From ambulance chaser to zoot suit, this is the most authoritative and up-to-date dictionary of twentieth-century slang. Drawing on the resources of the Oxford English Dictionary, and packed with illustrative quotations from John Lennon to Woody Allen, it is a comprehensive and entertaining collection of over 5,000 slang words and phrases. Providing full details of origins and dates of first printed use, the text contains expressions from around the English-speaking world such as dork and cockamamie (America) and giggle-house and Jimmy Woodser (Australia).