1920s Slang Vocabulary:

1. Blind Tiger (n.) an illegal bar

2. Bees Knees (n.) an extraordinary

person, thing, or idea
3. Boot legger (n.) someone who makes or
sells (liquor) illegally
4. Drys (n.) person in favor of the
prohibition of alcohol
5. Moonshine (n.) illicitly distilled or
smuggled liquor

6. Rum runner (n.) someone who transports

alcoholic beverages where such
transportation is forbidden by law
7. wets (n.) anti-prohibitionists (criticized
the alcohol ban as an intrusion of mainly
rural protestant ideals on a central aspect of
urban, immigrant and catholic right)
8. G-men (n.) the shortening for
government man
9. Speakeasy (n.) an illegal bar

Picture:

Current Slang:

10. heebie jeebies (n.) a state of nervous

fear or anxiety

11. Lounge Lizard (n.) an idle person who

spends time in lounges and nightclubs.
12. Jalopy (n.) an old car in a dilapidated
condition

13. Flappers (n.) a fashionable young

women intent on enjoying herself and
flouting conventional standards of behavior
Regular Vocabulary to add to the
dictionary:

14. Prohibition (n.) the prevention by law

of the manufacture and sale of alcohol

15. Temperance (n.) an abstinence from

alcoholic drink
16. 18th amendment (n.) an amendment to
the Constitution of the United States
prohibiting the manufacture and sale of
alcoholic beverages
17. 21st amendment (n.) an amendment to
the Constitution of the United States
repealing the eighteenth amendment

18. Volstead Act (n.) national prohibition

act enacted to carry out the intent of the
eighteenth amendment

19. WCTU (n.) the Womans Christian

Temperance Union Movement formed for
the advancement of temperance by
organizing preventive, educational,
evangelistic, social, and legal work.