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Even if you’ve never worked on a midway, you can still pepper your speech with delightfully authentic carnival jargon. Start slipping these terms into conversation and watch as your friends bally about how great talking to you is.
1. Annie Oakley
The name of the famous sharpshooter became a slang term meaning “a free ticket” in the 1910s.
2. Bally
To attract a crowd by making a great commotion about how terrific a show is.
3. Brodie
This slang term for a failure or a spectacular fall was named for Steve Brodie, a man who claimed to have survived a fall from the Brooklyn Bridge in 1886.
4. Charivari
A cacophonous and chaotic entrance of clowns.
5. Charley
To toss a stack of posters or playbills in the trash rather than giving them away as ordered.
6. Cherry Pie
Outside work performed by carnival employees for extra cash.
7. Clem
Clem was a late 19th-century slang term for a fight between carnival employees and the residents of the town they’re passing through.
8. Dukey
A lunch distributed to carnival staff on the journey between destinations.
9. and 10. Kinker and Kinker Talk
This slang term for a circus performer originally referred to just acrobats. Kinker talk, meanwhile, was “the special language of the circus,” according to The Language of American Popular Entertainment.
11. G-Top
A private, employees-only tent for gambling was a G-top.
12. Larry
A poorly-made, worthless, or broken item or souvenir.
13. Lead Joint
14. Reuben
A rube or a gullible sap.
15. Scram-bag
A bag packed for immediate use in case a quick departure is required.
16. Waxie
This slang term for a repairman is also sometimes spelled waxy, and according to Dictionary of American Slang, it's “obs except for circus use.”
A version of this story ran in 2015; it has been updated for 2023.
Are you a logophile? Do you want to learn unusual words and old-timey slang to make conversation more interesting, or discover fascinating tidbits about the origins of everyday phrases? Then pick up our new book, The Curious Compendium of Wonderful Words: A Miscellany of Obscure Terms, Bizarre Phrases, & Surprising Etymologies, out June 6! You can pre-order your copy on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Books-A-Million, or Bookshop.org.