Means: A knife, blade or sharp weapon, typically home-madethe act of being stabbed.

Usage: “Miss, Dave’s got a shank in his bag”“Miss, I’m going to shank Joe with this compass for telling you that”

Prison: home to society’s naughty step, bad food and a broad lexicon that is incrementally shaping how our young ones speak. It’s not just Jamaican patois and drug terminology for our pupils. Immortalised in the new post-Kidulthood “teens gone wild” Brit flick of the same name, “shank” comes from the jail slang for a sharp, improvised weapon constructed from traditionally non-dangerous items - a shattered lunch tray to an inmate, a ruler “remodelled” with a Bunsen burner for a pupil (not that we’re giving anyone any ideas). Yet in Yoofland it means any kind of stabbing equipment, home-made or otherwise, so any mention should provoke your “gang” alert sensor. Likelihood that point of discussion is a slow-cooked lamb joint? Minimal in the extreme.