Dictionary of Contemporary Slang (80 page)

hissie-fit, hissie
n

a bout of hysterical anger, agitation, despair, etc. The term is used particularly by women and
gay
males and is obviously derived from the standard term hysterical.
Fanny-fit
is a similar phrase recorded in British speech from the 1990s.

‘Julian's having a hissie-fit.'
(
Concierge
, US film, 1993)

hit
¹
n

1a.
a puff on a cigarette or pipe containing marihuana or another illicit drug

Give me a hit on that joint.

‘
It opens my head, opens my membranes. If you get a good hit, maybe you go comatose for ten minutes.'
(Crack user,
Guardian
, 5 September 1989)

1b.
a single dose of a drug, particularly LSD

Both uses date from the late 1960s and are still current.

2.
a killing, assassination. An underworld euphemism from the USA since the early 1970s, used or understood all over the English-speaking world. The term invariably refers to a professional murder.

hit
²
vb

1.
to assassinate or murder. The verb probably postdates the noun form.

2.
American
to serve a drink to. Usually in a form such as ‘hit me again with one of those'.

3.
to solicit money from, borrow from. A more robust version of the colloquial ‘touch'. A racier and more recent American version is ‘hit someone up (for)'.

He hit me for $20.

hit it
vb

to have sex. In this sense, the term was used among aficionados of London dance-floor culture in the 1990s. It is probably based on the notion of ‘scoring a hit' or of ‘hitting it off'.

‘When they all got together afterwards, I'm sure Max thought he was going to hit it with Lisa.'
(Recorded, club habitué, London, April 1996)

hit-man
n

a professional killer, a paid assassin. This euphemistic term from the jargon of the American underworld and law enforcers had spread to other English-speaking areas by about 1972.

hit on
vb American

a.
to ‘chat up', attempt to seduce, accost sexually or romantically

b.
to aggress, bully or criticise

c.
to importune or beg for money

All senses of the term became popular in the 1980s, especially among teenagers. The unorthodox verb form probably originates from an immigrants' error, or a deliberate elaboration by black speakers.

hit the bricks
vb American

a more fashionable version of the colloquial ‘hit the road' and later ‘hit the street' (to get going or appear in public). Originally
the phrase specifically referred to released prisoners.

hit the hay/sack
vb

to go to bed, lie down to sleep. Both expressions have been widespread in English since the turn of the 20th century and probably originated in tramps' jargon.

hit the toe
vb Australian

to depart, leave. Although the coinage seems transparent, Partridge records it as rhyming slang for
go
and attributes it to the
surfie
subculture.

hit up
vb

1.
to inject oneself with an illicit drug, particularly heroin. An American addicts' expression of the 1960s, since adopted elsewhere. It may be used intransitively as in ‘she's hitting up', or transitively as in ‘hit up some smack'.

2. hit (someone) up
a racier version of
hit
in the sense of borrow (money) from

hizzle
n American

a home, residence. A vogue term in
rap
and
hip hop
parlance since 2000, using the
-izzle
suffix.

HML
phrase

an expression of despair, often used self-pityingly when overwhelmed, harassed. The initials, usually written but occasionally verbalised, stand for ‘(I) hate my life'.

ho
n

a.
a female prostitute, promiscuous and/or immoral woman

b.
a female

The southern US and Afro-Caribbean pronunciation of
whore
became one of the best-known items of hip hop and
rappers'
slang, moving, like many pejorative terms in transgressive subcultures, to take on first ironic, then straightforwardly neutral or appreciative connotations before crossing over into the generalised slang of adolescents in all English-speaking areas.

hobo
n American

a tramp or vagrant. The word is now a common colloquialism and no longer considered to be slang by most speakers. Authorities disagree on the origin of the term; it may be from a greeting (‘Ho! Boy' or ‘Ho Bro!') or refer to ‘hoe-boys' (agricultural migrant workers).

hock
vb

to pawn. The word comes from the Dutch
hok
, the literal meaning of which is ‘hook'. In 19th-century Dutch slang,
hok
meant both debt and the clutches of creditors or the law, whence the English term.

hockey, hockie
n

a.
an act of (hawking and spitting)

b.
a gob of spit

c.
a piece of any disgusting substance, such as excrement. The term is imitative either of clearing the throat and spitting or of a choking reaction to a disgusting sight.

d.
American
nonsense, rubbish. A generalisation of the previous senses.

hockshop
n

a pawnshop, pawnbroker's. An expression (from
hock
) used all over the English-speaking world.

hog
n

1.
a motorcycle. A word popular with American Hell's Angels of the late 1950s and 1960s and their British and Australian imitators. The word originally referred specifically and affectionately to Harley Davidsons, the Hell's Angels' preferred machines. (Hog is the standard American term for pig.)

2.
American
an angry or unpleasant woman. An Americanism which, unlike the similar
pig
or
dog
, has not been adopted in other English-speaking areas.

3. PCP
,
angel dust
. This disorienting narcotic, phencyclidine, is an animal tranquilliser used on pigs, among other species.

hogans
n pl American

female breasts. The word is probably an ignorant or facetious alteration of
ogens
.

‘Look at them hogans!'
(
Herman's Head
, US TV comedy, 1993)

hog-tied
adj American

incapacitated, rendered helpless. Hogs (the standard American term for pigs) were hobbled by having all four legs bound.

hog-whimpering
adj British

a.
abject, bestial, helpless

b.
abjectly or bestially drunk

Old Ollie was absolutely hog-whimpering last night.

A colourful term popular among
Sloane Rangers
in Britain from the mid-1970s. The word is probably an original public-school or army coinage, but may echo the many now obsolete slang terms containing the word ‘hog' that invoke wallowing, snorting and other excessive behaviour: expressions such as
hog-wild
, ‘hog-rubber' (a peasant), ‘hog-fat' (a slovenly person), etc.

hog-wild
adj
,
adv

uncontrolled, unrestrained in behaviour. A folksy Americanism from the turn of the 20th century which is normally heard in the form of ‘go hog-wild' or ‘run hog-wild'. (Hog is the standard American term for pig.) The term was immortalised as the title of a Laurel and Hardy short film in 1930.

ho-hum
n
,
adj
,
vb

(something) dull, tedious, of mediocre quality or little interest. When used by Americans this expression usually denotes boredom, by British speakers it may rather suggest uncertainty. In American English the adjective occasionally doubles as a noun or, more rarely, a verb (meaning to be bored by or to declare something boring).

a big ho-hum
They ho-hummed the lecture course.

hoick
vb British

to spit or to clear the throat and spit. The word is a more echoic version of the standard English ‘hawk'.

He hoicked over the fence into the garden.

hoist
vb

1.
to steal, particularly by shoplifting or picking a pocket. The term is around 200 years old in underworld jargon, and was still in use in 2004.

He managed to hoist a couple of watches
.

2.
American
to raise and down a drink, usually beer. A masculine term with overtones of heroic or hearty drinking sessions. (The word may occasionally refer to eating, as in ‘hoist some oysters'.)

What say we go hoist a few?

hoisty
adj British

stolen, illicit,
bent
or
hot
. The term may have originated in TV scripts (based on the authentic slang senses of hoist and by analogy with
hooky
), rather than in underworld usage. It was featured in the Simpson and Galton comedy
Over the Rainbow
, 1993.

hoity-toity
adj

affectedly arrogant, condescendingly superior. A 19th-century term which derives from the earlier ‘highty-tighty' (meaning ‘high and mighty') and is influenced by haughty.

hokey
adj American
phoney, counterfeit, of dubious quality, third-rate. A back-formation from ‘hokum'.

holding
adj American

in possession of illicit drugs. A legalistic, officialese term, also adopted by drug-abusers.

When they found him he was holding but they had to let him go on a technicality.

hold it down
vb

1.
British
to act in a commendably restrained manner, to ‘stay
cool
'. The phrase occurs in the language of teenage gangs and was recorded in use among North London schoolboys in 1993 and 1994.

2.
to shut up, keep silent. A term used by young street-gang members in London since around 2000.

hole
n

1a.
the anus or vagina. The word is barely a euphemism but a simple description of an orifice, in common use at least since Chaucer's
Canterbury Tales
(begun sometime in the later 1380s).

‘Dark was the night as pitch or as coal and at the window out she [Alison] put her hole.'
(“The Miller's Tale”,
Canterbury Tales
, Geoffrey Chaucer)

1b.
the mouth. In this sense the word is often used by schoolchildren, especially in the phrase ‘shut your hole!'.

2a.
an unpleasant place.
Rat-hole
is a more vivid modern embellishment.

2b.
a one-person cell, a place of solitary confinement

3.
an abbreviation of
asshole
(in the figurative sense of a foolish/obnoxious individual). This term, originating in North American usage, was adopted by British adolescents in the later 1990s.

hollage
n
,
adj British

(something) hilarious

holler
¹
n
a response, telephone call. Probably originating in US speech, the term has been fashionable since 2000 in all English-speaking areas.

holler
²
,
holler back (at)
vb American

to respond to, return a greeting or telephone call. One of the most common slang expressions in adolescent usage as recorded in a number of surveys since 2000.