v watch out for: Mind the gap; Mind your head whilst going down the stairs.

adj for a moment. Not to be confused with the U.S. definition, “in a moment.” I was alerted to this by a Brit who heard a station announcement in Chicago that his train would be “stopping momentarily at platform 6” and was unsure as to whether he was supposed to take a running leap to get into it before it left.

adj provoking of further consumption. I once wrote that you’d never find this word in a dictionary, but I had to change when someone pointed out to me that it was in the OED. I hate you all. It means something (usually food) which leads you to want more – Jaffa Cakes, Jelly Babies or dry roasted peanuts would be some good personal examples. It’s rather light-hearted; you wouldn’t go around describing heroin as moreish, whether it is or not.

n gullible person: He’s such a mug, he just took the entire story and believed every word of it!

adj named for: His mum claims he was named after his paternal grandfather but, between you me, I can’t really see how she’d work out who that was.

n crèche. Christian Christmas scene, usually featuring a plasticine baby Jesus lying in some grass. Normally made painstakingly over the course of several evenings by mothers of children who will take it to school and pass it off as their own work.

n engage in idle banter; chatter: I thought she was busy getting ready to go out to dinner, but it turns out she’d spent the whole afternoon nattering to her mates.

adj great; handy; cool: I found this natty little device for stopping cables falling down the back of my desk.

v 1 steal. Something you buy from a dodgy bloke over a pint has quite probably been nicked. In a strange paradox, if a person is described as nicked, it means they’ve been arrested and if a person is in the nick, they’re in prison. 2 condition. Commonly used in the phrase “in good nick,” the word nick refers to the sort of state of repair something is in: Think I’ll buy that car; it seems in pretty nice nick.

n, adj nag; pester. You might hear it in a context like: He seemed okay, but I had a niggling doubt.

1 v quickly go and do something, very similar to “pop”: I’m just going to nip out for a minute. 2 n chill: There’s a bit of a nip in the air; It’s a bit nippy today. And yes, the Brits do also use it to derogatorily refer to Japanese people, so the Pearl Harbour “nip in the air” jokes have probably been covered already.

adj substandard; below par: The hull was pretty solid but to be honest the rest of the thing was a bit noddy.

n knowledge. Pronounced like “mouse” with an N on the front of it. Not pronounced like “no use”.

n Northern England nothing.

interj Scottish a general word of exclamation. Very Scottish. Groundskeeper Willie Scottish: Och, yer jokin’!

adj high (on drugs): I’ve no idea how she got up there, I was off my tits from about nine o’clock onwards. Perhaps she jumped? Ah, you see, you thought I was going to copy-paste the previous entry again. Well, rest assured that I would have done had it meant the same thing.

interj pron. “oy,” as in “boy” hey. General noise used to attract someone’s attention. I can’t really believe that an American being accosted with “oi” will be sitting there wondering whether that word means “faucet” or “yard,” but I wouldn’t like to feel this dictionary was too highbrow to be useful to people who had to be fed by their spouses with a spoon.

n alone; on one’s own: Ever since his dog died, he’s been sitting on his tod at the end of the bar with a whiskey in front of him. I don’t think it’s doing him any good, but what can you do?

adj not working right: The television’s been on the blink since we had the water-pistol fight.

n something that only happens once. You might use it if you were selling your artwork or attempting to apologise for an affair with your secretary.