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.
1910s — 62 terms
Showing top 62 by views10
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roughings
1913🔊
lit
1910tiktok
🔊touch base
1915🔊
emma
1914bluesky
🔊napoo
1915🔊
Pygmalion word
1913🔊
blimp
1915bluesky
🔊roadman
1913🔊
buscon
1913🔊
grease monkey
1910🔊
cootie
1917🔊
go Dutch
1914🔊
joystick
1910bluesky
🔊granarchist
1916🔊
rock and roll
1914bluesky
🔊racialist
1910🔊
refugee
1914bluesky
🔊donkey's ears
1916🔊
Founding Father
1916🔊
blue balls
1910🔊
bullshit
1910bluesky
🔊pom
1912🔊
autistic
1913bluesky
🔊boondock
1910🔊
bolshie
1918🔊
Saxbe fix
1916🔊
bum's rush
1911🔊
how's your father
1910🔊
long drink of water
1918🔊
A-ration
1916🔊
Devdas
1917🔊
jazz
1912bluesky
🔊pommie
1912🔊
scarper
1914🔊
roscoe
1910bluesky
🔊hog waller
1915🔊
ridge-runner
1917🔊
bimbo
1919bluesky
🔊furphy
1914🔊
jaywalker
1917🔊
copacetic
1919🔊
knees-up
1918🔊
flivver
1917🔊
ANC
1912🔊
bush week
1919🔊
walk in the snow
1919🔊
san fairy ann
1914🔊
doohickey
1914bluesky
🔊Dixie cup
1919🔊
live rent-free in someone's head
1918🔊
Jepson claim
1917🔊
poutine
1918bluesky
🔊bozo
1910bluesky
🔊Saturday-night special
1917🔊
movie
1912🔊
Oreo
1912bluesky
🔊Robert Borden
1911🔊
jamboree
1919bluesky
🔊national insurance
1911🔊
Chanakya
1915🔊
Min Min light
1918🔊
realtor
1916bluesky
🔊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.