Moist (adj)

Means - Terrible, pathetic

Usage - “Jez’s joining the church youth group” “Raah, that’s moist, man!”

The tuff kid probably doesn’t know or care that ancient know-all Stephen Fry says it’s his favourite word, or that, on the other hand, there’s a Facebook group dedicated to hating it. Our alpha Yoof just knows that, as one so solemnly told me: “It’s the strongest word, the worst thing you can say about someone.” The actual sound of it is prissy, but it’s the put-down du jour on the street and in the playground. The Yoofs’ attempts to define “moist” range from “idiotic” via “really annoying” to “borderline gay” (in all senses), but my informant puts it more brutally: “He’s moist an’ we all hate the wet man.” Moist has featured in the US, in TV comedies and in the 2003 movie about a white man who imitates black gangstas, Malibu’s Most Wanted. But it has its own history in the UK, where it has been used by posh grown-ups as a synonym for “wet” or “weedy”, meaning hopeless and ineffectual, and by not-so-posh oldies in its sexual sense, too (a connection that hasn’t escaped some of our young users).