The London Slang Dictionary Project

For details on this project, check out the project page.

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110s - Expen­sive train­ers that cost £110 or more.

2s me – share with me; give me half

411 — Gossip

5-O — Police

A

Ah nam — tell on, rat on, tat­tle on.

Alie- syn­onym for innit (I agree)

Allow bred­ding — to allow copy­ing, to allow cheating

Allow it — stop it

Amp - Hyp­ing, being too much

Arms - to be really strong

B

Bad man - a big shot, a tough guy

Bagga­manz (or bag) — Lots, as in “a bag of people”

Bait — Some­thing that’s ‘bait’ or ‘so bait’ is really obvious.

Bare — a lot of, very.

Bars - a rap song, part of a song, as in “spit some bars” (to sing some­thing)

Bay­den — rich, finan­cially sta­ble, solvent.

Beast — an adjec­tive to describe some­thing that’s really cool.

Beef — a hos­tile dis­agree­ment that may result in violence.

Ban­gin - sick/good or a descpric­tion an attrac­tive girl

Ben­nin — to be in a state of extreme laughter.

Big­ging up – Com­pli­ment­ing

Blaz­ing — to smoke a spliff

Blod - a mate, a friend

Blud - Mean­ing your brother or sis­ter, your good friend

Boyed — Insulted (see merked)

Brap — [burrrr-AP] often used repeat­edly and loudly. A sign of approval. Roughly trans­lates as “I do approve my dear fel­low”. Prob­a­bly not a nor­folk col­lo­qui­al­ism, but some­thing you might hear on a Sat­ur­day night high street.

Bred­din - Copy­ing

Bredrin - friends

Bruv - brother, friend

Breeze — Rubish

Buff — Good look­ing, fit.

C

Chief — An unin­tel­li­gent per­son; “look at dat chief man, finkin hes all bad.”

Chirps — chat up; talk to “we chirps some buff gals last night.”

Criss — good, sharp, new. almost ono­ma­toepaeic as in ‘crisp’.

Chung — extremely good look­ing. If some­one is described as “chung”, that’s better-looking than their “buff” friend.

Chirps­ing — Flirt­ing

Clap­pin’ — out of date or worn out, usu­ally to describe attire or acces­sories, as in “man, my track­suit is clap­pin’. Gotta get down JJB Sport and buy a new one.” Also means tired out.

Cotch — to hang out, relax, chill out or sleep. Pos­si­bly derived, via patois, from the French “se coucher”, mean­ing to lie down. See also kotch.

Crepes — shoes or train­ers: “check out deez heavy crepes.” assume its as you ‘wrap your feet’ in them.

Crump — A multi-purpose term which can be an insult, an excla­ma­tion and some other things as well. It gen­er­ally means bad, but can also mean good, depend­ing on the con­text: “that ain’t good man, it’s crump” or “that’s one crump mes­sage you left there”.

Crut­terz — Mashed up, worn out “That car is crutterz”

D

Dash — To dash is to pass some­thing to some­body — but it can be “pass” in the broad­est pos­si­ble sense, includ­ing to throw vio­lently with the inten­tion of caus­ing hurt or damage.

Dred — dread­ful, ter­ri­ble, bad, cruel.

Drum — Home, hum­ble abode.

Dry — dull, bor­ing, unfunny. A bad joke might be described as “dry”.

E

Ends - Area, neighbourhood

Extra - Over the top, too much

F

Fam - Fam­ily, friends

Feds — police.

Flat roofin’ — to be over­worked and stressed, as in “I was flat roofin for my GCSEs”. Prob­a­bly comes from flat out.

From ends — one who is “from the streets” and so knows what’s going on.

G

Garms (Galms) - clothing.

Gas (or Raps) — extremely fast e.g dave is raps, he’s a gas man.

Ginuls/jinels — fixed up or conned by someone/something, or, used to describe some­thing that is a con: ” dem phones 4 u deals are a jinels”. Also to “bump”.

Giv­ing air — Ignor­ing someone

Grimy - Good, or may describe a prac­ti­cal joke or amus­ing act.

Gyal­dem - Girls

H

Heads - Peo­ple (i.e. Bare heads means lots of people)

Hood­ies - Guys on the street

Hype - Too much. Hyp­ing means act­ing in a way that’s over the top.

Hubz (or Hubby)- boyfriend

Hype - Over the top

Hench - Musclar

Hec­tic - Good

I

In-it (Innit) — Short for “isn’t it”, often put at the end of sen­tences for effect

Is-it — Really?

Inner - Describes some­one who is too nosey

J

Jack - To take, as in “He jacked my food.”

Jakes - Police on foot

Jam - Relax

Jokes - funny or enjoy­able, as in “that party was jokes”.

K

Kotch - sit and chill out. See also cotch.

L

Link - to meet some­one, to hook up with them. Also link.

Lips - to kiss

Long - a task that involves more effort than the object is worth. To be com­plex, time con­sum­ing or ardu­ous in nature

Lush - good-looking

M

Mans - Refers to yourself

Mar­vin — hungry

Merk - To insult someone

Mint - cool

Mis­sion - To go some­where quite far away, for exam­ple to com­plete a task); as in “going on a mis­sion to the [far away] store”

Man­dem - Alter­na­tive term for Boys

N

Nang - Good

Next man — Some­one who isn’t involved, a ran­dom person

Not both­ered — Some­one who is not inter­ested in some­thing, or in doing something

O

On top — when a sit­u­a­tion is out of control.

Off the hook — cool, appeal­ing, fresh, exceed­ing one’s expec­ta­tions. A phrase much over-used by Maxwell in Big Brother to express appre­ci­a­tion for his surroundings.

Older – an older kid who has your back

Owned — to be made a fool of.

P

Peng - Good looking

Po-po — Police

Pow Pow (sim­i­lar to Brap Brap) — Rep­re­sent­ing one­self well, big­ging it up

R

Reh teh teh — Etc, etc

Rents - par­ents

Rinsed - overused, used up, all gone. “That song was rinsed, I don’t like it anymore.”

Roll with — hang out with

Rude boy (or rude­boi) — a bad­man, a per­son who is hard­ened by the street

S

Safe — cool, good, sweet. (Also Safa can be the coolest of the cool, superla­tive ver­sion of safe).

Seckle - Set­tle down

Shabby — cool, smart, “da bomb”. As in “that’s a well shabby suit.”

Shook — ner­vous

Shot - to sell

Sick — inter­est­ing, cool, never seen before. The more sick some­thing is, the better.

Slipped — Went into the wrong area, where you don’t belong

Skeen - I see

Squalay — To leave

Stan­dard - goes with­out say­ing; of course

Swag — extreme, scary

Switch — to turn on someone.

T

Taxed - Jacked (stolen) or borrowed

Tell over (or told over) — to rat on some­one, to tattle.

V

Vexed — irri­tated, angry. An old word, it has gained new cur­rency, as demon­strated by Sci­ence in Big Brother to express his annoy­ance with some triv­i­al­ity or other.

W

Wag-One (wah’gwan) — short for ‘what’s goin onn’, what’s happening

Wet­tin - Run­ning

Watch — Be care­ful; dont mess with me.

Wicked — cool

Wifey — Girlfriend

Whip– car

Y

Yard - house, gar­den, where one lives and hangs out.

Younger — Sib­ling, some­one younger than you; some­one you protect

If you have other words you think should be in this dic­tio­nary, please sug­gest them here.

NOTE: I have removed a lot of ref­er­ences to guns, drugs, gang activ­ity and other poten­tially offen­sive lan­guage to ensure this site is suit­able for all audi­ences. How­ever if you would like the com­plete list (i.e. if you’re a writer or researcher) I would be happy to send it to you. Please let me know the nature of your project. For more infor­ma­tion, read the project page.