Another rather delightful and slightly archaic words in this list of British slang terms is ‘kerfuffle’. ‘Kerfuffle’ describes a skirmish or a fight or an argument caused by differing views.

For example, ‘I had a right kerfuffle with my girlfriend this morning over politics.’

Jammy is in semi-common use in the north west and south west of England. It is a descriptive word, used to describe someone who is extremely lucky for something, without putting in much effort for it.

For example, ‘I can’t believe you won that, proper jammy.’

‘Hunky-dory’ – a neat little piece of British slang that means that a situation is okay, cool, or normal.

For example, ‘Yeah, everything’s hunky-dory at the office.’

I believe this expression originates in the English county of Cheshire. The word relates to the way a goose (a male goose is called a gander) cranes its neck to look at something. As such a form of this expression ‘Have a goosey’ also exists, but is much more uncommon.

In context it works like this, ‘Come here and have a gander at what he’s doing.’

This is cheating, it is almost exclusively used in the English county Devonshire, but I’m including it as its fun to say. It is used as a derogatory word for tourists.

For example, ‘I don’t go over there anymore it’s full of grockels these days.’

‘Gobsmacked’ – a truly British expression meaning to be shocked and surprised beyond belief. The expression is believed by some to come literally from ‘gob’ (a British expression for mouth), and the look of shock that comes from someone hitting it.

For example. ‘I was gobsmacked when she told me she was pregnant with triplets.’

‘Fortnight’ – a British slang term more commonly used by virtually everyone in the UK to mean ‘a group of two weeks’.

For example, ‘I’m going away for a fortnight to Egypt for my summer holiday.’

A “do” is essentially a party, to my knowledge it doesn’t refer to a particular form of party, so feel free to use it as you like.

For example, you might say ‘I’m going to Steve’s birthday do tonight.’

More of an usual term, a ‘damp squib’ in British slang terms refers to something which fails on all accounts, coming from the ‘squib’ (an explosive), and the propensity for them to fail when wet.

For example, ‘The party was a bit of a damp squib because only Richard turned up.’

‘Cock up’ – a British slang term that is far from the lewdness its name suggests. A ‘cock up’ is a mistake, a failure of large or epic proportions.

For example, ‘The papers sent out to the students were all in the wrong language – it’s a real cock up.’ Also, ‘I cocked up the orders for table number four.’

Not a wonderfully melodic word, ‘chunder’ is part and parcel of British slang terms. Meaning ‘to vomit’ or ‘to be sick’, ‘chunder’ is almost always used in correlation with drunken nights, or being hugely ill and sick.

For example, ‘I ate a bad pizza last night after too many drinks and chundered in the street.’

‘Cheers’ doesn’t quite have the same meaning that it does in other counties – of course, it still means ‘celebrations’ when toasting a drink with some friends, but in British slang, it also means ‘thanks’ or ‘thank you’.

For example, ‘Cheers for getting me that drink, Steve’.