Dictionary of American Slang and Colloquial Expressions

(Amelia) #1

waltz off (with something)in. to take
something away easily. The thieves
waltzed off with a giant screen television
in broad daylight. They just picked the
thing up and waltzed off. Nobody asked
them any questions.


waltz through something in. to get
through something easily. I waltzed
through my comps and started on my re-
search in my second year. I tried to waltz
through my assignment, but it was too
hard.


wampum[“wamp@m] n. money. (From an
Amerindian word.) I don’t have enough
wampum to swing the deal. How much
wampum do you want for this thing?


wana[“wan@] n. marijuana. (Drugs.) Got
any wana on you? How much is this
wana, man?


wank offGo to beat off.


wanna[“wan@ or “w@n@] phr. want to. (Eye-
dialect. Typical spoken English. Used in
writing only for effect. Used in the ex-
amples of this dictionary.) I will if I
wanna. Do you wanna gimme the
thingy and lemme go ahead with my work?


wannabe and wanna be[“wan@ bi] n.
someone who wants to be something or
someone. (Associated with Madonna, the
singer.) All these teenyboppers are
wannabes, and that’s why we can sell this
stuff to them at any price.


Wanna make sumpin’ of it?Go to Want
to make something of it?


want listn. a list of things that someone
wants. (See also laundry list; shopping
list.) Some of the things on her want list
we can take care of easily. Send me your
want list, and I’ll see what we can do.


want outin. to want to remove oneself
from some association or relationship. 
Ted had had as much as he could stand,
and he wanted out. I want out. This re-
lationship is stif ling me.


Want to make something of it? and
Wanna make sumpin’ of it?interrog.
Do you want to fight about it? So, I’m
a little ugly. Wanna make sumpin’ of it?


I’m warped and smelly. Want to make
something of it?

war chestn. a political campaign fund. 
They say the Vice President has over one
million dollars in his war chest. When
the war chest gave out, the candidate
dropped out of the race.

warhorsen. a tough old thing, person, or
idea. The conductor loves to have us
play that old warhorse as an encore. 
What time does the old warhorse’s train get
in, and how long is she staying this time?

warm bodyn. just anyone who can be
counted on to stay alive. See if you can
get a couple of warm bodies to stand at the
door and hand out programs. You mean
among all these warm bodies nobody
knows calculus?

warmed overmod. not very original; re-
hashed. I am not interested in reading
warmed over news on a computer screen.
The lecture sounded sort of warmed
over, but it wasn’t too dull.

warm someone uptv. to prepare an au-
dience for another—more famous—per-
former. A famous singer came out to
warm us up for Jack Benny. TThis man
Bennett is a superb choice to warm up the
audience.

war paintn. a woman’s makeup. She’ll
be ready when she gets on her war paint.
She doesn’t look half bad without war
paint.

warpedmod. drug intoxicated. (A variant
ofbent.) Too many yellows made Jerry
warped as the dickens. I think Max is
permanently warped.

wart 1. n. an annoying person. (Also a rude
term of address.) Who is that wart with
the inch-thick glasses? Tell the wart to
leave, or we will be forced to call Ziggy,
who doesn’t care for such persons. 2. n. a
problem or an obstruction in a plan. 
Okay, now we come to the wart. We don’t
have the money to carry out this plan. 
It’s okay except for a little wart.

warts and allmod. even with the flaws. 
It’s a great performance—warts and all. 

warts and all
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