The Oxford Dictionary of Modern Slang

Slang is a colourful, alternative vocabulary. It bristles with humour, vituperation, prejudice, informality: the slang of English is English with its sleeves rolled up, its shirt-tails dangling, and its shoes covered in mud.

The Oxford Dictionary of Slang presents a panoramic view of twentieth-century English slang - from Britain, North America, Australia, and elsewhere in the English-speaking world - from World War I until the present day.

The Oxford English Dictionary identifies three types of slang. The first to which the term 'slang' was applied, in the mid-eighteenth century, was 'the special vocabulary used by any set of persons of a low and disreputable character', the thieves' cant or patter of earlier centuries. This vein of slang thrives today in the vocabulary of the underworld, street gangs, drug-trafficking.

But soon after the mid-eighteenth century, the meaning of 'slang' broadened to include 'the special vocabulary or phraseology of a particular calling or profession': printers' slang, costermongers' slang, even the slang vocabulary of doctors and lawyers.

Both of these types of slang served many purposes, but the predominant one was as a private vocabulary binding together members of a subculture or social group, conferring upon them an individuality distinct from the rest of the community.

Finally, in the early years of the nineteenth century, the term 'slang' came to be applied much more generally to any 'language of a highly colloquial type, considered as below the level of standard educated speech, and consisting either of new words or of current words employed in some new special sense'.

Today slang covers all three of these areas: not all colloquial or informal vocabulary is slang, but all slang is colloquial or informal.

John Ayto and John Simpson, from their introduction to the Oxford Dictionary of Slang.

Here are some of the AskOxford team's favourite entries from the Oxford Dictionary of Slang...

phishing noun Getting people's details, esp. credit card details, through fake websites or e-mails. 2001-. [A respelling of fishing.]

metrosexual noun A heterosexual male whose attention to his appearance is likened to that of a homosexual. 1994-.

blog noun An Internet website containing an eclectic and frequently updated assortment of items of interest to its author. 1999-. [Shortening of weblog.] So blogger, noun.

bootylicious adjective orig US 1 A term of commendation of rap lyrics. 1992-. 2 Very sexually attractive. 1994-. [Blend of booty buttocks and delicious.]

five-finger discount noun US, euphemistic, mainly CB users' The activity or proceeds of stealing or shoplifting. 1966-. LIEBERMAN & RHODES The perfect 'gift' for the 'midnight shopper' looking for a 'five-finger discount' (1976).

Sweeney noun Also Sweeny. Brit (A member of) a police flying squad. 1936-. N. LUCAS By the way, don't bother to call the Sweeny (1967). [Short for Sweeney Todd, rhyming slang for 'flying squad'; from the name of a London barber who murdered his customers, the central character of a play by George Dibdin Pitt (1799-1855).]

underfug noun Brit, public schools' An undervest; also, underpants. 1924-. B. MARSHALL The matron kept everybody's spare shirts, underfugs and towels and dished clean ones out once a week (1946). [From under- + fug noun, stuffy atmosphere.]

white hat noun 1 US naval An enlisted man. 1956-. 2 orig US A good man; a hero. 1975-. GUARDIAN WEEKLY His judgments of the men he dealt with. . . . The white hats are Truman [etc.]. A prime villain is Britain's postwar foreign secretary (1978). [In sense 2, from the white hats traditionally worn by the 'goodies' in Western films.]

droog noun A young ruffian; an accomplice or henchman of a gang-leader. 1962-. TIMES LITERARY SUPPLEMENT How long ago it seems since the New York Times referred to the spray-can droogs of the subways as 'little Picassos' (1984). [An adaptation of Russian drug friend, introduced by Anthony Burgess in A Clockwork Orange.]

droopy drawers noun jocular An untidy, sloppy, or depressing woman or man. 1939-. A. GILBERT The neighbours round about thought what bad luck on that charming Mr. Duncan having a droopy-drawers for a wife (1966). [drawers underpants.]

blatherskite noun mainly US (orig Brit dialect) Also bletherskate. 1 A noisy, talkative person, esp. one who talks utter rubbish. c.1650-. 2 Foolish talk, nonsense. 1825-. C. WILSON For Nietzsche . . . there is no such thing as abstract knowledge; there is only useful knowledge and unprofitable blatherskite (1956). [From blather, blether foolish chatter + skite, corrupt use of skate, the fish (in Scottish used contemptuously).]

agricultural adjective Of a cricket stroke: ungraceful, clumsy. 1937-. TIMES Keith . . .took an agricultural swing at Wardle and was bowled (1955). [From the unsophisticated strokeplay associated with village cricket.]

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