Known your loaf of bread from your Khyber Pass with our guide to speaking like a cockney.
From EastEnders to Ray Winstone, nothing is more London than cockney rhyming slang. Well, apart from maybe a bit of roadman slang, which is where we’re headed by the end of this piece.
Some theories on cockney rhyming slang’s origins include it being a game, a code, or a tricksy way to confuse non-locals. It certainly achieves the latter a lot of the time.
Find yourself confused when you hear cockney phrases? Don’t know your pipe and drum? The London x London cockney slang dictionary is here to save the day.
How to Speak Cockney Slang Like a Local
Our top tip: real cockneys often don’t use the whole cockney rhyming slang phrase. Instead, they just use the first, non-rhyming word. So stairs, which in cockney slang is ‘apples and pears’, becomes ‘apples’, as in ‘he’s gone down the apples’. And if someone has big feet, or ‘plates of meat’, they have ‘huge plates’.
Confusing, right? Well, that might be the point.
The rhymes also work best in a cockney accent, so if something doesn’t quite make sense, try saying it with more glottal stops, dropped T’s and H’s, and long A’s.
Cockney Slang in Common Use
Although all the cockney slang collected here is real and used by some, a handful of phrases have made it into common parlance in London and well beyond. If you’re anywhere in the South East of the UK, you’re likely to hear a few of these.
- Barnet Fair – hair Usually shortened to ‘barnet’. You might hear: ‘Did you get your barnet done?’ or ‘Look at the state of his barnet!’
- Boat Race – face Often just ‘boat’, as is the tradition.
- Brass Tacks – facts When someone wants to get to the point, they’ll say ‘let’s get down to brass tacks’. A useful one for any dodgy business dealings down the market.
- Bread and Honey – money Get that bread. This one has caught on in many ways and feels quite intuitive now.
- Bristol City – breasts A little lewd, admittedly. ‘Look at the Bristols on her’ would have been heard in many a pub a few decades ago.
- Brown Bread – dead ‘He’s brown bread’ is a favourite of gangster films and gritty East End period dramas alike.
- Bubble Bath – laugh Used more in a derisive, threatening tone than for actual amusement. ‘You’re having a bubble, mate’ means ‘you must be joking’ and is still said daily in East London and beyond.
- Butcher’s hook – a look ‘Have a butcher’s at that!’ is said by literally every cockney at some point when showing a mate something interesting.
- Half-inch – pinch Half-inch means pinch, which means to steal. Someone might ask to ‘half inch one of your chips’ if they want a bite of your dinner.
- China plate – mate ‘Me old china’ means a really good friend. If someone calls you their china, you’ve done well.
- Cream crackered – knackered ‘I’m cream crackered’ is heard after long days across East London and beyond.
- Pork pies – lies So popular it’s used all over the English-speaking world. In some places it’s become ‘porkie pies’ or even ‘porkie pines’. Telling porkies is universally understood across Britain.
Cockney Rhyming Dictionary
We promised you 101 words and phrases, so we’re not stopping with the most common. Here’s the best of the rest of cockney rhyming slang, arranged by category so you can easily find what you’re looking for.
The Body
- Jam tart – Heart
- Hampsteads – Teeth (from Hampstead Heath, which rhymes with teeth)
- Chalfont St. Giles – Piles (haemorrhoids)
- Chalk Farm – Arm
- Plates of Meat – Feet
- Loaf of bread – Head (hence ‘use your loaf’)
- Lump of lead – Head
- Mince pies – Eyes
- North and south – Mouth
- Orchestra stalls – Balls (testicles)
- In and out – Snout (nose)
- Life and death – Breath
- Bottle and glass – Arse
- Khyber Pass – Arse
- Sage and onion – Bunion
- Boiled beef and carrots –
- Claret (slang for blood)
- Bottle of beer – Ear
- Fruit and nuts – Guts (stomach)
- Oliver Hardy – Lardy (fat)
- Clothes pegs – Legs
- Toby Jugs – Lugs (ears)
- Pipe and drum – Bum
- Mickey Bliss – Piss (as in take the Mickey, meaning take the mick or mock someone)
People
- Baker’s Dozen – Cousin
- Barnaby Rudge – Judge
- Skin and blister – Sister
- Bricks and Mortar – Daughter
- Cows and Kisses – Missus (wife)
- Trouble and Strife – Wife
- Bottle and stopper – Copper (cop, policeman)
- Dunlop tire – Liar
- Old bag – Hag (or any unpleasant old woman)
- Septic tank – Yank (as in American)
- Dustbin lid – Kid
Clothing
- Whistle and flute – Suit (of clothes)
- Tomfoolery – Jewellery
- Alan Whickers – Knickers (for the non-British among you, that’s women’s underwear)
- Ascot Races – Braces
- Dicky Dirt – Shirt
- Daisy Roots – Boots
- Dinky Doos – Shoes
- Irish pig – Wig
- Isle of Wight – Tights
- Lionel Blairs – Flares
- Peckham Rye – Tie
- Round the houses – Trousers
- Kettle and hob – Watch (as in fob watch, which is where the rhyme is)
- Lucy Locket – Pocket
- Almond Rocks – Socks
Eating and Drinking
- Fisherman’s daughter – water
- Hank Marvin – Starving
- Loop the loop – Soup
- Rosy lee – Tea
- Roast pork – Fork
- Rub-a-dug – Pub
- Ruby Murray – Curry
- Vera Lynn – Gin
- Army and Navy – Gravy
- Borrow and beg – Egg
- Satin and silk – Milk
- Pig and roast – Toast
- Near and far – Bar
- Battlecruiser – Boozer
- Rub a dub dub – Pub
- Give and take – Cake
- Chewy toffee – Coffee
- Brahms and Liszt – Pissed (as in very drunk)
Weather
- Currant bun – Sun (also the Sun newspaper)
- Mork and Mindy – Windy
- David Starkey – Parky (this means cold)
- Peas in the pot – Hot (shortened to ‘peas’ or ‘peasy’)
- Taters in the mould – Cold (shortened to ‘taters’)
- Vincent Price – Ice
- Weasel and stoat – Coat
- Red’n’yella – Umbrella
- Ache and pain – Rain
Money and Numbers
- Lost and found – A pound
- Cock and hen – Ten, or a tenner
- Bag of sand – A grand (1,000 pounds)
- Jeffrey Archer – Two grand (2,000 pounds, allegedly a bribe Archer took)
- Lady Godiva – A fiver (5 pounds)
- Cow’s calf – 50 pence (or, half of a pound, which is where the rhyme comes in)
- Gregory Peck – Cheque
- Bottle of glue – Two
- Holy sea – Three
- Stand in awe – Four
- Fiddle sticks – Six
- Exeter and Devon – Seven
- Garden gate – Eight
- Coal mine – Nine
- Cock and hen – Ten
- Hell and heaven – Eleven
- Dig and delve – Twelve
- Letter Sorting – Fourteen
- Muscles a plenty – Twenty
- Greengages – Wages
- Sausage and mash – Cash
- Rattle and clank – bank
Miscellaneous
- Cut and carried – Married
- Cop a flower pot – Cop it hot (as in to get in serious trouble, usually with the law)
- Crowded space – Suitcase
- Lump of ice – Advice
- Oily rag – Fag (as in cigarette)
- Penny-come-quick – A trick
- Bread and cheese – sneeze
- Once a week – Beak (as in a magistrate)
- Custard and jelly – Telly (as in television)
- Stand to attention – Pension
- Short a sheet – In the street (as in homeless)
- Yet to be – Free (as in without cost, or out of prison)
- Box of toys – Noise
- Bob Hope – Soap
- Kick and prance – Dance
- Rabbit and pork – Talk
- Darby and Joan – Moan
- Barney Rubble – Trouble
- Duke of Kent – Rent
- Bubble and Squeak – Greek
- Vera Lynn – Skin (as in cigarette paper)
- Adam and Eve – Believe (as in: Would you Adam and Eve it?)
- Pen and ink – Stink
- Dog and bone – Phone
- Jack Jones – Alone
- Cobbler’s awls – Balls (as in bollocks – meaning rubbish or nonsense; ‘he’s talking bollocks’)
- Bird and Lime – Time (as in doing time in prison; he’s doing a bird for half inching an Archer)
A History of Rhyming Slang
Cockney rhyming slang originated in the East End in the mid-19th century, most likely among dock workers and market traders who used it as a form of code to confuse the police and non-locals. This is why there’s a slightly conspiratorial edge to some phrases, and a suspiciously large number of words for arse, money and the pub.
From the East End it spread to South London, Essex and the wider reaches of Greater London, mutating as it went. Like any living language, it’s been added to constantly: Jeffrey Archer for two grand is a relatively recent coinage, while Adam and Eve has been around since the 1850s. Some phrases have made it into everyday British English entirely divorced from their cockney origins: ‘telling porkies’, ‘having a butcher’s’, ‘the barnet’ are all now standard.
Is Cockney dying out?
The honest answer is: it’s complicated. The traditional East End community that created cockney rhyming slang has largely dispersed, first through wartime destruction, then through post-war redevelopment, and more recently through gentrification. In the original Bow Bells heartland, classic cockney speech is now relatively rare among younger generations.
What has replaced it is Multicultural London English, or MLE, a dialect that emerged in the 1980s in areas of London with high levels of immigration and has become the dominant vernacular of young working-class Londoners across the capital. MLE takes cockney’s glottal stops and some of its slang, fuses them with Jamaican Patois, West African languages, South Asian English, a bit of Roadman slang, and the language of rap and dancehall, and creates something genuinely new. It’s sometimes heard in expressions like ‘bare’ (lots of), ‘peng’ (excellent), ‘mandem’ (one’s group of friends) or ‘dead ting’ (something boring or unattractive).
Linguists at the London Museum frame it well: cockney hasn’t died so much as been succeeded. Its DNA is alive in MLE, in Estuary English and in the dozens of phrases that have become standard British English without anyone quite noticing where they came from. Cockney has been assimilated rather than extinguished. Which, when you think about it, is exactly what London does to everything.
Meanwhile, traditional cockney has migrated with the communities that spoke it: you’ll still hear it in Romford, Basildon, Dagenham and parts of Kent and Hertfordshire, where East End families relocated after post-war redevelopment.
Pearly Kings and Queens
Some of the most enthusiastic speakers of cockney slang are London’s Pearly Kings and Queens. If you’ve seen one on the tube, you’ll remember the encounter: it’s hard to forget someone in a black suit and flat cap decorated head to toe in mother of pearl buttons.
The pearly tradition dates back to at least 1875. The legend goes that Henry Croft, a workhouse boy, became fascinated by the market traders or ‘costers’ of East London. They spoke in cockney slang, followed a community leader they called a ‘king’, and lined their clothes with mother of pearl buttons to indicate their prosperity.
Croft is said to have discovered a shipment of mother of pearl buttons wrecked on the banks of the Thames and used them to create the first pearly king and queen costumes. Over time, the tradition formalised, with every London borough eventually getting a pearly king or queen. Many still exist today, wearing their costumes for ceremonial occasions and carrying out community and charity work.
If you spot one out and about, you can almost certainly practise your cockney on them.
The London x London Take: Cockney rhyming slang is one of the most creative linguistic inventions in British history: a living, evolving code that’s been confusing outsiders and binding communities together for nearly two centuries. The fact that it’s now been absorbed into MLE and standard British English rather than disappearing entirely feels very on brand for a language built to adapt. Would you Adam and Eve it.
