Other

anticlockwise

counterclockwise

autumn

fall

Bank holidays

Monday holidays (equiv. to Columbus Day, MLK Day, etc.)

badge

a button (the kind that pins on)

biro

ballpoint pen

bloke

guy

boffin

an expert, but perh. with connotations of nerdiness etc.

brass monkeys

("cold enough to freeze the balls off a b.m.")

building society

small bank: sort of like a credit union/savings&loan

bumbag

fanny pack (see "fanny")

bumpf

(bumf, bumph?) printed literature of some sort

bung

throw (in), toss (in)

chemist

pharmacist, drugstore

"Chinese whispers"

the "Telephone" game (whispering a phrase from one person to the next)

cinema

movie theater

crackers (Christmas)

paper tubes that bang when you pull them apart; they contain a toy, a paper hat, and a joke (riddle)

creche

playgroup/nursery school

cuddly toys

stuffed animals ("stuffed animals" means as in taxidermy)

dodgy

questionable

dogsbody

general secretary, gofer

dole

unemployment benefit

doss

sleep (also something easy)

duff

broken, defective, no good

earth

ground (electrical)

faff (around/about)

mess around

first/second floor

the first floor (Am.) is the ground floor (Brit.); the second floor is the first floor

fit

in good (physical) shape

flat

apartment

flies

fly (trousers)

fringe

bangs

fruit machine

gambling machine (in pubs)

gammy

bad (as in a "gammy leg", "gammy knee")

garden

yard (front/back): "yard" is an industrial etc. yard

grass

to squeal, rat on someone

guillotine

paper cutter

hard

tough

helter-skelter

children's slide

hide

a blind (for shooting, birdwatching, etc.)

hire

rent (hire car, hire a video, etc.)

holiday/vacation

people generally talk about going "on holiday" rather than on vacation ...

interval

intermission

jab

shot (as in vaccination)

kip

nap, sleep

lift

elevator

lurgie

a cold

mardy

a term describing adolescent girls (Yorkshire, obscure)

murder

eat, wolf down (mostly as in "I could murder a kebab/plate of chips")

nick

steal, or "in good nick" = in good condition

pinch

steal

post/mail (postman, postbox/letterbox, the post)

"post" is used in many contexts where "mail" would be in the US

pub

bar

queue

line ("jumping the queue" is "cutting in line", and you stand "in the queue" rather than "on line", "queue up", etc.)

redundant

("make redundant") - to fire, sack

rubber

eraser

sandpit

sandbox

scrappy

rough, amateurish

scruffy

?(also US?) - unkempt, disreputable

secateurs

gardening shears

shambolic

in a shambles (rare)

shop

store

skip

dumpster

skive

to goof off

the States

the USA

stone

14 lbs. (primarily used for people's weight)

stroppy

uppity, bitchy

suss

to figure out, understand ("I've got it sussed")

take the mickey

make fun of ("take the michael", "take the mick")

thundery showers

thunder storms

ticked off

scolded (not "annoyed")

tip

dump, landfill

tipper

dump truck

torch

flashlight

trolley

shopping cart

turf ("turf out")

to throw someone out, move them along

unwaged

politically correct word for "unemployed"

upmarket/downmarket

upscale/(downscale??)

volumetric measures

- one British cup, pint, quart, gallon are all 5/4 the size of the American equivalent: fluid ounces are *almost* the same size (so one Brit. pint = 20 fl. oz.)

wobbly

a fit, tantrum - to "have a wobbly"

wodge/wadge

a fairly large amount/handful of something

x-directory

unlisted telephone number

zip

fly (trousers)