Slang time machine
Every English slang term has a moment it first showed up in print or on someone's lips. We've tagged 3,074 terms with a first attested decade — from 18th-century thieves’ cant through to 2020s internet vocabulary. Pick a decade below.
1830s — 37 terms
Showing top 37 by views30
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cheeky
1838bluesky
🔊natter
1830🔊
cad
1830🔊
absquatulate
1830🔊
go west
1838bluesky
🔊catty-corner
1838🔊
tutti-frutti
1838🔊
zip coon
1834🔊
coach
1830bluesky
🔊Hoosier
1830bluesky
🔊Kraut
1833bluesky
🔊bad cess
1831🔊
ashcake
1830🔊
Old Bill
1830bluesky
🔊Harriet Lane
1832🔊
Christmas tree
1837bluesky
🔊cater-corner
1838🔊
Jim Crow law
1830🔊
all Sir Garnet
1833🔊
pantechnicon
1830🔊
hummel
1831bluesky
🔊flour
1830bluesky
🔊bodacious
1837bluesky
🔊aerial
1830bluesky
🔊A-1
1837🔊
dago
1838🔊
beer and skittles
1837🔊
Black Maria
1830🔊
Maxwellisation
1831🔊
chop-chop
1830🔊
highfalutin
1839🔊
wand of peace
1838🔊
bone-idle
1836🔊
custom
1830bluesky
🔊bakery
1832bluesky
🔊cronyism
1834bluesky
🔊issue
1836bluesky
🔊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.