1. Bail Intransitive verb for leaving abruptly.

2. Feeling blue; have the blues A feeling of depression or sadness.

3. A buck Slang term for a the American dollar.

4. By the skin of (my/your/his/her) teeth just barely.

5. Creep (n.) An unpleasantly weird/strange person.

6. Couch Potato A lazy person who spends the bulk of their time engaged in
things that can be done while sitting on a couch.

7. Cram To study feverishly before an exam typically done after neglecting to

study consistently.

8. Crash To abruptly fall asleep, or to show up without invitation.

9. Down to earth And adjective for practicality and lack of pretense.

10. Drive up the wall To irritate.

11. For Real A proclamation of honesty.

12. Going Dutch When each person, usually in a dating scenario, pays for
his/her own meal.

13. The cold shoulder A metaphor for deliberately ignoring someone.

14. Give a ring To call someone on the telephone.

15. Hyped (adj.) A very excited state.

16. Hang out To casually gather together or spend time with someone in a
social manner.

17. Jack up An abrupt increase, typically in the price of something.

18. Knock To speak negatively, to disparage, to badmouth.

19. Lighten up To relax and take things too seriously. Typically stated as an
appeal to someone who is acting uptight.

20. Pass the buck To deflect responsibility onto someone else.

21. Piece of cake A metaphor to describe something that is easy or effortless.

22. Pig out A metaphor for binge eating.

23. Plead the fifth References the fifth amendment to the U.S. Constitution,
which allows a witness in court to refuse questions on the grounds that they
risk self-incrimination.

24. Screw up To make a mistake, i.e. mess up.

25. Sweet An adjective that describes something that is good, or nice.

26. Tight An adjective that describes closeness between competitors, i.e. a

tight competition.

27. Trash Can be used as an intransitive verb for destruction. e.g. He trashed
the car.

28. Uptight Stuffy, persnickety, the opposite of relaxed.

29. Wrap (something) up To finish or complete something.

30. Zonked Completely exhausted.Our next post will cover British slang terms
that Americans find confusing. Until then, here are some of our favorite
American slang words:

31. Pants CLOTHING RETAILERS TAKE NOTE: The Brits say trousers
The American default word for the article of clothing that covers the legs
and pelvic region seems pretty general and innocuous to English speakers in
the U.S. To the actual English, however, pants is the primary word they use
for underwear. And while American cinema and television typically writes the
word knickers for underwear into the vocabulary of British charactersthats
probably just for comedic effect since pants wouldnt induce any response
the most common British word for underwear really is pants. Americans tend
not to notice how often they refer to their so-called pants until someone from
the U.K. joins their ranks. Once that happens they begin to notice restrained
snickering every time pants are referenced in a polite conversation.

32. For the birds Imagine how this phrase must sound to someone who
doesnt understand that it refers to something that is substandard in some
respect. Is it a bag of seeds or some kind of yard ornament reference? The
Brits sometimes use the word bird, to refer to women, in the same way
Americans use chicks. So, maybe it comes off like reference to girlishness.
Who knows?

33. Bought the farm I didnt know he wanted to move to the country, is how
a British person might respond to hearing this phrase. At this point bought the
farm, is a general reference to untimely death. However, the phrase
originates from WWII-era military accidents involving unreliable aircraft
crashing into rural European countryside properties resulting in damages for
which the U.S. government was responsible to pay, thereby, buying the
farm, so to speak.
34. Jonesing To want, crave, or desire something intensely, and its noun
form, joneser, (a person who wants or craves something intensely), isnt
always apparent even to Americans. The Oxford Dictionary associates this
words slang usage with Jones Alley in Manhattan, a haven for drug addicts in
the 1960s. The unsavory drug culture connotations continue today. However
the definition of joneser, has been broadened among some circles to include
describing a person whose character is found wanting, i.e. lacking, as
opposed to someone who simply wants something desperately.

35. Take a raincheck This is an Americanism that dates back to the 1880s
and references the practice of giving baseball game ticketholders a pass to a
game that must be rescheduled due to weather. Its commonly used as a
metaphor for postponing or rescheduling a meeting between people to some
later date that is more convenient.

36. Spill the Beans British English speakers might pick up on the use of the
word spill, as a metaphor for divulging. But spill the beans, might be
obscure enough for them to assume a more specific connotation, which they
are not aware of. Needless to say, spill the beans, is an American idiom for
divulging secret information that dates back to the very early 1900s.

37. Shoot the breeze An idiomatic phrase for killing time with idle chit-chat,
shoot the breeze probably stems from old-west imagery, either cinematic or
anecdotal in origin, in which men with nothing but time and ammunition on
their hands shot their guns at no particular target.

38. John Hancock Although obscure associative references are a favorite

form of Cockney slang, its unlikely that an English person would have any
idea who John Hancock was. The reference would escape them. The name
John Hancock became synonymous with a persons signature because his
was one of the more flamboyant signatures on The Declaration of
Independence.

39. Monday morning quarterback Because quarterback is an on-field

leadership position played in American football, which the British have no
interest in, and because Monday morning references the fact that most NFL
games take place on Sundays, this is a doubly obscure metaphor. While
Americans understand that the phrase references the practice of criticizing
something after-fact-with the advantage of hindsight, an English person would
find this phrase totally meaningless.

40. Ride Shotgun Another phrase taken from Old-West folklore, riding
shotgun is a statement of both position and statusa sort of second-in-
command support position who works from a preferential vantage. The
imagery invoked by the phrase comes from stagecoaches, specifically the
person who rode in the seat next to the driver whose job was to fend off any
would-be bandits with a shotgun.
41. colloquialism - a colloquial expression; characteristic of spoken or written comm
unication that seeks to imitateinformal speech
42. firewall - (colloquial) the application of maximum thrust; "he moved the throttle to
the firewall"
43. fix - something craved, especially an intravenous injection of a narcotic drug; "sh
e needed a fix of chocolate"
44. heavy
lifting - difficult work; "the boss hoped the plan would succeed but he wasn't willi
ng to do the heavylifting"
45. biz, game - your occupation or line of work; "he's in the plumbing game"; "she's i
n show biz"
46. no-brainer - anything that requires little thought
47. crapshoot - a risky and uncertain venture; "getting admitted to the college of you
r choice has become acrapshoot"
48. snogging - (British informal) cuddle and kiss
49. wash - any enterprise in which losses and gains cancel out; "at the end of the ye
ar the accounting departmentshowed that it was a wash"
50. aggro - (informal British usage) aggravation or aggression; "I skipped it because i
t was too much aggro"
51. fun - violent and excited activity; "she asked for money and then the fun began"; "
they began to fight like fun"
52. hell, sin - violent and excited activity; "they began to fight like sin"
53. dickeybird, dickey-bird, dickybird, dicky-
bird - small bird; adults talking to children sometimes use thesewords to refer to s
mall birds
54. bunny rabbit, bunny - (usually informal) especially a young rabbit
55. bib-and-tucker - an attractive outfit; "she wore her best bib-and-tucker"
56. delf - an excavation; usually a quarry or mine
57. funny wagon - an ambulance used to transport patients to a mental hospital
58. boom box, ghetto blaster - a portable stereo
59. stinker, lemon - an artifact (especially an automobile) that is defective or unsatisf
actory
60. long johns - warm underwear with long legs
61. main drag - the main street of a town or city
62. put-put - a small gasoline engine (as on motor boat)
63. rathole - a small dirty uncomfortable room
64. rattrap - filthy run-down dilapidated housing
65. redbrick
university - (British informal) a provincial British university of relatively recent fou
nding;distinguished from Oxford University and Cambridge University
66. Ritz - an ostentatiously elegant hotel
67. security blanket - anything that an adult person uses to reduce anxiety
68. shooting
gallery - a building (usually abandoned) where drug addicts buy and use heroin
69. Sunday best, Sunday
clothes - the best attire you have which is worn to church on Sunday
70. war paint - full ceremonial regalia
71. smoke - something with no concrete substance; "his dreams all turned to smoke"
; "it was just smoke andmirrors"
72. class - elegance in dress or behavior; "she has a lot of class"
73. setup - the way something is organized or arranged; "it takes time to learn the se
tup around here"
74. guts, moxie, backbone, grit, gumption, sand - fortitude and determination; "he
didn't have the guts to try it"
 75. way - the property of distance in general; "it's a long way to Moscow"; "he went a
long ways"
76. number - a clothing measurement; "a number 13 shoe"
77. enormity - vastness of size or extent; "in careful usage the noun enormity is not
used to express the idea ofgreat size"; "universities recognized the enormity of th
eir task"
78. drag - something tedious and boring; "peeling potatoes is a drag"
79. hot
stuff, voluptuousness - the quality of being attractive and exciting (especially se
xually exciting); "hethought she was really hot stuff"
80. eye, oculus, optic - the organ of sight
81. peeper - an informal term referring to the eye
82. proboscis - the human nose (especially when it is large)
83. physiognomy, visage, smiler, kisser, phiz, countenance, mug - the human fa
ce (`kisser' and `smiler' and`mug' are informal terms for `face' and `phiz' is British)
84. can of worms - a source of unpredictable trouble and complexity
85. hang-up - an emotional preoccupation
86. think - an instance of deliberate thinking; "I need to give it a good think"
87. crosshairs - a center of interest; "the war on terrorism has put Saddam Hussein i
n the crosshairs"
88. turn-on - something causing excitement or stimulating interest
89. negative stimulation, turnoff - something causing antagonism or loss of interest
90. plague - an annoyance; "those children are a damn plague"
91. bare
bones - (plural) the most basic facts or elements; "he told us only the bare bones
of the story"
92. pertainym - meaning relating to or pertaining to
93. teaser - an attention-getting opening presented at the start of a television show

.
Gonna.
Meaning: Going to.
Speech Words

637
Outta.
Meaning: Out of.
Speech Words

171
Gimme.
Meaning: Give it to me.
Speech Words

100
What's up?
Meaning: What is going on? What is happening right now?
Speech Expression Phrases
 81
Yonder
Meaning: Something at a distance; over there.
Speech Words

72
Spell
Meaning: An indefinite period of time.
Speech Words

62
Reckon
Meaning: To suppose or expect something.
Speech Words

74
Ruckus
Meaning: A disturbance or boisterous activity. A commotion.
Speech Words

62
Fetch
Meaning: To go for and then bring back. In some regions it also means something that is
cool or trendy.
Speech Words

56
Allow.
Meaning: To concede or recognize. Often used in faux-rural contexts.
Speech Words

57
Aint.
Meaning: Once a fully legitimate contraction of am not employed at least in familiar
conversation by speakers of all social classes, ain't came to be identified with less well-
educated people.
Speech Words

81
If that dont beat all.
Meaning: Something very amazing or unusual.
Southern

60
He can break rocks with a rubber hammer.
Meaning: A man who is very tough or strong.
Southern
 41
Give me some sugar.
Meaning: A proposition for a kiss or affection.
Southern

55
Shes older than dirt.
Meaning: Someone who is very old.
Southern

78
We better get on the stick.
Meaning: To begin or start a task.
Southern

81
Hes busier than a one legged man at a butt kicking contest.
Southern

74
Hes as handy as a back pocket on a shirt.
Meaning: Someone who is useless or worthless.
Southern

113
She cant carry a tune in a hand basket.
Meaning: Someone who is not skilled vocally.
Southern

143
He is so clumsy he would trip over a cordless phone.
Southern