Slang time machine
Every English slang term has a moment it first showed up in print or on someone's lips. We've tagged 1,000 terms with a first attested decade — from 18th-century thieves’ cant through to 2020s internet vocabulary. Pick a decade below.
1790s — 6 terms
Showing top 6 by views90
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1794⚡ Tech, Dev & AI
🔊nanny
1795🗺️ Regional & Other
bluesky
🔊naartjie
1790🗺️ Regional & Other
🔊picayune
1799⚡ Tech, Dev & AI
🔊explode
1790🎮 Gaming
bluesky
🔊terrorist
1794🌐 Internet & Memes
bluesky
🔊boilerplate
1793⚡ Tech, Dev & AI
bluesky
🔊taghairm
1797🗺️ Regional & Other
🔊Cisalpine
1792⚡ Tech, Dev & AI
🔊penitentiary
1790🗺️ Regional & Other
bluesky
🔊terrorism
1795🌐 Internet & Memes
bluesky
🔊piss proud
1796🇬🇧 British & Irish slang
🔊cooee
1790⚡ Tech, Dev & AI
🔊polytechnic
1794⚡ Tech, Dev & AI
bluesky
🔊Americanize
1797🗺️ Regional & Other
🔊lock and load
1793🗺️ Regional & Other
bluesky
🔊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.