38 Terrific Slang Terms From The Last Century

Wastoid, wedgie, and dumpster fire, oh my! 20th-century slang has some of our favorite words and phrases. Learn all about the fun origins of some pretty whacky and absolutely real slang terms from the last hundred years.
And for even more fun facts about your favorite words, check out Mental Floss's latest book:
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[@patriciafillmore407]

76 yr old great grandma who loves one of the newer slang words, "metal", to describe something really tough like the goose that took on a bear to protect its flock.

[@astriddean6433]

Is your Grandma related to Nathan Explosion 😂

[@eugeniawatson1604]

Mettle

[@elainebenes7971]

Slang is used in speech long before it shows up in print. I can assure you “dumpster fire” was used long before a 2008 usenet post.

[@SECONDQUEST]

Yeah, I don't think the people who wrote this video disagree with you they aren't dumb.

[@LittleBitofHopeToo2518]

It's like Boob Tube. That was used to refer to TV's almost as soon as they were invented. If you have ever seen inside one, you will instantly know why.

[@Summalogicae]

Unless you have evidence, you can’t actually assure us of anything

[@graham2631]

Yes we can, convince you? Thats entirely different.

[@Summalogicae]

@@graham2631Not to be pedantic but, sure, I suppose assurances can be devoid of evidence, but then what actually is an assurance if it’s empty of content?

[@Zeyev]

Great fun. 1) I was part of an information center in a Federal building in the 1970s. A man came in and asked where the Don Ameche was. I told him where the pay phone was and then jokingly added, "You didn't think I would understand you." He admitted that was true. 2) You may want to check with a Yiddish speaker about the pronunciation of Yiddish words. The Yiddish "nudge" is not said the same as the English "nudge."

[@carlupthegrove262]

Wow, the 50s, 60s, and 70s slang brought back some crazy memories. Thanks

[@cassieoz1702]

I grew up in 60-80s understanding 'sozzled' to mean (politely) drunk, and snafu is alive and well.

[@batya7]

Couldn't think of a favorite slang but was taken back to my college days, late 70s, when "bad" (usually said with a heavy emphasis) meant "good or notable" (as in "that's a really baaad guitar solo). Today, someone might say that something is "sick," meaning "good" in the same manner. Not exactly slang, but I'm sure there is some kind of lexicographic fancy word to describe that practice.

[@alexanders562]

I was astounded to hear a young man getting an award, and thanking his mom, because "She's the shit."

[@kandipiatkowski8589]

When I was in high school, "no shit sherlock" was popular. Lol

[@mrcryptozoic817]

You guessed 'er, Chester.

[@kshanksr]

My mom is from Long Island, so I grew up hearing a lot of random Yiddish words, including "noodge". Although it was typically used as a noun rather than the verb.

[@alexanders562]

Yes, that is how I have heard it used. "Don't be a noodge. Yer making me mashugina"

[@chompsn9]

My favorite old slang is "got the morbs" and it's exactly what it sounds like even though it's from the 1880's. It needs to make more of a comeback

[@ibnbob7847]

Noob (and noobie) were used in the US Army in Vietnam. Synonym for F-in' New Guy (FNG). Not complimentary: new guys are dangerous to their teammates until they learn a lot.

[@teleriferchnyfain]

So many of these slang terms are very much still in use. Interesting to see where they come from.

[@waverlyking6045]

My favorite 80s-ism: Smooth Move Ex-Lax

[@KingsleyIII]

Maybe it's just me, but I first heard "wastoid" from the skating episode of The Fairly Oddparents, when Vicky said: "Oh, you want _this_ crown? You got a better chance of some loser 12-year-old _wastoid_ falling from the sky, and plowing me into the ground!" and then that exact thing happens.

[@Laura-kl7vi]

Depends when it was. All we know is that John Hughes coined the word, made it up, for his film The Breakfast Club, in 1985. It must have taken off from there.

[@0ValdeCalebros]

lol kids

[@ShaneMcGraw]

I just said “grody” the other day. I’ve never stopped using it. Hell’s bells, I didn’t realize it had gone out of fashion.

[@richdorak1547]

My all time fave is from the 60s. "bag" , as in " What's your bag ? " or what are you into ? your thing ? The great Sammy Davis Jr. was asked about a particular activity and Sammy replied " It's not my bag , man . " I still throw it out there now and then ! Ha !

[@HayTatsuko]

Snafu's close companion "fubar" has long been a favorite of mine. "Fouled Up Beyond All Recognition" -- though it's often stated using that spicier F-word instead, and my actual first exposure to it, as a child, was seeing "FOO.BAR" used humorously as an example filename in a computer programming manual. "Kludge" is another favorite, programming jargon that carries a similar meaning to "bodge" -- specifically, a makeshift, inelegant solution to a problem.

[@teleriferchnyfain]

SNAFU & FUBAR are very much still used.

[@teleriferchnyfain]

SNAFU & FUBAR are very much still used.

[@teleriferchnyfain]

SNAFU & FUBAR are very much still used.

[@teleriferchnyfain]

SNAFU & FUBAR are very much still used.

[@teleriferchnyfain]

SNAFU & FUBAR are very much still used.

[@ho77iday]

Anyone else here been using _dumpster_ fire way before the 2000s?

[@S.p.a.c.e.C.o.w.b.o.y]

"Going out on the piss" going for an alcoholic drink or 3. Not sure how far out of the UK this is used but it is widespread amongst the younger crowd as is "Getting/Got pissed. 😊

[@auldfouter8661]

Interesting that galore itself comes from Scottish Gaelic and Whisky Galore is a well known book by Compton MacKenzie , later a film.

[@OreoDave]

So fetch 💜

[@theseventhangel9768]

Bazinga! [canned laughter] 😅

[@bonwatcher]

This video was gnarly dude.

[@alexemann]

You could make a whole 38 word list of slang words for "drunk." My personal favorite is "He's legless."

[@madamesalamander16]

Bladdered!

[@trevinbeattie4888]

I remember making boondoggles. When I heard it used as a term for wasteful activity, I thought that’s where the Boy Scouts got the name for the braid!

[@lynnhettrick7588]

I was in my 20s in the ‘90s. Many of my college friends were consultants for big companies. We used the term “boondoggle” to mean to get something for free, specifically dinner and drinks. “I totally boondoggled that client event.”

[@rebeccafree9755]

I like 'silly goose' as in 'dont be such a silly goose' 🦆

[@spwolftech]

Wow, in middle school we did this. my entire class was told to find the oldest person we could and get slang words from when they where kids and we each got 10 words and made a huge "slang-tionary". this was in 1987-89 not sure exactly. I interviewed a church friend of my moms who was 96 at the time, and yes i got the oldest slang, i just wish i still had my copy of our slang-tionary from back then, could be fun to look back on. (Meridian, Idaho if anyone else from that time just happens to see this and happens to remember this old class project)

[@saltwithlove2269]

Of course , the Viz comic calls a slang collection a " profanisarus" . 👍

[@saltwithlove2269]

" kneedusters" 😍 that one

[@CrystalWilliamsoncoach]

Fierce from the 1980s I still sometimes use this word around Gen Z & Millennials at work.

[@JWentu]

1:35: my brain completely blown & shocked

[@SlippyMcKnot8472]

The bomb 💣 was a huge one everyone used when I was a kid.

[@DragonKazooie89]

7:40 - Kind of funny since that's the name of the town in Bailly and Mandy and the complete opposite happens

[@SeanLamb-I-Am]

Yeet. Yep, that's my favorite of all the slang I've heard so far.

[@hhairball9]

Please, what does it mean?

[@VikingTeddy]

​@@hhairball9To yeet is to throw, chuck, send flying.

[@hhairball9]

@VikingTeddy thank you!

[@BadMonkey4448]

My favorite slang term is Bitchin. I still use it today even though my surfing days are long over.

[@Apophis324]

Wicked has to be the best slang term ever. Not that I use it as much as I used to.. Maybe I should get back into using it ^^

[@delusionnnnn]

If my mission were to use a time machine to infiltrate the language with one word of modern slang, it would be "spicy" in the colloquial, dramatic sense.

[@FPSRockstar]

balloon knot

[@blissedher]

I always liked getting some “trim”. And still do.

[@jamesdriscoll_tmp1515]

I always liked "gardy loo", which is what you shout just before you pour your chamber pot out the window into the street below. It's adapted from the French.

[@SteMail926]

4.17 'sozzled' is still used by people in the UK, and it's pretty similar

[@auldfouter8661]

I was thinking about that , true.

[@cybersandoval]

salt and pepper was reference to the flavor of smoking it, peppersweet now because pot's improved a lot

[@BearMeat4Dinner]

When da breakfast club came out I was under ten years old.. I don’t remember da waistoide word you guys mentioned!!! lol!!

[@btetschner]

A+ video! Fascinating slang!

[@nebulan]

Yeet is the best word

[@YeeSoest]

I really like "taking an L" because it came from teamsports that give you a chance to redeem and get over that L quickly, making "taking an L" at least feel like it entails accepting the loss somewhat lightly if not graciously which ... Has to make a return please😅

[@maryvon8518]

copacetic

[@jphilb]

Pretty sure the 1900’s are the last century. Unless I missed a joke.

[@PoorBoxJohnsDoubleVoodoo-nb3eq]

The term 'Couch potato' was coined by cartoonist Bob Armstrong who went to court to copyright it when it took off and was denied. His couch potatoes were a group of guys who sat around all day watching tv. I'm sure the comics are available

[@VickiCampbell-1216]

"Flaked". 80s? California? "Dude, I totally flaked. Forgot to meet up with you." 😄"Shark Bait" is funny, too.

[@novtek]

What about a neomaxizoomed weebee? (Also in breakfast club)

[@YCIGAFSN]

Dumpster fire and noob/newbe were around in the late 70's and 80's. Tubular was around in the late 70's as well. Several others listed here I remember hearing and using as a kid. Slang terms may fade out of use after a time; but most, if not all of them, are recycled back into our language at some point.

[@burner555]

I misread "tubular" as "tumblr" 💀💀💀

[@chadhiga]

This was rad

[@marlon82mc]

"Cool" is immortal.

[@madamesalamander16]

I still say "grody" and "bitchin'." The 80s was a fun time to be a kid, but being a teen in the 90s was great. We had The Jerky Boys and Jay and Silent Bob to introduce us to slang like "sizzle chest" and "snoochie boochies."

[@ChadwickTheChad]

"You're so molded!" Mid 80s slang in the SF Bay Area. It was used when someone was proven wrong in an argument, basically meaning "See? I told you!" I believe it predates the other Bay Area slang term "Hella."

[@tommunyon2874]

When we moved across town in the mid-1950s the neighborhood had more teenagers. They were using words like " shaunt" to mean " you don't say", and "nay" to, of all things, mean "yes".

[@alexanders562]

10:20 Grody was from grotesque. George Harrison says it in Hard Days Night to an interviewer

[@BigTimeRushFan2112]

Like totally a rad vid dude!

[@prestonstephens7719]

Even texting you can tell how old someone is. That’s groovy. Talk to the hand. Do you need to tinkle? Shut the back door. OK girlfriend. Rad “”!!!!”

[@JohnTeig]

Poseidon's Kiss. - Look it up 😛

[@blessedveteran]

You missed my favorite slang growing up... "As If" ... yes, I grew up in California 😂👍

[@AndrewBrown-fq6vp]

My favorite slang term is "glass" as a verb!

[@mrcryptozoic817]

Had to think a bit, but now I remember that. Use the binoculars.

[@dj1211]

I was a teenager in the 80's and have never heard of the Stranger Things...I have heard of wastoid. Breakfast Club is still one my favorite movies. St Elmos Fire?

[@camgere]

Vout oreenee. You can't go wrong if you stay latched on.

[@hawk5096]

I'm from the Westside of Chicago, and I remember using Bogart in the 1990s. I admit that I didn't know where it came from.

[@fishdaddy35]

AM and PM come from Latin: ante meridian and post meridian (before and after noon).

[@btetschner]

x 2:15 A kid in my elementary school class literally chased ambulances, he once rode his bicycle three miles outside of town to see where the ambulance was going and had to give up. x I like that San Fairy Ann... x I read Anthony Burgess' A Clockwork Orange (fantastic book!) x I like the original definition of boondoggle. x I am 100% behind passion pit, love it! x I like a-go-go x I am 100% behind Bogart (for hogging the joint) x Love couch potato, boob tube, guilt trip, wedgie, tighty-whities, valley girl (that music video is awesome), groady, to-the-max, boo-yah, and dumpster fire. x a/s/l...that is a trhowback! I remember that from ICQ and Yahoo chat. x I had a classmate in graduate school who was a phish-head, she would make patchwork clothing and sell it on the tours. x showrooming is possibly a winner...

[@karnasaur]

Glad to see you fixed the title.

[@joelbradley1531]

I have had a tuff time counting all the slang words for vomit.

[@robbruce2128]

Now I gotta go re-watch _Ball of Fire_ about a bunch of eggheads writing an encyclopedia of slang who stash a gun moll on the lam and keep her on ice until she sings like a canary on her gangster daddy. "Egghead," I think I like that one best. Or Poindexter.

[@lapierredave]

As recently as the 90s, I and some friends referred to drunk as "zozzled" for the slurring of speech while drunk. This was probably the origin back then, too. (guessing).

[@Serai3]

By the way, another 50's term for "drunk" was "stoned". The hippies picked up the expression from their parents and used it to mean high from weed. :)

[@dchall8]

Beatniks (1950s counter culture teens) used stoned for drunk, ya dig? If you didn't drink or were socially awkward, then you were L7. L7 found its way into music in Wooly Bully by Sam the Sham and the Pharaohs. Hippies (1960s and 70s counterculture youth) did convert stoned as you say, so another term had to fill the void for drunk. It was juiced (sometimes sloshed), and people who drank but did not partake in drugs were known as juicers. So there were stoners and juicers. Square and the related L7 faded quickly in the 60s. Rarely did the juicers and stoners party together. Bitchin', huh! Stoners or juicers who had a sudden, unusually rational thought might refer to the thought as far out, and then the thought would disappear just as suddenly. Usually the thought was not all that rational. Bummer. Boo-ya I believe was taken from Marine Corps training. It's an easy way to spell a guttural sound that has no spelling. Or it could be a way to say "hurrah" in the fashion of WHO-ra or WHO-ya. I first heard it in the early 70s, but I'm sure it was around prior to that.

[@Serai3]

@@dchall8 Yeah, I was a kid in the 60's, dude. I heard all that.

[@nyls1717]

“Jonathan Green”? Nice try I know that’s just John Green with a fake mustache. Come on out John, if you want to be back on mental floss you can just say so!

[@EmilyEverglot]

From the 80's LAGNAF. Like SNAFU it's actually an acronym.

[@rubylilamoore6322]

Can't help noticing the similarity between san fairy ann, sweet fanny adams, and sweet f- all

[@alexanders562]

I think"cool" is a astoundingly versatile slang word. It can be calm, ok, good, very good, happy, stylish, trustworthy, an affirmation, so much, but not as versatile as "shit"

[@schmittelt]

Sweet!

[@ArchoniusXXVII]

I was born in the 70s and grew up mostly in the 80s - I’ve never heard the term “wastoid” until now.

[@lynnhettrick7588]

I’m Gen X and I remember it, but it wasn’t used that often

[@ArchoniusXXVII]

@@lynnhettrick7588 my only defense is that I didn’t watch The Breakfast Club (or most John Hughes films)

[@robertmiller9735]

@@lynnhettrick7588 I never heard people saying that either, but for a year or so everybody was going around saying "demented and sad, but social!".

[@NightKitchenQueen]

To say someone is a "solid sender" is to describe them as excellent, the best, etc. -- whether it came from Little Richard's "Slippin' And Slidin'" or he lifted it from common slang, I don't know.

[@matthewhansen2126]

Never heard wastoid before now and I was one

[@VikingTeddy]

What no cowabunga? We need more surfer slang.

[@royrucci6240]

Sozzeled still means drunk in south west UK.

[@KattMurr]

I like the British term for drunk- pissed...and the acronym FUBAR...

[@DawnDavidson]

Fubarred: when a snafu goes nuclear. The military does love their initialisms! (See also: radar, sonar …)

[@dbirchlaw]

My favorite slang term is "Dude". I am 42 and everyone of both genders still get called that all the time.

[@LittleBitofHopeToo2518]

Same for Guy and you guys in certain situations.

[@josephmiller4234]

"Deadass"

[@peterbonucci9661]

The internet slang "Pwn" as in to dominate. It should be younger than noob.

[@juneyshu6197]

Pawned. Pwnd.

[@robumf]

Favorite. Last decade. A young male ask why he watches My Little Pony. I just watch it for the plot. That's all it takes to create a slang.

[@quintessenceSL]

Mardy. Just because I see it so often now.

[@jefferymorman295]

My favorite slang is actually a fictional expletive: TANJ. There Ain’t No Justice.

[@robertmiller9735]

Do you swear by Finagle too?😉

[@jefferymorman295]

finnagles corollary to murphys law is an important rule to know! @@robertmiller9735

[@ithydoodles]

I think backseat bingo is hilarious 😂 Backseat bingo in a passion pit 😂 car s** at a movie.

[@cijmo]

Most of our slang is Scottish but I just want to say you have probably blown some minds showing people what an actual ampersand is. So many think that " @ " is an ampersand.

[@LittleBitofHopeToo2518]

Really? People don't know that it is the "at" sign?

[@ASteamingHam]

This video is some pumpkins.

[@jamesinsmanna8499]

Bring back John!

[@bigbossimmotal]

Just for the record, the last century was the 20th century and it ran from 1900 to 1999, not from 1924 to 2024. Think about it. It CAN also mean the last 100 years, but if people mean the last 100 years, that is generally what they say.

[@LittleBitofHopeToo2518]

Yes, her use of "the 19th century" and referring to the 1900's seemingly interchangeably was a bit confusing too.

[@birdsdaword]

Far out

[@haeuptlingaberja4927]

"Movin' to Montana soon Gonna be a Dental Floss tycoon (yes I am) Movin' to Montana soon Gonna be a mennil-toss flykune" Frank Zappa, "Montana," 1973

[@jamesdriscoll_tmp1515]

Great song

[@bunkerman99]

See you later Alligator; in awhile Crocodile.

[@PerspectiveEngineer]

The birth of the commercial Internet saddest thing I've heard all millennia

[@tracylallier9498]

Styling

[@DaveSomething]

sibilance... anywho I have The Dictionary of American Slang, I didn't return it when I left high school... whoops. meh.

[@thx1136]

Baisodrome

[@jeremyjw]

aw dude . . .