Canada · Canadian English
Canadian slang is often described as a mild variant of American slang, which undersells it. Canada has its own institutional vocabulary — terms from its currency, its school system, its winters and its coffee chains — plus two strong regional varieties that sound nothing alike: Toronto's multicultural youth slang, heavily influenced by Caribbean and Somali speech, and the older vocabulary of Atlantic Canada.
Bilingualism leaves marks too. Several everyday Canadian English words are straight borrowings from Quebec French, used by speakers who have no idea of their origin.
42 terms, each with definitions and worked examples.
Each page below collects every Canadian term we have on one subject, side by side.
The terms below carry the most usage detail — register, origin and the situations where they go wrong. They are the ones worth reading in full before the rest.
42 terms
noun, interjection · Regional · BY, rhymes with eye
'Boy', used in Newfoundland as a general address term regardless of the addressee's age or, frequently, gender. 'Yes b'y' is the province's most recognisable phrase, and means anything from genuine agreement to flat disbelief.
Use with care
noun, adjective, interjection · Informal
A thoroughly good person; a great sort. 'He's a beauty.'
+1 more sense
noun · Regional
A hooded sweatshirt. Confined almost entirely to Saskatchewan, where it is the ordinary word and 'hoodie' sounds imported.
noun · Informal
A Canadian. Used proudly by Canadians about themselves — it is a hockey team name and a wartime cartoon hero — though it has been used as a slur by outsiders.
Use with care
noun · Dated
A sofa. Once the standard Canadian word and now genuinely receding — mostly used by speakers over sixty, with couch having taken over.
verb, noun · Informal
To trash-talk or needle someone, especially in sport. A chirp is a single such remark.
noun · Colloquial
A holiday house on a lake. Going to the cottage is a summer institution in Ontario; Quebec says chalet and Western Canada says cabin, for the same thing.
noun · Informal
A cigarette.
noun · Regional · day-pah-NUR
A corner shop or convenience store. Universally shortened to dep by English-speaking Quebecers.
noun · Colloquial
A coffee with two creams and two sugars. Originating at Tim Hortons and now understood at any Canadian coffee counter.
noun · Colloquial
A waste disposal unit fitted under the kitchen sink. Called a garbage disposal in the US and almost unknown in Britain.
noun · Regional
Underwear, usually men's. Prairie vocabulary; gonch is the Alberta and British Columbia variant.
phrase, verb · Informal · GIV-er
To go all out; to commit fully to something. Also used as an imperative: give'r!
noun · Dated
An unsophisticated, beer-drinking, plaid-wearing man. Largely a comic stereotype rather than live vocabulary — Canadians use it about the stereotype, not about each other.
Use with care
noun · Colloquial
Electricity, and specifically the electricity bill. The hydro's out means the power has gone.
noun · Informal
Someone conspicuously eager — the student who answers every question, the colleague who volunteers first. Mildly mocking, but rarely hostile.
noun · Colloquial
A commotion or fuss, usually over something minor. Common in Canada and Britain alike, and notably mild-mannered — it downgrades whatever it describes.
noun · Informal
A kilometre. Also used for kilometres per hour: doing a hundred klicks.
noun · Regional
A multi-storey car park. Standard in Western Canada; Ontario tends to say parking garage.
noun · Colloquial
A fizzy soft drink. The default term across most of Canada; 'soda' marks you as American or as a Montrealer.
noun · Colloquial · poo-TEEN
Chips topped with cheese curds and gravy. Originally rural Quebec, now national, and the defining late-night food.
noun · Regional
A strong Newfoundland rum. Being 'screeched in' is a tourist ceremony involving a shot of it and kissing a cod.
noun · Colloquial · ser-vee-ET
A paper napkin. The French borrowing is ordinary Canadian English, where American English says napkin throughout.
noun · Colloquial
A retired Canadian who spends the winter in Florida, Arizona or Mexico and returns north in spring.
noun · Informal
Toronto. Popularised by Drake in the mid-2010s, and used with varying degrees of irony by Torontonians themselves.
noun · Colloquial
The United States. Canadians say 'the States' far more often than 'America' or 'the US', and going down south means crossing the border, not heading for the tropics.
noun · Colloquial
Small spherical doughnut holes. A trademark that has become the generic word, and the default thing to bring to a meeting or a children's hockey game.
noun · Colloquial
Tim Hortons, the coffee-and-doughnut chain. Affectionate, and used far more often than the full name.
noun · Informal
A thing; a situation or a matter. 'What's the ting?'
+1 more sense
noun · Colloquial
The Canadian two-dollar coin.
noun · Colloquial · TOOK
A knitted winter hat. Called a beanie in the US and Australia and a woolly hat in Britain, but in Canada it is simply the word for the object.
noun · Informal
A case of twenty-four beers.
Canada · Canadian English