Essential Terms — Index
Slang is not a fixed dictionary — it is a moving target that changes by city, by year, and by artist. This index is the fast way in; each term links to a full entry in the glossary with its meaning, the scene it is strongest in, and notes on how usage drifts. We keep it honest: a curated set of real, current terms rather than a padded list. If a term you expect is missing, that usually means we have not verified it well enough to write it down yet — tell us and we will look into it.
A quick-reference index into the full glossary. This is a growing list, not a padded "top 100" — we would rather have 26 real entries than 100 fake ones. (An earlier version of this page listed "Essential Knowledge Item 1, 2, 3…" with no content. We deleted that.)
Akhi — brother
Baited — obvious / likely to get caught (UK)
Bando — abandoned house / trap
Bands — money
Blick — gun
Blicky — gun
Cap / No cap — lie / no lie
Ching — to stab / a knife (UK)
Choppa — automatic rifle
Corn — ammunition / bullets
Demon time — reckless late-night
Draco — AK-style pistol
Drill — subgenre / to attack
Drip — style / expensive fashion
Duppy — to kill / a ghost (Patois)
Ends — neighbourhood
Fein — drug user / to crave
Gang — affiliation / intensifier
Glizzy — gun / hot dog
Guap / Bread / Cheese — money
Ice — diamonds / jewellery
Mandem — the crew / group of guys (UK)
On God — I swear
Op / Opp block — rival territory
Op / Ops — enemies (US)
Opp — rival
Pack — quantity of drugs
Peng — attractive
Plug — supplier
Racks — money
Rambo — large knife (UK)
Roadman — someone in street life (UK)
Shank — knife / to stab (UK)
Skeng — weapon (UK)
Slide — to attack
Smoke — conflict
Stick — rifle / gun
Sturdy — bold movement / dance
Sus — suspicious / suspect
Ting — a thing / a girl / a weapon (UK)
Trap — drug spot / subgenre
Wagwan — greeting
Wap — gun / to shoot
Wave — trend / mood
Whip — car
Work — drugs to sell
Terms by theme
The vocabulary clusters into a handful of recurring categories. Grouping terms this way is often a faster way in than the A–Z, because drill and trap lyrics tend to combine one term from several of these buckets in a single line.
- Weapons: blick, blicky, glizzy, stick, choppa, draco, wap, skeng, shank, rambo, corn.
- People & crew: opp, gang, mandem, roadman, akhi, fein.
- Places: ends, opp block, trap, bando.
- Actions & conflict: slide, drill, smoke, ching, duppy.
- Money & trade: bands, racks, guap / bread / cheese, plug, pack, work.
- Truth, talk & vibe: cap / no cap, on god, sus, baited, wave, wagwan.
- Style & status: drip, ice, peng, whip, sturdy.
How this index is maintained
This is a curated reference, not a scraped word-dump. Every term in the index links to a full entry that has been written and checked, and we would rather ship a smaller list we can stand behind than a padded one we cannot. Slang also refuses to sit still: a term can shift meaning, fall out of use, or split into regional variants within a year or two, so treat any index like this — ours included — as a snapshot in motion rather than a closed dictionary. When a word here starts turning up in mainstream captions and advertising, that is usually the sign it is on its way out of the scenes that coined it, and that a successor term is already circulating that we have not documented yet. If you know that successor, the contact page is how it gets added.