Slang & Everyday Speech Well Documented

Have a chin wag

"To have a chat, especially a long or gossipy one."

A straightforwardly visual piece of slang. Your chin, and by extension your jaw, moves up and down as you talk, "wagging" the same way a dog's tail does. "Chin wag" simply names that motion and turns it into a noun for the conversation itself, recorded in British slang from the late 19th century onward with barely any change in meaning since.

Sources: Recorded in British slang from the 1870s onward, cited in the Oxford English Dictionary's entry for 'chin-wag, n.'

Quick react

Discuss

New comments are held for a quick check before they show up here.

Loading comments…

Back to the full repository