List of English words of Romani origin

These are words in the English language which potentially come from Romani.

This list is incomplete; you can help by adding missing items with reliable sources.
  • Bar - 'stone' in Romani, but colloquially used to mean a pound coin
  • Chavie - a member of a youth subculture (from cha = "child")[1]
  • Chor - to steal, from the Romani word meaning the same
  • Cosh - a weapon, truncheon, baton (from the Romani word cosht = "stick")
  • Cove (from the Romani word kova or cova, meaning "that person") - British-English colloquial term meaning a person or chap
  • Cushty - good (from the Romani word kusht or kushti)
  • Cushy - easy, good, fine (from the Romani word kusht or kushti)
  • Dick - detective (from the Romani word dik meaning look, see and by extension watch)[2]
  • Dinler - idiot (either from the Romani word dilo meaning "fool", or dinilo meaning "crazy")
  • Drag - to wear clothing carrying symbolic significance commonly associated with the opposite gender (possibly from indraka = "dress")
  • Drag - a car, to race a car as in drag racing
  • geera - man or bloke, sometimes a dodgy, unpleasant or suspicious man. (Often Scottish slang.) From the Romani word "Gadjo" meaning non-Romani.
  • Gadjo or Gadjie - a non-Romani
  • Jell - to go, from the Romani word jall
  • Lollipop - a type of candy, from the Romani "loli phabai", meaning red apple
  • Mush - colloquial meaning a man, a bloke, from Romani mush meaning man.
  • Mullered - colloquial, from the Romani muller meaning dead or killed.
  • Nark - a police informer (from nāk, nose)
  • Pal - a friend, from the Romani word phral, meaning "brother"
  • Rakli - a female, from the Romani word "rakli" meaning the same
  • Romanipen - the spirit of being Romani, "Romani-ness" une shaleeki. Meaning 100 dollar bill
  • Shiv - an improvised knife or similar weapon (possibly from chiv = "knife") [3]
  • Skip (waste-collecting container like on building sites) - from Romani word skip meaning basket
  • Togs - clothes (colloquial) from the Romani word togs meaning clothes

References
  1. "UK | 'Asbo' and 'chav' make dictionary". BBC News. 8 June 2005. Retrieved 2011-08-13.
  2. http://www.word-detective.com/090304.html>
  3. Johns Hopkins University; JSTOR (Organization) (1934). Modern Language Notes. 49. Johns Hopkins Press. p. 99. Retrieved 9 December 2011.
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