1、NTCsDictionary ofAmerican SlangandColloquialExpressionsthird editionRichard A. Spears, Ph.D.Copyright 2000 by The McGraw-Hill Companies. All rights reserved. Manufactured in the UnitedStates of America. Except as permitted under the United States Copyright Act of 1976, no part of thispublication may
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10、esulting therefrom.McGraw-Hill has no responsibility for the content of any information accessed through the work.Under no circumstances shall McGraw-Hill and/or its licensors be liable for any indirect, incidental,special, punitive, consequential or similar damages that result from the use of or in
11、ability to use thework, even if any of them has been advised of the possibility of such damages. This limitation of lia-bility shall apply to any claim or cause whatsoever whether such claim or cause arises in contract, tortor otherwise.DOI: 10.1036/0071392041 abc McGraw-Hill ContentsAbout This Dict
12、ionaryvTerms and SymbolsxiPronunciation GuidexivDictionary1Phrase-Finder Index485McGraw-Hills Terms of UseThis page intentionally left blank.vAbout This DictionaryThe third edition of this dictionary contains more than 800 new expres-sions. These comprise the expressions that have appeared in the la
13、st fewyearsincluding many new expressions used in everyday talk on thestreets and the college campus. The “Phrase-Finder Index” has beencompletely revised to make finding the location of new phrasal entriesin the dictionary easier. What do we expect of slang in the year 2000and beyond? Much of the s
14、ame: sex, scatology, rudeness, and cleverwordplay.This dictionary is a collection of slang and colloquial expressionsin frequent use in the United States in the twentieth century. It con-tains expressions that are familiar to many Americans and other expres-sions that are used primarily within small
15、 groups of people. The entriesrepresent the language of the underworld, the nursery, the college cam-pus, California beaches, urban back streets, and Wall Street. We hearfrom prisoners, surfers, junkies, Valley Girls, blacks, weight lifters, andjust plain folks. Fad words, metaphors, wordplay, and v
16、arious figuresof speech make up the body of the dictionary.There is no standard test that will decide what is slang or collo-quial and what is not. Expressions that are identified as slang are oftensome type of entertaining wordplay, and they are almost always an alter-native way of saying something
17、. Colloquial expressions are usually spo-ken and are often thought of as being direct, earthy, or quaint. Slangand colloquial expressions come in different forms: single words, com-pound words, simple phrases, idioms, and complete sentences. Slang israrely the first choice of careful writers or spea
18、kers or anyone attempt-ing to use language for formal, persuasive, or business purposes. None-theless, expressions that can be called slang or colloquial make up amajor part of American communication in movies, television, radio,newspapers, magazines, and informal conversation.Localized fad words ar
19、e usually thought to have a short life, butother kinds of slang expressions may spread and last for a long time.The farther they spread, the longer they will last. If they last longenough, they may become so well known that they become standardEnglish unavoidably. Most such slangy expressions simply
20、 join an enor-mous pool of similar expressions, and they are used until displaced bynewer terms. At some point the old ones are put on hold until they areforgotten by everyone or revived by a new generation. Many expres-sions that hang around for decades will pop up again and again in nov-els and mo
21、vies or in sporadic use in the speech of older generations.For more than two hundred years, the jargon of criminals has beena major source of everyday slang words. Alcohol, drugs, and crime havebeen firmly fixed in the public consciousness since the time of prohi-bition in the United States. The ent
22、ertainment value of crime and lawenforcement has brought a constant stream of criminal slang into nov-els, movies, and radio and television shows over the last half century.This dictionary contains many of the expressions from these areas thathave made public appearances through the years. Even more
23、 remainhidden behind closed doors. Matters of social taboo have also providedmany slang expressions. Although strictly speaking taboo words are notslang, many taboo expressions have been included in this edition. Youngpeople are responsible for a high proportion of the fad expressions andcollegiate
24、wordplay found here. Clever or insulting nicknames for typesof people are the major linguistic product of this subgroup.Whereas many of the entries are humorous or clever, others sim-ply represent the everyday turns of phrase common to informal speechin the United States. Where possible, the example
25、s are given in naturalslangy language, even if it is ungrammatical in formal writing. Theexamples are to be taken as representative of slang usage, not of stan-dard, formal English usage.Most slang words that deal with personal type, race, sex, ethnicorigins, and so forth, are quite rudeoften hatefu
26、land consideredby some people taboo. No apology is made for those that are included.They are rude or they wouldnt be considered slang or colloquial. Onthe other hand, no attempt is made to include all of them, and manyof the worst have been omitted. Slang is slang and anyone looking foran issue will
27、 find many of them in nonstandard vocabulary. It is worth-while to include rude words and identify them as such for the sake ofNTCs Dictionary of American Slang and Colloquial Expressionsviinnocents who encounter these words on television, in the theater, innovels, in newspapers, in the workplace, i
28、n shops, and on the street.The grammar and syntax of each expression are best determinedfrom the examples that accompany each entry. The notion of “part ofspeech” is relevant to the function of individual words. The wordswithin the clauses and phrases that are entries in the dictionary canbe given p
29、art-of-speech labels, but it is the grammar and syntax ofthe entire phrase that is important. Each expression in the dictionaryis assigned a “function code” that serves to indicate the functionalpotential of the entry expression. These codes represent function inde-pendently from form. That is to sa
30、y, expressions that function the sameget the same label. For instance, nouns, noun compounds, nounphrases, and noun clauses are all marked n. for “nominal.” The codesare described in the following section, “Guide to the Use of theDictionary.”Unlike standard English, few slang or colloquial expressio
31、ns arestandardized in spelling or punctuation. Standard dictionaries differconsiderably as to whether a standard English compound is printed asone word, two words, or a hyphenated word. The spelling of slangentries is even more variable. This dictionary usually represents slangexpressions in the for
32、m in which they were found in print, except forrhyming compounds, e.g., fat-cat or funny-money, which are alwayshyphenated in this book.The entries come from many sources. Many have been collectedand submitted by college students and other individuals. Much of thelatest material has come directly fr
33、om television and a lesser amountfrom contemporary radio. The Internet has become the newest majorsource of slang for the collector and reader. Standard reference workshave been used to verify the meanings and spellings of older material.A surprising amount of old material has been verified in rerun
34、s of oldmovies. Many attestations have come from contemporary journalism,especially human interest and Sunday supplement material. A few ofthe examples are verbatim quotes of the original. Some are concocted,and many more have been edited to exemplify an expressions mean-ing more concisely than the
35、original quote. The examples exist to illus-About This Dictionaryviitrate meaning, not to prove the earliest date of print or broadcastdissemination.Guide to the Use of the Dictionary1. Entries are alphabetized according to an absolute alphabetical orderthat ignores all punctuation. The hyphen is tr
36、eated the same as aspace. Entries beginning with numerals precede the alphabeticentries.2. The first step in finding an expression is to try looking it up in thebody of the dictionary. Entries that consist of two or more wordsare entered in their normal order, such as chill someones action.Phrases a
37、re never inverted or reordered like action, chill someonesor track, off the.3. If you do not find the expression you want or if you cannot decideon the exact form of the expression, look up any major word in theexpression in the “Phrase-Finder Index,” which begins on page 485.There you will find all
38、 the multiword expressions that contain theword you have looked up. Pick out the expression you want, and lookit up in the body of the dictionary.4. Entry expressions appear in boldface type. When words or expres-sions that are not entries in this dictionary are cited, they appear initalics. Functio
39、n codes and examples appear in italics.5. A main entry may have one or more alternative forms. The alter-natives are printed in boldface typeand are preceded by “and.”6. Definitions are in roman type. Alternative or closely related defin-itions are separated by semicolons.7. Some definitions contain
40、 restrictive comments in parentheses thathelp to make the definition clearer. These comments limit the con-text in which the expression can be used.8. Comments in parentheses after a definition give additional infor-mation about the expression, including any cautions, comments onorigins, or indicati
41、ons of cross-referencing. Each numbered sensecan have its own comments.9. Every expression is followed by a function code that indicates thegrammatical or syntactic function of the expression. These codes areNTCs Dictionary of American Slang and Colloquial Expressionsviii00. in italics. The function
42、 codes provide a way of determining thegrammatical or syntactic function of a particular expression as itoccurs in its examples. Expressions functioning as nominals (nouns,noun phrases, etc.) are marked n. Expressions serving to modify,restrict, or qualify (adjectives, adjective phrases, adverbs, ad
43、verbphrases, etc.) are marked mod. Expressions that are transitive verbsor transitive verb phrases (a transitive verb, its object(s), modi-fier(s), and auxiliaries) are marked tv. Expressions that are intran-sitive verbs or intransitive verb phrases (an intransitive verb, itsauxiliaries, and modifie
44、rs) are marked in. Other abbreviations areexplained in the section titled “Terms and Symbols.”10. Some expressions that are modifiers (marked mod.) can occur onlybefore or after the things they modify. Other modifiers can occurboth before and after the things they modify. The distribution ofmodifier
45、s is illustrated in the examples. 11. Many expressions have more than one major sense or meaning.These meanings are numbered with boldface numerals.12. Sometimes a numbered sense will have an alternative form thatdoes not apply to the other senses. In such cases the “and” plusthe alternative forms f
46、ollow the numeral.13. Entries that contain unfamiliar words and entries whose spellingis misleading have an indication of pronunciation in InternationalPhonetic Alphabet symbols. See the symbols and their values in the“Pronunciation Guide.”14. In some entries, comments direct the user to other entri
47、es foradditional information through the use of the terms “Go to” or“See also.” The expressions mentioned are in special type.15. If an entry has a grammatical structure that requires a nominal toserve as a subject or object, the nominal is represented by some-onefor human nominals or somethingfor n
48、onhuman nominals.When both human and nonhuman nominals are possible, some-one or somethingis used.About This DictionaryixThis page intentionally left blank.xiTerms and Symbols? marks the beginning of an example.T marks the beginning of an example in which two elements of thephrase, usually a particl
49、e and an object, are transposed.acronyman abbreviation consisting of a set of initials pronounced asa single word, as with UNESCO, the United Nations Educational, Sci-entific, and Cultural Organization.advertisingused in advertisements or marketing jargon.Amerindianrelated to American Indian languag
50、es or cultures.and indicates an alternative element, either an alternative entry formor an alternative pronunciation.baby talkused by infants or children or, more typically, by adults whentalking to infants or children.blacktypically used by or originated by African Americans.blendmade up of sounds
