Russiaбеспредел (bespredel)
noun · Colloquial · byes-pree-DYEL
Lawlessness; conduct with no restraint of any kind. Used of police, officials, landlords, employers — anyone acting as though rules do not apply to them.
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Russia
Russian Slang for Everyday Things
12 Russian slang terms for everyday things, each with its meaning, how it is pronounced and an example of it in use.
Informal names for ordinary things and ordinary activities — the domestic layer of slang that rarely makes phrasebooks but comes up constantly.
чилить (chilit)
verb · Informal · CHEE-leet
To chill; to do nothing in a deliberate, enjoyable way. Conjugates fully — чилю, чилишь, почилим — and has largely displaced отдыхать among under-thirties for the 'relax' sense.
+1 more sense
гуглить (guglit)
verb · Informal · GOOG-leet
To google. Completely naturalised: it takes ordinary prefixes (загуглить for a single look-up, погуглить for a browse) and nobody registers it as foreign any more.
+1 more sense
хата (khata)
noun · Informal · KHA-ta
Somebody's flat, considered as a venue. хата свободна means the parents are away and everyone can come round — the word is inseparable from that situation.
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херня (khernya)
noun · Vulgar · hyer-NYA
Rubbish; nonsense; a thing of no value. Used both for talk that is untrue and for objects the speaker cannot be bothered to name — 'some bit of junk'.
+1 more sense
Use with care
хуй (khuy)
noun · Taboo · HOOY
The taboo word for the penis, and the single most productive root in the language: dozens of everyday words are built on it, most of which have nothing to do with anatomy.
+2 more senses
Use with care
косяк (kosyak)
noun · Informal · ka-SYAK
A screw-up; a mistake that is somebody's fault. The verb накосячить means to make one, and косячить is to keep making them.
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ксива (ksiva)
noun · Colloquial · KSEE-va
Papers; an ID card, especially an official one that gets you past someone. Said with a slight edge — a ксива is documentation used as leverage rather than mere identification.
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по понятиям (po ponyatiyam)
phrase, adverb · Colloquial · pa pa-NYA-tee-yam
By the unwritten code rather than by the law. Names the parallel system of obligation — who owes whom, what counts as fair — that the criminal world ran on and that ordinary Russians borrowed as a way of describing informal rules anywhere.
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тачка (tachka)
noun · Informal · TACH-ka
A car; motor. The default informal word, with no implication about the quality of the vehicle — a тачка can be a wreck or a new Mercedes.
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забить (zabit)
verb · Informal · za-BEET
To drop something; to stop caring about it and walk away. Always with на: забить на учёбу, 'to give up on studying'.
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замутить (zamutit)
verb · Informal · za-moo-TEET
To get something going with someone — to start a relationship, usually a casual one. замутить с кем-то, and the noun мутки for the resulting entanglement.
+1 more sense