11 common English words with slang meanings you can’t guess!

Hi. Welcome to www.engvid.com. I'm Adam. In today's video, I have a bit of a treat for

you. Okay? I'm going to teach you some new words. Okay? First, before I get into it,

let me just show you these words. "Vegetable", "beef", "dead", "beat", "crash", "axe", "can",

"dirt", "trash", "sick", and "bust". Now, you're probably sitting there going, "Yeah,

these are kind of basic everyday words", right? Like I said, everyday words. But I'm going

to show you the slang uses of these words. I'm going to show you how these words mean

something completely different than the meanings you're probably associating with them. So,

for example, "vegetable", I think everybody knows this word, "vegetable". It's something

you eat, right? Like fruits and vegetables. So, you have, like, a lettuce, for example,

as a vegetable, or a cucumber. But, did you know that "vegetable" can also mean, when

we talk about something being in a vegetative state, when a person, for example, let's say

someone got into a car accident and hit his or her head, and they're in the hospital and

they're in a state of a coma, they're in a vegetative state, there's not much brain frequency,

there's not much brain activity. So, we say this person is vegetative, this person is

like a vegetable, just lying there, not moving. Right? So, alive, but not moving. So, we call

this person in slang, we say he or she is a vegetable. So, when we talk about somebody,

when we say, you know, he's not that smart, he's like he's a vegetable. He's alive, but

that's it. He's a body with no brain. But, and another way to use it, to "veg out". Okay?

As a verb, and we use "veg" like it sounds like a "j", to "veg out" means to relax and

do nothing. "What are you doing this weekend?" "Oh, I think I'm going to veg out at home."

Okay, so as a non-native English speaker, you're thinking, "Veg, veg, I don't know this

word. What does'veg' mean?" "Oh, you know, like vegetable." "You're going to go home

and eat vegetables all weekend?" "No, I'm going to lie on my couch like a vegetable,

doing nothing, relaxing." Okay? So, to "veg out" from "vegetable", or if someone is a

vegetable, not doing anything or not too much brain power there.

"Beef", and again you're thinking, okay, again, food, you eat beef, you know, cow, cooked

beef. "Beef" can also mean "complaint" or "problem". So, you go to your boss and you

say, you know, "I have a beef with you. I have a beef with you." It means I have a problem

with you, I have a complaint about you. And the boss says, "Well, take your beef to HR."

It means I don't want to hear your beef, I don't want to hear your complaint. Take your

beef to HR. So, very commonly used, what's your beef? I have a beef with you. Take your

beef elsewhere. Take your complaints, take your problem somewhere else. Okay?

"Dead". "Dead" means dead, not alive, but we use it not only for living things, we use

it for places. Okay? It basically means empty or quiet. So, you go to a club and you're

at the club and your friend calls you, you say, "How is it there?" "Oh, it's dead." What

does that mean? It means that there's not many people and there's not much activity

and it's very quiet. It usually means boring. Right? If you go to a restaurant, "How was

the restaurant?" "Oh, it was dead. We left." Okay? So, anything... Any place you go to,

there's not much action, not much activity, you say it's dead or not many people, you

say it's dead and you move on.

"Beat". Now, "beat" can mean, like, to beat somebody. Okay? But it can also mean very,

very tired. Okay? So, you come home and your friend or your roommate says, "How do you

feel?" "I'm beat." "I'm beat" as an adjective means I'm very, very tired, I want to go to

sleep. So, then your friend says, "Well, why don't you just crash?" "Crash" means go to

sleep. Or, "sleep over at someone's house". So, my apartment, for example, my apartment

for some reason has lots of cockroaches. Somebody left some garbage in the hallway and cockroaches

came in and they came under my door, now my apartment is full of cockroaches. So, I called

the company to come clean it up, but they're going to put, like, some poison fume to kill

them all. So, I call my friend and say, "I can't stay in my apartment tonight, can I

crash at your house?" So, "crash". But when you think about the everyday use of "crash",

like a car, crash. That's why it's called a car crash. But "crash" means to sleep, I'm

going to crash. Or, "can I crash", to sleep over at somebody's house. So, "beat", very

tired. "Crash", sleep. Okay? "Axe". Now, "axe" is a tool, it's like a long stick with a metal

piece, very sharp on one side, and you use it to cut trees. Okay? Again, I'm not a very

good artist. Oh, that's not so bad, actually. That's an axe, you use it to cut down a tree.

But it also means to fire someone. So, to fire someone. So, the boss is going to axe...

Or the company is going to axe 1,000 jobs. "Axe" means to fire, to let somebody go. Okay?

Somebody got axed. Got axed or got the axe. It means somebody or somebody lost his or

her job. You actually hear this quite a bit in sports. The team is doing very badly and

finally the coach got axed. Okay?

Now, "can". "Can" has so many uses. I can swim, I can do this, I can do that. I have

a can of Coke that I'm going to drink. All kinds of different meanings for "can". But

do you know that "can" also means to fire someone? So, somebody got canned. Now, this

is very slang. When you say someone got canned, it means they lost their job, they got fired.

To can somebody, to fire somebody. Again, same as "axe", very completely different word.

Right?

"Dirt". Now, again, you're thinking dirt on the ground, you have to sweep it, you have

to wash it, or you have some dirt on yourself, you go take a shower, it's gone. "Dirt" can

also mean information, but usually when you have dirt on someone... When you have dirt

on someone, you have secret information, and it's information usually that can hurt this

person. So, if you're a politician, for example, and you have some good dirt on your opponent,

you can embarrass him or her in the media and win your election. So, if someone has

dirt on you, you should be very worried. If you get dirt on someone else, you have a little

bit of power over them. Okay? So, you can get dirt on someone.

"Trash". So, again, you know trash, garbage, rubbish, you take it outside or you have a

trash bin, but to "trash" can also mean to destroy or to damage. So, my friends went

to Las Vegas and they got a little bit, you know, too excited and too happy and too drunk,

and they went back to their hotel room and they just trashed it. "They trashed it" means...

You can think of it like they turned it into garbage, if that helps you remember, but basically

means they destroyed it, they caused a lot of damage. So, if someone trashed a place,

they did a lot of damage. But you can also trash someone's reputation. You can talk...

Say very negative things about someone and hurt his or her reputation, and their reputation

is now in the trash. So, you basically destroyed or damaged their reputation.

"Sick". "Sick" is a little bit more of a modern slang. It hasn't been around very long, but

now it's just a part of common speech. It means amazing. Amazing, or awesome, or very

good. Right?

"How was the movie?" "Oh, it was sick." So, if somebody says something was sick and they

say it like that, "Oh, it was sick", it means, "Oh, it was so amazing, it was so good." Something

very spectacular, like a band or a movie, or something creative, something you see or

do or a person you meet, etc.

"Bust". A "bust" can have two meanings. When you talk about sculpture, like when you have

a little sculpture of a person's head, somebody famous, somebody made a sculpture of their

head, that's called a "bust" of the head. "Bust" also means "break". So, if you have

a vase of flowers and you dropped it, it busts, it breaks. But "bust" can also mean "to catch".

To catch someone doing something they shouldn't be doing. And the more common use is "busted".

Right? I was busted by my parents when I was... When I tried to borrow the car and I told

them I was sleeping at a friend's house. Or somebody... Some kids are smoking cigarettes

in the washroom at school, and the principal comes in and he catches them doing this action,

they are busted. The principal busted them. Okay? So, to catch somebody doing something

bad. Okay?

So, again, this is the... This is the interesting thing about English. You can think... You

think you know all these words, and then you hear them used in a completely unknown way

to you. Again, it's up to you to basically expose yourself to everyday English as much

as possible. These sorts of meanings, you're not going to see them in textbooks very much.

You're going to see them in movies, you're going to see them on YouTube, you're going

to see them in TV shows, you're going to see them in books. Get... Engage. Engage. Engage

the language. The more you come into contact with this kind of language, the quicker your

English will improve all around. Okay?

But if you have any questions about any of these words, please go to www.engvid.com.

You can join the forum there, and you can ask me a question, and I'll be happy to answer.

There's also a quiz to make sure that you know how to use these words in context. I'll

give you good sentences. And I hope you liked this lesson. Please subscribe to my YouTube

channel if you did, and come back for more good lessons with real, everyday English to

help you guys improve. Okay? I'll see you again soon. Bye.