Glossary of 1920s Terminology

Ankle – to walk

Applesauce – drat; darn

Bank’s closed! – stop making out!

Bird/cat – referring to a man

Blouse – take off; leave

Bluenose – term for a prude or individual deemed to be a killjoy

Bubs – breasts

Burning powder – firing a gun

Bushwa – bullshit

Cabbage – money

Cheaters – glasses

Choice bit of calico – pretty; attractive

Corn – bourbon

Darb – lovely

Dewdropper – slacker; someone who is often unemployed

Dizzy with the dame – in love

Drum – speakeasy

Duck soup – easy; no problem

Dumb Dora – a girl who is not too bright

Egg man – the money man; the man with the bankroll

Flapper – young modern girl in the 1920s

Flaming youth – young modern man in the 1920s

Gasper – cigarette

Grifter – con man

Go chase yourself – get out

Gooseberry lay – Stealing clothes from a clothesline

Gumshoe – detective

Half-seas over – drunk

Have the bees – to be rich

Hayburner – car with poor gas mileage; a guzzler

Iron my shoelaces – excuse one’s self for the restroom

Jake – easy

Jane – a term for a woman

Jingle-brained – addled

Mazuma – cash

Manacle – wedding ring

Oliver twist – an extremely good dancer

Oyster fruit – pearls

Panther piss – cheap, homemade liquor

Phonus balonus – nonsense; horseshit

Pug – boxer

Rattler – train

Rhatz – darn; bummer

Rub – a dance party for college or high school students

Sheba – someone’s girlfriend

Sockdollager – someone or something which is truly remarkable or impressive; a humdinger

Spinach – cash

Trigger men – men whose job it is to use a gun

Whoopee – have a good time

William “The Lion” Smith – famous jazz pianist of the 1920s

Yegg – safecracker who can only open cheap and easy safes

You’re on the trolley – now you’re catching on

Zounds – expressing surprise or admiration

Zozzled – drunk