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.
1850s — 28 terms
Showing top 28 by views50
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alanna
1850bluesky
🔊illy
1852🔊
peckerwood
1859🔊
piccolo
1856bluesky
🔊plap
1859bluesky
🔊get down to brass tacks
1854🔊
balaclava
1854🔊
yabber
1855🔊
Gentle Annie
1856🔊
deep freeze
1851🔊
Mason jar
1858bluesky
🔊Fanny Adams
1859🔊
Calamity Jane
1852🔊
Saratoga chip
1853🔊
chopse
1854🔊
Fink truss
1854🔊
freedumb
1856bluesky
🔊jerkwater
1852🔊
brain rot
1854tiktok
🔊blind man's buff
1854🔊
use a sledgehammer to crack a nut
1851🔊
Kansas Territory
1854🔊
dead to rights
1854bluesky
🔊Bishop Barker
1855🔊
heavens to Betsy
1857🔊
as game as Ned Kelly
1854🔊
bully pulpit
1858bluesky
🔊french fries
1856bluesky
🔊More on how slang travels through time
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Where slang is born now
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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.