. sprat/spratt = sixpence (6d). We use K (from kilo) when we write with digits but we also say it when speaking, so that phonetically it would sound like kay. "He really cocked up his job interview when he mentioned that he'd shagged the boss's daughter." Collywobbles: Nervousness; butterflies in the stomach. Bint - (archaic) slang for woman (from the Arabic). Very occasionally older people, students of English or History, etc., refer to loose change of a small amount of coin money as groats. From the cockney rhyming slang and metaphoric use of 'bread'. Easy-peasy - very straightforward and easy. Similarly words connected with sex and stupidity frequently have slang equivalents. Decimal 1p and 2p coins were also 97% copper (technically bronze - 97% copper, 2.5% zinc, 0.5% tin ) until replaced by copper-plated steel in 1992, which amusingly made them magnetic. Like so much slang, kibosh trips off the tongue easily and amusingly, which would encourage the extension of its use from prison term to money. The origins of boodle meaning money are (according to Cassells) probably from the Dutch word 'boedel' for personal effects or property (a person's worth) and/or from the old Scottish 'bodle' coin, worth two Scottish pence and one-sixth of an English penny, which logically would have been pre-decimalisation currency. (Thanks to R Maguire for raising this one.). Tony Benn (born 1925) served in the Wilson and Callaghan governments of the 1960s and 70s, and as an MP from 1950-2001, after which he remains (at time of writing this, Feb 2008) a hugely significant figure in socialist ideals and politics, and a very wise and impressive man. The original derivation was either from Proto-Germanic 'skell' meaning to sound or ring, or Indo-European 'skell' split or divide. An example of erroneous language becoming real actual language through common use. Shooting and bawling - Arguing with someone. Fuzz - old, derogatory slang for the police. The spondulicks slang can be traced back to the mid-1800s in England (source: Cassells), but is almost certainly much older. Modern London slang. Ahhh, English. British Slang Phrases About Love & Relationships And Having Fun These slang words are all about what you might do with your mates, or your bird or your bloke. monkey = five hundred pounds (500). job = guinea, late 1600s, probably ultimately derived from from the earlier meaning of the word job, a lump or piece (from 14th century English gobbe), which developed into the work-related meaning of job, and thereby came to have general meaning of payment for work, including specific meaning of a guinea. The large Australian 'wonga' pigeon is almost certainly unrelated yennep/yenep/yennap/yennop = a penny (1d particularly, although also means a decimal penny, 1p). Traditional IPA: mki More fun British slang phrases. Bro: just like "mate" in the UK, "bro" means friend . 'Monkey's uncle' is used as an expression of surprise. Along with the silver crown, half-crown and sixpence, the silver threepence made its first appearance in 1551 during the reign of Edward VI (1547-53). Bampot - a foolish, unpleasant, or obnoxious person. The most commonly used slang term for a pound is a, This expression has negative connotations, so, If youre in London you may overhear many other terms for money and many of these will come from, Some of the London slang for money is based on animals thought to have originally appeared on ruppe banknotes. Bad dose. Double click on any word for its definition. Wonky - is another word for shaky or unstable. denoting a small light structure or piece of equipment contrived to suit an immediate purpose. Bees knees - a highly admired person or thing. If a British friend asks to borrow a fiver from you, he means a five pound note. quid = one pound (1) or a number of pounds sterling. beer tokens = money. 21. shrapnel = loose change, especially a heavy and inconvenient pocketful, as when someone repays a small loan in lots of coins. 5. "Did you just whistle at that old lady? gen = a shilling (1/-), from the mid 1800s, either based on the word argent, meaning silver (from French and Latin, and used in English heraldry, i.e., coats of arms and shields, to refer to the colour silver), or more likely a shortening of 'generalize', a peculiar supposed backslang of shilling, which in its own right was certainly slang for shilling, and strangely also the verb to lend a shilling. smackers/smackeroos = pounds (or dollars) - in recent times not usually used in referring to a single 1 or a low amount, instead usually a hundred or several hundreds, but probably not several thousands, when grand would be preferred. Fag - cigarette, "ciggie", hence fag end (stub) and fag packet. This means that something is incredibly expensive. Whilst this is not cemented in fact, the widely held belief is that the terms came from soldiers returning to Britain from India. Hear, understand the origins and meanings of new slang and use it immediately! foont/funt = a pound (1), from the mid-1900s, derived from the German word 'pfund' for the UK pound. Yack - to vomit, usually because of intoxication. Other intriguing possible origins/influences include a suggested connection with the highly secretive Quidhampton banknote paper-mill, and the term quid as applied (ack D Murray) to chewing tobacco, which are explained in more detail under quid in the cliches, words and slang page. Answer (1 of 27): There is commonly held belief that the term was brought back by returning British soldiers in the days of the Raj, alluding to the idea that the 25 rupee note bore a picture of a pony (the same theory attempts to explain 500 being a 'monkey').The problem with this idea is this:. Mither - Northern word meaning pester or irritate. Aussie Salute - Wave to scare the flies. Also used regularly is a score which is 20, a bullseye is 50, a grand is 1,000 and a deep sea diver which is 5 (a fiver). Exactly when the words became slurs is unknown, but offensive comparisons of black people to apes date back hundreds of centuries. I am grateful to J Briggs for confirming (March 2008): "I live in Penistone, South Yorks (what we call the West Riding) and it was certainly called a 'Brass Maggie' in my area. Monkeys are primates. squid = a pound (1). The slang money expression 'quid' seems first to have appeared in late 1600s England, derived from Latin (quid meaning 'what', as in 'quid pro quo' - 'something for something else'). bice/byce = two shillings (2/-) or two pounds or twenty pounds - probably from the French bis, meaning twice, which suggests usage is older than the 1900s first recorded and referenced by dictionary sources. From the 1800s, by association with the small fish. A more obscure British term, 'brass monkeys' is used to refer to extremely cold weather. Cockney Money Slang. Stiver was used in English slang from the mid 1700s through to the 1900s, and was derived from the Dutch Stiver coin issued by the East India Company in the Cape (of South Africa), which was the lowest East India Co monetary unit. Curate's egg - something that is partly good and partly bad. A rare example of money slang from more recent times, even though it draws from the pre-decimal slang, since the term refers to ten shillings (equivalent to 50p) and alludes to the angular shape of the old theepenny bit. It was inspired by a monkey on the 500 Rupee banknote. Prat - stuck up, incompetent or stupid person. or What tip shall we leave?" . 4. three ha'pence/three haypence = 1d (one and a half old pennies) - this lovely expression (thanks Dean) did not survive decimalisation, despite there being new decimal half-pence coins. Bill - the "check" in British English after eating in a restaurant. Check your spam folder if you don't get an email immediately! Chalupa. I am also informed (ack Sue Batch, Nov 2007) that spruce also referred to lemonade, which is perhaps another source of the bottle rhyming slang: " around Northants, particularly the Rushden area, Spruce is in fact lemonade it has died out nowadays - I was brought up in the 50s and 60s and it was an everyday word around my area back then. I'm convinced these were the principal and most common usages of the Joey coin slang. They are more fun than a barrel of monkeys. This is short for the word "beverages," usually alcoholic, most often beer. live, learn and work. A good or bad vibe. Coppers was very popular slang pre-decimalisation (1971), and is still used in referring to modern pennies and two-penny coins, typically describing the copper (coloured) coins in one's pocket or change, or piggy bank. Iechyd da! Kitchen sink - a very large number of things, whether needed or not. Cockney Rhyming Slang - a common word replaced with a rhyming pair of words or longer phrase and then omitting the rhyming word, for example, "Apples and pears" (= stairs, becomes "apples"), butcher's hook (look, becomes "butcher's"), loaf of bread (head, becomes "loaf"). It means to vomit from excessive drinking. The word garden features strongly in London, in famous place names such as Hatton Garden, the diamond quarter in the central City of London, and Covent Garden, the site of the old vegetable market in West London, and also the term appears in sexual euphemisms, such as 'sitting in the garden with the gate unlocked', which refers to a careless pregnancy. Dead on - good-natured, kind, sympathetic. Jelly - fruit-flavored gelatin dessert or slang for valium as in "jellies". It is suggested by some that the pony slang for 25 derives from the typical price paid for a small horse, but in those times 25 would have been an unusually high price for a pony. An obscure point of nostalgic trivia about the tanner is apparently (thanks J Veitch) a rhyme, from around the mid-1900s, sung to the tune of Rule Britannia: "Rule Brittania, two tanners make a bob, three make eighteen pence and four two bob" My limited research suggests this rhyme was not from London. bees (bees and honey) = money. Example in spoken form: In my new job Ill be earning 75 kay a year. Monkey - This originated from the British slang for 500 pounds of sterling. groat = an old silver four-penny coin from around 1300 and in use in similar form until c.1662, although Brewer states in his late 1800s revised edition of his 1870 dictionary of slang that 'the modern groat was introduced in 1835, and withdrawn in 1887', which is somewhat confusing. You can find out more about that in this, Pavarotti he was a famous tenor so a Pavarotti is a tenner (10), If you want to read more about cockney rhyming slang and money, read this. Nobble - disable, try to influence or thwart by underhand or unfair methods, steal. 8. It is therefore only a matter of time before modern 'silver' copper-based coins have to be made of less valuable metals, upon which provided they remain silver coloured I expect only the scrap metal dealers will notice the difference. 'Monkey see, monkey do' refers to copying someones actions without putting much thought into it. Modern slang from London, apparently originating in the USA in the 1930s. Cassells implies an interesting possible combination of the meanings kibosh (18 month sentence), kibosh (meaning ruin or destroy) - both probably derived from Yiddish (Jewish European/Hebrew dialect) words meaning suppress - with the linking of money and hitting something, as in 'a fourpenny one' (from rhyming slang fourpenny bit = hit). See also 'pair of knickers'. Grand - a thousand (colloquial) usually referring to money. Logically, it follows that you'd have 240 pence to a pound. Our last slang term for money and again animal related we have a monkey M-O-N-K-E-Y, no not the animal but actually meaning 500 pounds. a monkey foresail. This expression has negative connotations, so filthy lucre would refer to money that has been illegally acquired. Shrapnel conventionally means artillery shell fragments, so called from the 2nd World War, after the inventor of the original shrapnel shell, Henry Shrapnel, who devised a shell filled with pellets and explosive powder c.1806. With dictionary look up. monkey in British English (mk ) noun 1. any of numerous long-tailed primates excluding the prosimians ( lemurs, tarsiers, etc): comprise the families Cercopithecidae ( Old World monkeys), Cebidae (New World monkeys), and Callithricidae ( marmosets ) See Old World monkey, New World monkey Related adjective: simian 2. any primate except man 3. The pronunciation emphasis tends to be on the long second syllable 'aah' sound. Also find guides to Britain's transport system including roads, trains, buses and airports. The first things you gotta learn are that five pounds is a fiver, and ten pounds is a tenner. Her Majesty's Pleasure - in jail; see porridge, inside. The . Wor lad - my boyfriend. Silver featured strongly in the earliest history of British money, so it's pleasing that the word still occurs in modern money slang. On the lash - getting drunk; compare "on the piss.". Originated in the USA in the 1920s, logically an association with the literal meaning - full or large. Or head over to our facebook page https://facebook.com/theslangpodcast for updates and more slang! brown = a half-penny or ha'penny. silver = silver coloured coins, typically a handful or piggy-bankful of different ones - i.e., a mixture of 5p, 10p, 20p and 50p. 'More fun than a barrel of monkeys' means to have a lot of fun. But what about slang words that are used around the world? 3. What does Monkey mean in slang? saucepan = a pound, late 1800s, cockney rhyming slang: saucepan lid = quid. A penny-pincher is someone who is unwilling to spend money. Alternatively beer vouchers, which commonly meant pound notes, prior to their withdrawal. The answer can be traced back to 19th Century India, where the 500 rupee note had a picture of an ape on it and was informally known as a "monkey". Less well used slang terms include Lady Godiva for fiver and Ayrton Senna for tenner. Trolley dolly - air stewardess (informal). 'Naff' was one of these words that actually meant someone was heterosexual. (Thanks R Maguire for prompting more detail for this one.). Usually retains singular form (G rather than G's) for more than one thousand pounds, for example "Twenty G". Dog's bollocks - a person or thing that is the best of its kind. Pigs in Blankets - small sausages wrapped in bacon. Sassenach - non-Highlander (usually referring to the English). Cockney rhyming slang from 1960s and perhaps earlier since beehive has meant the number five in rhyming slang since at least the 1920s. Narrowboat - canal boat of long, narrow design, steered with a tiller. The term has since the early 1900s been used by bookmakers and horse-racing, where carpet refers to odds of three-to-one, and in car dealing, where it refers to an amount of 300. Texas slang words and phrases. These slang words for money are most likely derived from the older use of the word madza, absorbed into English from Italian mezzo meaning half, which was used as a prefix in referring to half-units of coinage (and weights), notably medza caroon (half-crown), madza poona (half-sovereign) and by itself, medza meaning a ha'penny (d). The Bishop was not so fortunate - he was hung drawn and quartered for remaining loyal to the Pope. Perhaps based on jack meaning a small thing, although there are many possible different sources. Bent - dishonest or derogatory for homosexual. Tosser - derogatory term for someone you dislike. oner = (pronounced 'wunner'), commonly now meaning one hundred pounds; sometimes one thousand pounds, depending on context. Let's get serious about the project." "They have been monkeying around so they did not get anything done." To make a monkey out of someone 'To make a monkey out of someone' means to make someone look silly. Baccy - tobacco, usually rolling tobacco. Pub - public house, drinking establishment. nicker a pound (1). Lost the plot - to become upset, angry, irrational. Read more. Britain-Visitor.com provides travel information on Britain's cities and the essential when and where and how to get there. monkey meaning: 1. an animal that lives in hot countries, has a long tail, and climbs trees. Probably from Romany gypsy 'wanga' meaning coal. If you want to read more about cockney rhyming slang and money, read this BBC article. Slang. Origin unknown. Recent post: Are Groceries Cheaper In Nevada? Gobsmacked. 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