British Slang Words and Phrases:

1. All mouth and no trousers — All talk, no action, i.e. Braggadocio.

“Don’t listen to him. He’s all mouth and no trousers.”
2. Argy-bargy — An argument or heated confrontation.
“I’m not interested in getting into an argy-bargy over it.”
3. Bang to rights — Equivalent of ‘dead to rights.’ Caught in the act. Caught red-handed.
“Police caught Jim Bang to rights outside the bookie’s.”
4. Bent as a nine-bob note — Metaphor for dishonesty or corruption that references the nine-
schilling (bob) note, which does not exist and must therefore be counterfeit.
“That street vendor selling watches is bent as a nine-bob note.”
5. Blinding — An adjective for excellence.
“The Prime Minister gave a blinding inauguration speech.”
6. Chuffed — To be very pleased about something.
“Reginald was chuffed about the football match.”
7. Conk — A blow to the head or nose.
“He conked his head on the doorframe on his way out.”
8. Corker — Someone or something that/who is outstanding. A standout.
“Great job, Jim. You’re a real corker.”
9. Do one’s nut — To become enraged. Presumably a reference to doing an impression of a
madman (nut). “I gave him the news, and a he did his nut.)
“When I gave Reginald the news, he did his nut, and went home.”
10. Damp Squib — Something that fails on all counts. Reference to small explosive charges that
fail when wet.
“It looks like the new midfielder is a damp squib.”
11. Doofer — An unnamed object. Thing, thingamajig, whatchamacallit.
“What is that doofer?”
12. Earwig — To eavesdrop.
“Don’t earwig on my personal phone calls.”
13. Eating Irons — Cutlery, eating utensils.
“Do we have any clean eating irons?”
14. Fortnight — Very common British slang term for a period of two weeks.
“I’ll be back in a fortnight to check on you.”
15. Fence — n. A person who deals in stolen property. v. To pawn off stolen property to a buyer.
“Take this watch to the fence and see what you can get.”
16. The Fuzz — The Police.
“Don’t let the fuzz catch you.”
17. Gaffer — Boss, foreman, or employer.
“Let’s ask the gaffer if we can go on break.”
18. Gutted — A state of extreme despair.
“John was gutted that his girlfriend dumped him.”
19. Go to Spare — To become angry, frustrated, distressed, or enraged.
“If his mood is off, he might go to spare.”
20. Hard Cheese — An expression of bad luck.
“Hard cheese if he does. We’re entitled to our break.”
21. Honk — To vomit.
“Reginald coughed so hard he honked all over the pub.”
22. Idiot box — A television set.
“I think I’ll spend the night in front of the idiot box.”
23. Ivories — Teeth, piano keys, or dice.
“He sure knows how to tickle the ivories.”
24. Jock — A nickname for John in Scotland but widely used as a Scottish everyman term like,
dude, or mack, or buddy. It can be pejorative depending on context.
“Listen Jock, I need your group gone in the next five minutes.”
25. Joe Bloggs — Equivalent to Joe Blow. A typical, average, or unremarkable man.
“I don’t know who he was. Just some Joe Bloggs.”
26. Kerfuffle — A skirmish or fight caused by differing views.
“He and I got into a kerfuffle over politics.”
27. Knees up — Adjective for liveliness.
“This party is knees up.”
28. Know One’s Onions — To be well versed on a subject.
“Go ask John. He know his onions about cars.”
29. Lag — A convict, especially one who served or is serving a long prison sentence.
“The old lag can’t find a job so he sits at the pub and drinks.”
30. Laughing Gear — A metaphor for one’s mouth.
“Shut your laughing gear, Reginald.”
31. Marbles — Wit, intelligence, or good sense.
“Have you lost your marbles?”
32. Miffed — Upset or offended.
“He got all miffed about the football match.”
33. Nob — Person of high social status, snob.
“Some nob in a fancy car splashed me.”
34. Numpty — An incompetent or unwise person.
“You and your numpty friend should apologize.”
35. Odds and Sods — Equivalent to ‘odds and ends.’ Miscellaneous.
“You lot got first picks and left with nothing but odds and sods.”
36. Old Bill, The Old Bill — A metaphor for a policeman, or the police in general.
“Old Bill broke up the street fight.”
37. Paddy — A temper tantrum.
“Don’t throw a paddy about your team losing.”
38. Paste — To hit, punch, or beat thoroughly.
“You can’t just paste every Joe Bloggs who insults you.”
39. Penny-dreadful — A cheap sensationalist magazine. Tabloid.
“I read about alien abductions in the penny-dreadful.”
40. Queer someone’s pitch — To spoil someone’s efforts.
“I was about to close the deal until you queered my pitch.”
41. Richard the Third — Cockney rhyming slang for a ‘turd.’
“Careful not to step on Richard the Third.”
42. Rozzer — A policeman.
“A rozzer walking past overheard cries for help.”
43. Skive — Feigning illness to get out of going to work or school.
“He tried to skive off school but his mom was wise to the game.”
44. Skint — Without money, broke, bankrupt.
“Sorry I can’t join you this time. I’m skint.”
45. Spawny — Lucky.
“That was a spawny outcome for you.”
46. Steaming — The state of extreme drunkenness, or extreme anger.
“A steaming drunk Reginald, hobbled out of the pub.”
47. Take the mickey — To tease or mock.
“Don’t get so upset when someone takes the mickey.”
48. Tosh — Nonsense.
“It’s a lot of tosh to act like that.”
49. Wag off — To waste time, or play truant.
“I had nothing to do but wag off at work.”
50. Warts and all — Equivalent to ‘as is.’ Taken to include all negative characteristics.
“Alright, I’ll keep you, warts and all.”
American Slang Words and Phrases:

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
characters—that’s probably just for comedic effect since ‘pants’ wouldn’t
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
doesn’t 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 didn’t 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), isn’t
always apparent even to Americans. The Oxford Dictionary associates this
word’s 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. It’s 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, it’s 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 person’s 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 American’s 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 status—a 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.