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99 free Slang trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
42 free slang trivia questions with answers. This slang trivia quiz digs into where the words we actually use came from: the Boston newspaper joke that produced OK, the dandies who were the first dudes, the jazz musician who made cool cool, the New Orleans rap that gave the dictionary bling, the flapper who was the bee's knees, the surfers and Valley girls, Cockney rhyming slang and Polari, Australia's 5,000 diminutives, the acronyms of the internet age (LOL, OMG, YOLO, FOMO), and the Gen Z and Gen Alpha words that dictionaries have been crowning word of the year: selfie, rizz, brain rot, skibidi. Some questions are easy for anyone who has been online this decade; others go back a century or more and will test people who read dictionary etymologies for fun. It suits a pub quiz language round, an ESL classroom or a family argument about whether anyone should still say groovy. Every answer has been checked against a dictionary or reference source, and each question shows its explanation and citation once you have answered.
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Q 01"OK" first appeared in print in 1839 as a jokey abbreviation of what?
Oll korrect
The Boston Morning Post printed OK on 23 March 1839 as a jokey abbreviation of 'oll korrect', riding a fad for comic misspellings of common phrases.
Q 02Which US president's 1840 campaign nickname helped make "OK" a national word?
Martin Van Buren
Martin Van Buren's 1840 re-election campaign used 'Old Kinderhook', after his New York birthplace, and its 'OK Clubs' spread the abbreviation nationwide.
Q 03When "dude" first appeared in print in 1883, what did it mean?
A fussily dressed man
In 1883 a dude was a fussily dressed man, a dandy aping English fashion; the Western sense of a city slicker, as in 'dude ranch', came later.
Q 04The modern slang sense of "cool" is credited to which jazz saxophonist?
Lester Young
Lester Young, the Count Basie tenor saxophonist, is credited with spreading 'cool' as approval among 1940s jazz musicians, where the slang sense took hold.
Q 05"Bling bling" entered mainstream English after a 1999 single by which New Orleans rapper?
B.G.
B.G.'s 1999 Cash Money single 'Bling Bling' carried the word into everyday English; the Shorter Oxford English Dictionary listed it by 2002.
Q 06Which New York landmark is the most popular explanation for the 1906 fad phrase '23 skidoo'?
The Flatiron Building
The Flatiron Building, at 23rd Street, funnelled gusts that lifted women's skirts; police supposedly told gawking men to 'skidoo', hence '23 skidoo'.
Q 07'The bee's knees' and 'the cat's meow' were expressions of approval from which decade's slang?
The 1920s
The 1920s flappers who said them also called an engagement ring a 'handcuff' and said 'I have to see a man about a dog' when buying whiskey.
Q 08"Groovy" comes from which world before hippies got hold of it?
Jazz
Groovy began in 1930s jazz, from playing 'in the groove' of a record, before the 1960s counterculture adopted it as general approval.
Q 09Who voiced the 'gag me with a spoon' chatter on Frank Zappa's 1982 hit 'Valley Girl'?
His daughter Moon Unit
His daughter Moon Unit supplied the Valspeak, whose uptalk and 'like' as a filler are now studied by linguists; Clueless cemented the stereotype in 1995.
Q 10In Cockney rhyming slang, what are a person's "plates of meat"?
Their feet
The rhyme is usually dropped in practice, so a Cockney climbs "the apples" (apples and pears, stairs).
Q 11"Use your ___" means use your head; the blank comes from rhyming slang for what?
Bread (loaf of bread)
Loaf of bread rhymes with head; the phrase escaped the East End and is now used by people who have never heard of rhyming slang.
Q 12What does a Cockney mean by a "Ruby Murray"?
A curry
A Ruby Murray is a curry, rhyming slang after the Northern Irish singer who had five songs in the UK top twenty in one week in 1955.
Q 13Traditionally, a true Cockney is someone born within earshot of which church's bells?
St Mary-le-Bow
Bow Bells are those of St Mary-le-Bow on Cheapside; the word Cockney itself comes from Middle English cokenay, a 'cock's egg', once an insult for soft city folk.
Q 21The internet acronym LOL was added to the Oxford English Dictionary in which year?
2011
The OED added LOL in March 2011, in the same update as OMG and FYI, noting that LOL had earlier meant 'little old lady'.
Q 22The earliest known use of "OMG" is in a 1917 letter to which politician?
Winston Churchill
Admiral John Fisher wrote it to Churchill, decades before anyone owned a modem.
Q 23Which rapper's 2011 single 'The Motto' turned the acronym YOLO into a global catchphrase?
Drake
Drake's 2011 single 'The Motto', featuring Lil Wayne, carried the hook 'you only live once, that's the motto, YOLO' and sent the acronym worldwide.
Q 14Polari, the secret slang of British gay men, reached a mass audience through which 1960s BBC radio comedy?
Round the Horne
Round the Horne's characters Julian and Sandy, played by Hugh Paddick and Kenneth Williams, popularised 'bona' and 'zhoosh'; Polari faded after partial decriminalisation in 1967.
Q 15Which everyday British word for something dull or tacky is thought to come from Polari?
Naff
Naff, meaning dull or tacky, is thought to come from Polari; 'camp' is another Polari escapee, while 'vada' (look) and 'eek' (face) stayed underground.
Q 16What is an 'esky' in Australian slang?
A portable cooler
An esky is a portable cooler, named after the Esky brand launched by Malley's of Sydney in 1952 and now used for any cool box.
Q 17The Australian slang word "yakka", meaning hard work, was borrowed from where?
Yagara, an Aboriginal tongue
"Sheila" for a woman, by contrast, comes from the Irish name Síle.
Q 18What is a "dunny" to a Sydneysider?
A toilet
A dunny is a toilet, originally an outdoor one; the word comes from the old British dialect term dunnekin for a privy.
Q 19In British English "pissed" usually means what?
Drunk
In Britain pissed means drunk, as in 'pissed as a newt'; Americans use it for annoyed, which is why 'pissed off' travels better.
Q 20Ask for a 'rubber' in an American office and you will most likely be understood to want what?
A condom
A condom is the American reading; in Britain a rubber is the thing on the end of a pencil, a gap that has confused generations of classrooms.
Q 24The acronym FOMO was popularised by a 2004 article in the student magazine of which institution?
Harvard Business School
Patrick McGinnis coined FOMO in a 2004 piece for The Harbus, Harvard Business School's student paper, alongside FOBO, fear of better options.
Q 25The -ie ending of "selfie", first used in a 2002 forum, is typical of which country's English?
Australia
The -ie ending is classic Australian; Oxford made it Word of the Year in 2013.
Q 26Oxford's 2015 Word of the Year was not a word at all. What was it?
The face-with-tears-of-joy emoji
The word emoji itself is Japanese for picture-character and has nothing to do with "emotion".
Q 27The Japanese word "emoji" literally combines "e" and "moji", meaning what?
Picture and character
Emoji combines e, 'picture', and moji, 'character'; Shigetaka Kurita drew the first set of 176 in 1999 for NTT DoCoMo's i-mode service.
Q 28Which Carnegie Mellon computer scientist proposed the sideways smiley :-) on a bulletin board in September 1982?
Scott Fahlman
Scott Fahlman proposed :-( at the same time, to mark the posts that were not jokes.
Q 29"Rizz", Oxford's Word of the Year for 2023, is a shortening of which word?
Charisma
Rizz is a shortening of charisma, its middle syllable; Oxford chose it for 2023 after Tom Holland joked he had 'limited rizz'.
Q 30Which streamer is credited with popularising "rizz" in 2021?
Kai Cenat
Kai Cenat, the Twitch streamer, is credited with spreading rizz from his 2021 streams; he later complained that TikTok had twisted its meaning.