South African slang
Slang from South Africa, where English borrows freely from the country’s other languages.
About this list
South African English borrows freely from Afrikaans: jol, kak, and oke all come from it. Words Wiktionary marks as offensive in any sense are left out.
35 words
- cold drink money
- a small bribe
- park a tiger
- To vomit.
- jong
- A friendly term of address, especially for a young man.
- chow
- To eat.
- mellow yellow
- A yellow police car used in South Africa.
- fink
- Any of several birds in the family Ploceidae native to southern Africa.
- zak
- Money.
- bok
- Keen or willing.
- donner
- To beat up; clobber; thrash.
- scoff
- Food.
- tik
- crystal meth or speed.
- sif
- Foul, disgusting.
- oke
- Man; guy; bloke.
- dop
- To fail or to plug (an examination, standard or grade)
- kak
- Trouble.
- motherless
- very, completely (especially in reference to drunkenness)
- gata
- A police officer.
- derm
- Guts, entrails.
- jol
- A party.
- cadenza
- To become agitated or excited.
- ticky box
- A payphone; Alternative spelling of tickey box.
- Zamalek
- Carling Black Label, a brand of beer.
- maat
- mate; buddy
- gatta
- A police officer.
- lighty
- A young man; a boy.
- wors
- boerewors
- bughouse
- A cheap and dirty cinema.
- zol
- A cannabis cigarette.
- china
- Synonym of mate (rhyme of china-plate).
- arm
- A quantity of dagga leaves rolled up in paper into a thick cylinder.
- button
- A methaqualone tablet (used as a recreational drug).
- tune
- To be impudent towards; to cheek.
- chuck
- To leave; to depart; to bounce.
- floppy
- An insurgent in the Rhodesian Bush War, called as such for the way they "flop" when shot.
- khaya
- Anyone's house or home.
Sources and licenses
-
Meanings, labels, and dates from
English Wiktionary, by way of the
kaikki.org extraction, under
CC BY-SA 4.0. The lists
derived from it are shared under the same license: read the
data notice, or copy them from
src/tools/thesaurus/generated/in the Tabularia repository. - Words are ordered by how often they appear in modern English, measured with wordfreq.