n variant of “charva.”

adj risqué; just short of rude. You’re being cheeky if you make a joke that you can only just barely get away with without getting into trouble.

interj goodbye. Fairly old-fashioned and light-hearted. Originates from the 1970s, when one of the favourite killing methods of the Welsh mafia was to intravenously inject the victim with breakfast cereal.

interj informal substitute for “thank you.” Somehow derived from its use as an all-purpose toast.

n 1 drugstore; pharmacist. The American term “drugstore” implies to Brits that you could just buy Class A narcotics over the counter. These days it’s also acceptable in Britain to call the place a “pharmacy.” 2 a person who works with chemicals (universal).

n dresser. Just so that one single device can have not one, but two slightly illogical names.

n hard, deep-buttoned leather sofa. The sort of thing you could imagine Sherlock Holmes sitting in.

n small sausage. The term originated in Mexico, but somehow never made it big in the U.S.

1 n fish-and-chip shop. 2 n colloq carpenter. Americans use this word (at least those on the East Coast) to describe a woman of somewhat suboptimal morals; this derives from its original meaning of an Old West saloon prostitute, commonly paid in poker chips. All this is of minimal relevance here, as that meaning isn’t used in the U.K.

n French fries. However, it’s lately been popular to call thin chips “fries” in the U.K, so Brits at least know what “fries” are these days. Classic chips can be obtained from a chip shop (“chippy”) and are a great deal unhealthier. They also vary quite creatively — if you buy them at 9 p.m. they are hard, black and crunchy (because they’ve been cooking since 6:30 p.m., when the dinner rush came through) but if you buy them at 3 a.m. you will find them very akin to raw potatoes, right down to the green bits in the middle (because the chippy employees want all of these drunk punters out of the door so they can go home).

v hurry someone along with something. If you want an example, you can have this: I was pretty sure I’d be up until 1 a.m. daydreaming instead of doing my homework, but my mum chivvied me on with it and I was done fairly early.

adj closely packed together. You might use this to describe your dating schedule or your attic, unless you are unforgivably ugly and you live in a flat, in which case you’d have to think up something else to use it on. The examples here are provided as-is, you know; they don’t necessarily work for everyone. It’s possible that the word has a quite unfortunate origin — it may have originally referred to the area where black slaves were once lined up on blocks to be sold. It’s also possible that it stems from maritime usage, referring to when a block and tackle were jammed against each other to stop the load moving.

n chocolate chips. The idea of “chocolate chips” is enough to turn most British stomachs. The American candy called a “chocolate drop,” but it doesn’t have a lot to do with British chocolate drops.

n (ah, how to describe these…) bit of fancily-coloured paper wrapped much like a lozenge, with twisted ends. A small sort of explosive device is put inside a cracker so that when two people pull at alternate ends, the whole thing comes apart with a snapping noise and — ah, the joy — a small piece of trinket crap falls out. This will be something like an ineffectual miniature sewing kit, a set of blunt nail clippers or one of these mysterious “get the bits of metal apart” puzzles, which will cause some degree of interest from the surrounding family until someone realises it’s very easy to get them apart because it was made in China and came out of the factory bent. As the name suggests, these are mainly used at Christmas but sometimes pop up at birthday parties and the like.

v pouring; raining heavily: Walk? Are you mad? It’s chucking it down out there!

1 v fart. 2 n one’s posterior. 3 n Northern England vagina. 4 interj general swear word usable much the same as “fuck”: It was all going fine until the chuffing pigs turned up. Entirely separate from the word “chuffed,” so use with care.

adj generally happy with life. Make sure you only use this word in the correct tense and familiarise yourself with the meaning of the word “chuff,” too (see previous entry). For antonym see “dischuffed”.

n alcoholic apple juice. To Brits all cider is alcoholic — there’s no such thing as “hard cider” in Britain, and any non-alcoholic apple juice is called simply “apple juice.” Cider is often mixed with a small amount of blackcurrant syrup to form a drink imaginatively titled “Cider and black”.

n applaud. In the U.K., to “give someone a clap” means to applaud them. Analogous to U.S. English’s “give someone a hand.” Not to be confused with giving someone “the clap,” which means the same thing on both sides of the Atlantic.

n clothing; vestments. You might hear: OK, OK, I’ll be out in two minutes once I’ve got my nightclubbing clobber on. It’s possible this definition is of Scottish origin. Brits do also use “clobber” to mean hitting something.