

duck's arse
n British See
D.A.

duck's breakfast
n

a drink of water. A humorous expression on the pattern of
Mexican breakfast
, ‘pelican's breakfast', etc. The geographical origin of the phrase is obscure.

duck shoot
n American

an exceptionally easy task. From the image of shooting sitting ducks.

duck-squeezer
n American

an enthusiast for environmental issues. A pejorative categorisation heard particularly on campuses, the term is part of a set including
eagle freak
,
tree-hugger
,
earth biscuit
,
granola
, etc.

ducky
adj

cute, delightful. A word which today is almost invariably used ironically or facetiously. It derives from ‘duck' as a term of endearment.

dude
n

a man. The 19th-century American sense of dude as a ‘fop', an overdressed city dweller, etc. (familiar from westerns and ‘dude ranches') gave rise to a 20th-century black usage meaning first pimp or ‘fancy man', then simply a (male) person. The term came into vogue in the 1970s and spread to Britain, where in 1973 it was briefly adopted by the
gay
and teenage milieus (appearing for instance in the title of the David Bowie song ‘All the Young Dudes'). In the late 1980s the word had again surfaced in teenage parlance, inspired by its continuing presence in black American street speech. Dude was originally a German rustic term for a fool.

‘There were more commercials…but no more crime…nothing about two dudes in Halloween masks breaking into a Bloomfield Village home.'
(
The Switch
, Elmore Leonard, 1978)

duds
n pl

clothes. A word (the plural is usually used) which is approximately three hundred years old, deriving from the Middle English
dudde
, meaning a coarse cloth cloak. The plural of the word later came to mean rags or clothes and now sometimes has the extended sense of an outfit and/or set of accessories.

duff
¹
n

1.
the backside, buttocks. Duff is a 19th-century word for boiled dumpling or pudding (surviving in the British ‘plum duff'), from which this usage was probably derived.

‘Come on you turkeys, get off your duffs and give me some info.'
(
Buck Rogers in the 25th Century
, US film, 1979)

2.
See
up the duff

duff
²
adj

useless, inferior. The word derives from a piece of 18th-century thieves' jargon meaning worthless or counterfeit, related to
duffer
which originally denoted a seller of supposedly stolen goods.

duff
³
vb Australian

to steal. A verb formed from the generalised negative sense of duff. The usage is now fairly rare.

DUFF
n

an unattractive female. The letters stand for ‘designated ugly fat friend'. Pronounced as a word, not letter by letter, this pejorative epithet has been used by younger males since around 2000.

duffer
n British

an ugly or unattractive female. An item of student slang in use in London and elsewhere since around 2000.

duffies
n pl Australian

underpants, usually male

duff up/over
vb British

to beat up. Mild-sounding terms for what may be anything from a children's scuffle to a murderous attack. The modern sense, in vogue since the 1950s, seems to derive from an earlier sense meaning to ‘ruin' which is related to the adjective
duff
.

‘Michael threatened to duff him up if he ever did anything like that again.'
(Recorded, teenage girl, London, 1986)

dufus, doofus
n American

a.
an eccentric person

b.
a foolish or gauche person

c.
a gadget, intriguing object, thingummy All three senses are typically used on college campuses. The origin of the term is obscure. It is probably an invented word with a mock Latin suffix, although there is a possible connection with
doofart
, a Scandinavian word for ‘fool'.

duke it, duke it out, duke it up
vb

to fight, brawl or box. Later formulations from the noun
dukes
, meaning fists.

duke on it
vb

to shake hands. A slang version of ‘shake on it', from
dukes
, meaning fists.

dukes
n pl American

fists. This has been part of the jargon of streetfighters and pugilists since the turn of the 20th century. It originates either in the rhyming slang Duke of York:
fork
, i.e. a hand or finger, or from a Romany word meaning palm or hand. The word is most commonly heard in the challenge ‘put up your dukes' or the phrase
duke it out
(to engage in a fist-fight).

duke someone
vb

to slash someone across the legs with a sharp instrument as, e.g., a gang punishment. Recorded among Asian youths in Oldham, UK, 2003.

dukey rope
n

a gold chain as worn by males. It is an emblematic accessory among
rap
and
hip hop
aficionados.

dumbass
n
,
adj American

(a person who is) stupid. A relatively modern extension of dumb.

See also
dumbo

dumb cluck
n

a stupid or gormless person. In origin a rustic Americanism, probably inspired by the supposed stupidity of chickens.

See also
dumbo

dumbell
n American

a stupid person.

See also
dumbo

dumbo
n
,
adj

(a person who is) stupid. The American use of dumb for stupid, reinforced by the German
dumm
, is as old as the British sense of mute. Since the 1960s the American sense has been adopted in colloquial British English. This variant word may have been reinforced by the Walt Disney film
Dumbo
(which was itself inspired by ‘Jumbo', the name of an elephant at London Zoo).