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.
1840s — 8 terms
Showing top 8 by views40
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mate
1841🇦🇺 Australian & NZ slang
🔊cooked
1848🔥 Gen Z & TikTok
tiktok
🔊absinthe
1840🗺️ Regional & Other
🔊bender
1846⚡ Tech, Dev & AI
bluesky
🔊bodega
1840🍔 Food & Drink
bluesky
🔊kangaroo court
1848🗺️ Regional & Other
bluesky
🔊conflab
1840🇬🇧 British & Irish slang
🔊fiver
1843🗺️ Regional & Other
bluesky
🔊antirentism
1840🗺️ Regional & Other
🔊nutria
1841🗺️ Regional & Other
🔊utu
1840🗺️ Regional & Other
🔊antirent
1840🎤 Black culture & AAVE
🔊shirty
1846🇬🇧 British & Irish slang
🔊excelsior
1841⚡ Tech, Dev & AI
bluesky
🔊Railroad City
1849🗺️ Regional & Other
🔊jism
1842🗺️ Regional & Other
🔊japonicadom
1849🗺️ Regional & Other
🔊roorbach
1844🗺️ Regional & Other
🔊ozone
1840⚡ Tech, Dev & AI
bluesky
🔊Box and Cox
1847🇬🇧 British & Irish slang
🔊bloviate
1845🗺️ Regional & Other
🔊Aunt Sally
1843🇬🇧 British & Irish slang
🔊ruru
1842🗺️ Regional & Other
🔊coon's age
1843🗺️ Regional & Other
🔊jim-dandy
1840🗺️ Regional & Other
🔊racy of the soil
1842🗺️ Regional & Other
🔊doughboy
1847🗺️ Regional & Other
🔊Michigander
1848🗺️ Regional & Other
🔊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.