Vag

 vag (væɡ)*

noun

1. dried turf or peat used as fuel; a piece of this.

When we run out out of firewood, we can always throw some vag in the wood stove.

Synonyms: peat, sod.

2. colloquial abbreviation of vagrant; phrased "on the vag."

Vladimir and Estragon are on the vag, waiting endlessly in vain for someone named Godot.

Synonyms: beggar, bum, drifter, floater, hobo, homeless person, itinerant, rolling stone, street kid, street person, tramp, transient, vagabond, vagrant, wanderer.

verb/slang

1. to charge with vagrancy.

If you have no visible means of support you can be vagged.

Synonyms: charged with vagrancy.**

*Note the hard G pronunciation in this word, as opposed to the soft G from the slang term, which is an abbreviation for vagina. This actually makes the two words heteronyms because they are spelled the same, but sound different and have different meanings; very different meanings!

**Sorry. I got stumped there.

Cockamamie

cock-a-mam-ie (ˈkɒkəˌmeɪmɪ)

adjective/noun/slang
1. inexplicable or ridiculous, not well thought out.
Sheldon: Wait! You have to drive me.
Penny: What?!
Sheldon: You know I don't drive.
Penny: Well, go ask Leonard!
Sheldon: I did; he said, and I quote: "Ask Penny, it was her cockamamie idea."
Penny: Leonard said "cockamamie"?
Sheldon: Actually, I'm paraphrasing. Having been raised in a Christian household, I'm uncomfortable with the language he used. And to be honest, I'm not entirely comfortable with "cockamamie."

Synonyms: aberrant, absurd, batty, brainless, clueless, cockamamie, crazy, cuckoo, delirious, demented, disconnected, disjointed, distraught, dumb, fallacious, flaky, foolish, freaky, idiotic, ill-conceived, incoherent, injudicious, insane, invalid, kooky, loony, mad, mindless, nonsensical, nutty, off-the-wall, preposterous, raving, reasonless, ridiculous, silly, sophistic, specious, stupid, unreasonable, unreasoning, unsound, unstable, unthinking, unwise, wacky, wild, wrong.

*American English slang word attested by 1946, popularized c.1960, but said to be New York City children's slang from mid-1920s; perhaps an alteration of decalcomania.

**The Word Detective says: "Cockamamie ... is a grand word in danger of extinction through neglect," and suggests, like Clint Eastwood does, we should use it every once and a while, just to keep it alive. It just makes me think of Foghorn Leghorn.

Defenestration

de-fen-es-tra-tion (dēˌfenəˈstrāSHən)

noun
1. The act of throwing someone or something out the window.
This was the favorite word of someone I met today. The funniest defenestration story that I've heard lately was about a guy at a party on the eighth floor of a building. He sat next to a window to have a cigarette when an animal hopped into his lap. Upon second glance, he realized it was a skunk, screamed and tossed it out the window. Everyone, who has listened to this story, has said that the hosts of the party should have have warned their guests about this unusual pet.

Synonyms: throw out the window.

noun/slang
1. The act of completely removing Microsoft Windows from a PC in favor of a better OS (typically Linux).
I've f**king had it with this computer. It's time for a defenestration.

Synonyms: throw out the windows.

* Defenestration would also be a good name for this Violent Femmes song.

Yob

yob (yb)

noun/slang*
1. A person who engages in antisocial behavior/behaviour and/or drunkenness.
He's an ex-con? He might have multiple addiction problems? You haven't heard from him for days and suspect it's because he's up to something nasty? He's not even an attentive mate? Girlfriend, you might be dating a yob.

Synonyms: bezonian, blackguard, brute, bum, cad, caitiff, coward, creep, dog, drunkard, good-for-nothing, heel, hound, ingrate, knave, liar, libertine, loser, lowlife, maggot, miscreant, ne'er-do-well, pariah, pauper, pilgarlic, poltroon, rake, rapscallion, rascal, rat, reprobate, riffraff, rogue, ronion, ruffian, scalawag, scamp, scapegrace, scoundrel, scum, skunk, smell-feast, snake, stinker, toad, tramp, vagabond, varlet, villain, wastrel, worm, wretch , yellow dog.***


* British slang.
** Alteration of boy spelled backwards.
*** But, as Henry Rollins once said: "I've been called worse by people who liked me!"

Oggin

og-gin* (gn)

slang/noun
1. The sea, but just that bit you are closest to.**
There's more to the sea than this oggin you're drowning in.

Synonyms: hogwash, ocean, puddle, salt water, sea, the soup.

* A British slang term that originated in the 1940s as a corruption of the term hogwash.
** Because it just refers to that bit of the sea you are closest to, you can fall in the oggin, but don't talk about the seven oggins; it just wouldn't make any sense.

Heebie-jeebies

hee-bie-jee-bies* (hb-jbz)

slang/noun
1. Nervous in a creeped out way.
Barney Google's uncanny resemblance to Homer Simpson gives me the heebie-jeebies.**

Synonyms: willies.

* Coined by William De Beck (1890-1942), American cartoonist, in his comic strip Barney Google.
** Homer's great-grandfather, maybe?

Easterling

eas-ter-ling (ēˈstərlĭng)

archaic/slang
1. Medieval English silver pennies.
2. An old European term for the Baltic merchants/traders.
Yo, yo! Can you hook me up wid some easterlings? Some easterling is comin' gonna hook me up wid some timber and some ale and dat sucker's gonna wanna get paid, yo!

Synonyms: old stuff to do with money and East-West travel.

noun
1. The common widgeon.
2. The smew or white nun.
The rare birds known as easterlings are as probable an explanation as any as to why ducks are part of Easter.

Synonyms: duck.

Smell-feast

smell-feast* (smel'fst)

noun/slang
1. A sponger with a heightened ability to find and dine at good tables.
Is she really going out with him? He's nothing but a freeloader, a smell-feast!

Synonyms: The character Algernon from the Importance of Being Earnest, bootlicker, deadbeat, freeloader, hanger-on, house cat, idler, leach, sponge, sponger, sycophant, taker, yob.

* I must confess that when I first came upon this term, I thought it an apt description for a variable banquet of odours, not all of them pleasant.

Thingamajigger

thing-a-ma-jig-ger (thngmjgr)

noun/slang
1. Any thing, object, piece, part, idea that you cannot remember the name of.
Hoe het it? The thingamajiggers all in a row? Do you mean DNA? Ya!

Synonyms: doohickey, dohingy, thingamabobber, thingamadoo, thingamajig, whatchamacallit.

* This one was inspired by my grandma, who for her frequent lack of a word, often reminds me of the best words I know.

Moxie

mox-ie (mks)

slang
1. A knack for facing adversity with unwavering optimism.
Y'know what I like about you kid? You gotta a lotta moxie, kid. That's what you got!
2. Energy mixed with determination.
With my know-how and your moxie, we're gonna make it far!

Synonyms: adventurousness, audacity, backbone, boldness, bravery, chutzpah, daring, dauntlessness, determination, dumb luck, fearlessness, fortitude, grit, guts, nerve, pluck, spirit, spunk, tenacity.

Yardbird

yard-bird* (ˈjɑːdˌbɜːd)

noun
1. A military recruit, who performs the most menial of tasks.
Look at the yardbird mopping the mess hall.

Synonyms: desperate case, newbie, recruit, schmuck.

2. A person serving a sentence in prison.
Penpals? She's got half a dozen. That girl always had a thing for yardbirds.

Synonyms: con, convict, crook, felon, inmate, jail bird, law breaker, offender.

slang
1. A no-good criminal.
Lets all the kids smoke drugs back there, but she wants to restrict everyone else's access, while breaking half a dozen fire codes and discriminating against the general population of the place. That lady's nothing but a yardbird, I tell ya'!

Synonyms: bad actor, black marketeer, con, convict, crook, culprit, delinquent, evil doer, felon, fugitive, gangster, heavy, hood, hoodlum, hooligan, hustler, jail bird, lawbreaker, muscle, scofflaw, slippery eel, thug, wrongdoer.

*In the plural form these things may be referred to as a band from the sixties.

Poly

po-ly

prefix
1. More than one.
If monogamists get one wife, polygamists get at least two.
2. More than usual.
Bisexuals can be in a relationship with either a man or a woman; people who are polyamorous can be in a relationship with a man AND a woman!

slang
1. Someone who practices having many romantic relationships at once, which is not the same as polygamy. Many loves does not mean the same thing as many marriages.
Teresa: I like Ken, but I think he's in a relationship with Barbie.
Whitney: Ya, but he's totally poly. He's also got a thing going with Kayla and Becky!

Synonyms: more open-minded than most, someone with a lot of spare time.

Mansplain

man-splain (mn-spln)*

verb/slang
1. To explain accurately or inaccurately with total confidence that your audience will accept your mansplanation on the grounds that you are a man** or superior in some way.
When I first met Tom, he was taking a class that Lisa was teaching on the History of Science. Despite the fact that he registered in her class and still hadn't finished an undergrad degree, he had to waste everyone's time twice a week, mansplaining how Lisa had it all wrong.

Synonyms: being a pompous dick.

*This term is an humourous combination of the words man and explain and was created to quickly describe the behaviour of male newbies to internet forums frequented by women.

**Either sex can be guilty of mansplaining. In fact, I do it in this blog ALL the time :)

Music

mus-ic (myoo'zik)

noun
1. Something that is pleasing to hear.
Travis can't sing, but his voice is music to my ears.
2. Art produced through the medium of sound.
Do you like American music? We like all kinds of music!
3. A score to instruct players on how to reproduce a song.
Learning to play piano and read music is a good foundation for a young artist.
4. The obsession of musicians.
Music is my hot hot sex.
5. That which most drummers wish they could play.

Synonyms: melody, song, tune.

slang
1. Something that is difficult to deal with.
It's time to face the music.

Synonyms: consequences, facts, reality, truth.

Baby

ba-by (bā′bē)

adjective
1. Diminutive or small, the smallest in a group.
My baby toe is crooked and deformed, after years of trying to fit my wide feet into tiny shoes.

Synonyms: childish, little, mini, petite, sissy, small, tiny, wee.

2. Extremely young, especially in appearance or behaviour.
Shih Tzus are such pretty baby dogs; they stay puppies forever.

Synonyms: cute, puerile, sweet.

noun
1. An extremely young human being, who is dependent on older human beings (usually their parents) for the fulfillment of all of his or her basic needs.
2. The direct consequence of sexual intercourse.
Being cute is a baby's number one basic survival technique; why else would we continue to feed them?

Synonyms: anklebiter, angelface, babe, bairn bambino, brat, bundle of joy, buttercup, button, cherub, chick, crawler, dickens, dumpling, imp, infant, innocent, kid, kiddie, lamb, little one, miniature clone of one's self, mite, moppet, newborn, nipper, nursling, papoose, preemie, progeny, small fry, sprout, squirt, sweet pea, sweetie, sweetest little thing, suckling, tad, tadpole, toddler, tyke, whippersnapper, write off, youngster.

3. The youngest in a group.
My parents kept having children, until they had a boy, and my brother is still the baby of the family.

Synonyms: brat.

4. Someone who acts like an infant or is very needy.
T.V. husbands are big babies; it's like they wouldn't survive half a day on their own.

Synonyms: faint-of-heart, gutless, high-maintenance, lily liver, shirker, weakling, wimp, wuss.

5. An exclamation, usually during sexual intercourse.
Oh, baby!

Synonyms: oh God, yes.

verb
1. To treat with great care or act like a loving parent towards.
Maybe T.V. husbands wouldn't be such wimps, if their wives didn't baby them all the time. It's like all T.V. families are based on somewhat entertaining codependent relationships.

Synonyms: cater to, cherish, coddle, dote upon, fret over, indulge, mollycoddle, overindulge, obsess about, pamper, serve, spoil.

slang
1. A term of endearment, a casual form of address for a loved one, especially in popular music.*
The number of songs that I could list as examples here is endless, so I will settle for Chris Isaak's Baby Did a Bad Bad Thing and Cat Steven's Wild World.

Synonyms: beau, better half, boyfriend, darling, dear, dearest, fiancé, flame, girlfriend, heart, honey, honeybunch, inmorato, love, love of my life, lover, object of affection, pet, prize, significant other, steady, sugar, sweet, sweetheart, sweetie, tootsie, treasure.

2. When it comes to slang, a baby can be any person or thing. I am not going to even attempt to list synonyms here.
This baby goes 185 miles per hour!
This project is my baby.

*Add this word to the end of any sentence and you will have yourself a song lyric, Baby!