Content tagged with "slang"
A slang word that’s very nebulous. It’s been defined, then co-opted by others. When used, you have to look at context, because different people use it to mean very different things. In today’s general slang environment, “based” means to be true to yourself and not care what other people think….
It means someone who is uninteresting, often due to only enjoying mainstream hobbies and interests. Some choice quotes from the Urban Dictionary: […] A person who has failed to develop their own personal tastes and therefore has adopted boring, conformist, tastes […] A person that follows the crowd…
There are lots of ideas for etymology listed on the Wikipedia page but none is definitive. In an article about hacking electronic truck management systems: Vulnerabilities in common Electronic Logging Devices required in US commercial trucks could be present in over 14 million medium- and heavy-duty…
This refers to either: I’m not sure if the correct spelling has a hyphen. I’ve seen it both ways. In The Traitor, they referred to a small London apartment owned by a gangster as a “bolthole.” From Messy: The Power of Disorder to Transform Our Lives: No wonder Jerome Wiesner, MIT’s president, felt…
Donnybrook was a town in Ireland which was home to the Donnybrook Fair. That event became legendary for alcohol consumption and subsequent fist fights. In Tip and the Gipper: When Politics Worked, it says that Ronald Reagan wrote in his dairy about getting into a “donny brook” with Tip O’Neill about…
This is military slang meaning “all good.” It comes from how they used to measure radio signal strength and clarity on a scale of 1 to 5. So, a strong signal that was distorted would be “five-by-one” and a weak, clear signal would be “one-by-five.” A strong clear signal would be “five-by-five.” “I…
Everyone knows what this means, but no one is really sure of the etymology. The word “high” is easy, in the sense that it just amplifies what comes after it . But what does “jinks” mean? It was a dice game at one time, and it’s been used as slang to mean “to move erratically” . But there seems to be…
This is an informal geographic term – it seems to be slang or patois for “hollow,” but some resources reject that and claim it has a definition all its own. It’s an Appalachian term for valley. The University of South Carolina defines it as: A small, sheltered valley that usually but not necessarily…
A British idiom that means teasing or joking. To “take the piss” is to joke around, to “take the piss out of someone” is to tease them. It’s the equivalent of the American phrase “mess with” or “screw round with.” There are many conflicting stories of its origin. I spent three days in London. I…