Slang throughout the years

According to an April 2021 article in The New York Times written by Taylor Lorenz, the term cheugy was coined in 2013 by Gaby Rasson, a Beverly Hills High School student, who used it to describe “people who were slightly off trend”; an Urban Dictionary definition appeared in 2018.^[1] Subsequently, it was mentioned in a TikTok video by Hallie Cain in March 2021,^[3] inspiring explainers from various media outlets (including Lorenz’ own article).^[1] The American Dialect Society voted cheugy its 2021 “informal word of the year“.^[11]

She is so cheugy: she’s doing last week’s TikTok trend.

The adjective phat has emerged from hip hop, a cultural movement originating among young African Americans in the United States and associated with rap music, graffiti art and breakdancing.

Taylor Swift’s new album is well phat.

Meh‘s popularity surged after its use on the American animated television series The Simpsons.^[7][27] It was first used in the 1994 episode “Sideshow Bob Roberts“,^[7] when a librarian reacts to Lisa’s surprise that voting records are not classified. It also appeared later in “Lisa’s Wedding” after Marge weaves the words “Hi Bart” on a loom to try to pique her son’s interest in weaving, to which he responds “meh”.

Taylor Swift’s new album is a bit meh.

Goldbricking in the modern sense of malingering developed around the time of World War II, in the U.S. Army. The term was extended to refer to anybody not pulling his weight—a loafer who gives the appearance of working without actually accomplishing much

Jim’s group had to work extra hours because Jim was such a goldbricker.

The origin of skivvies, a North American term for underwear, is unclear.

We stripped down to our skivvies and went into the pool.

One early person to use stan for an obsessed fan was the rapper Nas in a 2001 track where he raps: “You a fan, a phony, a fake, a pussy, a Stan.”

An Urban Dictionary entry describing stan for intense fandom was added in 2006, and one of the first tweets using stan as a verb for greatly liking someone came in 2008.

Everyone knows I stan for Taylor Swift!

in the language of rap and hip-hop this means “for sure.” Shizzle, as a euphemism for sh-t, dates back to the ’90s. One can also be “the shizzle,” which is the best or most popular thing.

For shizzle my nizzle.

Slap appears to start getting applied to music, specifically, by at least the early 2000s. Now, the origin of slang, especially successful and widespread slang terms like slap, are indeed hard to pin down, but the musical slap is often credited to Bay Area hip-hop slang. (Hyphy, anyone?) It was first entered into Urban Dictionary in 2004.

Rihanna’s new single slaps so hard, I can’t stop listening to it!

The phrase “woke” and to “stay woke” is not new — it began appearing in the 1940s and was first used by African Americans to “literally mean becoming woken up or sensitized to issues of justice

DeSantis leverages the woke agenda for his own purposes.

Unknown origin, probably related to boogie-woogie music.

Let’s boogie!