Slag (slang)

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For other uses, see Slag (disambiguation).

Slag is a pejorative slang term, primarily used in the United Kingdom and Republic of Ireland and Australia, to describe women who engage in casual sex and promiscuous behaviour. Its meaning is broadly similar to the terms "slut" and "skank". It originally derives from the same term for piles of impurities skimmed off during the smelting of metals.

Other words for slag include; slut or scrubber. In Australia, the world "slurry" is also used as an insult, in this case the meaning derives from the stone slurry discharged as waste from the mining of metals.

It achieved prominence when it was used as the title for the comic strip The Fat Slags in Viz magazine^{[citation needed]}. In the 1970s television series The Sweeney, the term 'slag' is often used in both the 'promiscuous woman' sense and also to mean a petty criminal.

Today, usage increasingly finds the word used in the additional context of referring to persons of any gender considered contemptible. It's also been used to mean "insult in jest" or "tease playfully" in Ireland in particular, but also in some parts of Canada and the United Kingdom. To 'slag someone off', is to insult them, not necessarily in a serious way.

In the United Kingdom and New Zealand, to slag something (or someone) off is to insult / pick faults with it (or them) in some way, constructively or not and usually to a 3rd party. For example: "This beer is crap", or "[Name] is a fool". This can be related directly to "Removing the Slag" from smelting metal, as in effect you're pointing out the faults/impurities of that person/object.^{[citation needed]}