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.
1890s — 54 terms
Showing top 54 by views90
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skunker
1894🔊
ack emma
1898🔊
boil the ocean
1893🔊
line drawing
1891🔊
Jonathan
1895bluesky
🔊dimpsey
1896🔊
gorru
1891🔊
piepowder
1897🔊
solidus
1899bluesky
🔊field house
1895🔊
Jacky Howe
1890🔊
shiralee
1892🔊
Heinz 57
1896🔊
uitlander
1890🔊
caucus
1896bluesky
🔊spruik
1890🔊
stoush
1893🔊
Belyando spew
1891🔊
prissy
1895bluesky
🔊quick-and-dirty
1896🔊
fossick
1893🔊
corset
1893bluesky
🔊diesel
1892bluesky
🔊breadpill
1892🔊
bastille
1897bluesky
🔊eggs Benedict
1898🔊
private-wire house
1894🔊
bloody noun
1892🔊
jumbuck
1896🔊
Jewnited States
1892🔊
pogey
1891🔊
bonzer
1890🔊
redcap
1890🔊
deflate
1891bluesky
🔊golliwog
1895🔊
roque
1899🔊
Kris Kringle
1893🔊
cinema
1890bluesky
🔊neenish tart
1895🔊
nonplussed
1899🔊
fatty boombalatty
1899🔊
garden city
1890bluesky
🔊Gunga Din
1890🔊
Godzone
1890🔊
military-industrial complex
1890bluesky
🔊hootchy-kootchy
1890🔊
Gibson Girl
1890🔊
comstockery
1895🔊
Jimmy Woodser
1892🔊
Allen charge
1896🔊
exoduster
1899🔊
smoodge
1898🔊
benevolent assimilation
1898🔊
bottled in bond
1897🔊
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.