Slang time machine
Every English slang term has a moment it first showed up in print or on someone's lips. We've tagged 4,786 terms with a first attested decade — from 18th-century thieves’ cant through to 2020s internet vocabulary. Pick a decade below.
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1890s — 59 terms
Showing top 59 by views90
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line drawing
1891🔊
boil the ocean
1893🔊
ack emma
1898🔊
field house
1895🔊
solidus
1899bluesky
🔊quick-and-dirty
1896🔊
eggplant
1895bluesky
🔊CD
1898🔊
fatty boombalatty
1899🔊
garden city
1890bluesky
🔊sandwich
1898bluesky
🔊spruik
1890🔊
uitlander
1890🔊
eggs Benedict
1898🔊
bloody noun
1892🔊
aubergine
1895bluesky
🔊shiralee
1892🔊
removal
1891bluesky
🔊corset
1893bluesky
🔊pogey
1891🔊
Heinz 57
1896🔊
mall
1892bluesky
🔊prissy
1895bluesky
🔊Jacky Howe
1890🔊
bastille
1897bluesky
🔊piepowder
1897🔊
stoush
1893🔊
smoodge
1898🔊
redcap
1890🔊
Jewnited States
1892🔊
bottled in bond
1897🔊
caucus
1896bluesky
🔊comstockery
1895🔊
gadfly
1890🔊
deflate
1891bluesky
🔊nonplussed
1899🔊
hootchy-kootchy
1890🔊
roque
1899🔊
cinema
1890bluesky
🔊Gunga Din
1890🔊
exoduster
1899🔊
Godzone
1890🔊
neenish tart
1895🔊
fossick
1893🔊
Belyando spew
1891🔊
bonzer
1890🔊
jumbuck
1896🔊
Kris Kringle
1893🔊
private-wire house
1894🔊
breadpill
1892🔊
Gibson Girl
1890🔊
golliwog
1895🔊
benevolent assimilation
1898🔊
military-industrial complex
1890bluesky
🔊Allen charge
1896🔊
Jimmy Woodser
1892🔊
backhoe
1893bluesky
🔊ladies
1890bluesky
🔊diesel
1892bluesky
🔊More on how slang travels through time
The lifecycle of a slang word
Mint, scale, ironize, retire — how every viral term moves through the same five stages.
Where slang is born now
The platforms and subcultures that mint vocabulary in 2026 — and why TikTok shifted everything.
AAVE and internet slang
The single biggest source of new mainstream English vocabulary, and why most of the words you used today started here.
Attestation dates come from etymologies originally sourced from Wiktionary contributors (CC BY-SA 4.0) and editorial expansion authored on Slangora. They reflect the earliest documented use we found for each term, not necessarily the moment it was coined.