Surfing is hard enough to learn without learning a new language as well! Surfing lingo is nearly a language of its own, with variations from region to region. Most basic terms are relatively self-explanatory. Some of the very basics are below:

 

air

- getting airborne with board out of the water.

aerial - airborne manuver with variations borrowed from snow & skateboarding.

amped - charged up - stoked - fired up

backdoor - to pull into a tube from behind the wave peak

bail - to abandon a board, jump off , usually without regard to the board's future

bashing - body surfing (body surfers may be called "shark bisquits", "plankers" and "spongers" )

boost - getting airborne off the lip of the wave

brah - from bruddah, Hawaiian pidgin for "brother"

bro - a buddy or friend, for "brother"

bucket - helmet

bump - a wave swell

bumps - the build-up of wax on a surfboard deck

carve - fliud, symmetrical turns

cheater five - hanging five toes on the nose, keeping your weight back on the board, maintaining trim and speed, squatting down and extending one foot forward.

clucked- intimidated or afraid of the wave

crew - a group of surfers defined by a particular break or area

dogging - going backside in the wave pit

drop - dropping from the crest of the wave to the pit

dropping in - catching a wave that is already occupied, by taking off on the shoulder while someone is taking off deeper

drop in late - catching the steepest part of a wave

dune - a big peaking wave

falls - the pitching lip of the wave, as in "getting sucked into the falls"

fan - a fan of spray shot off on a turn

frigged - getting snaked, having a wave taken from you by a surfer paddling to the inside of your wave

fully - with commitment and intensity (also "full on")

gash - very sharp turn

gnarly - awesome and intimidating

going off - a break under optimum conditions

gouge - a fast, sharp turn

gremmies - grem or gremmie is short for gremlin, the young, pre-adolescent surfer

green room - the inside of a full cover-up tube

grommet - adolescent surfer

gunned - "undergunned" or "overgunned" refers to the size of your board in relation to wave conditions

hanging five - lonboarding expression for dangling five toes over the nose of the board while trimming along the face of the wave

hiddie - from hideous or intense

jag - retreat from the water after getting "worked"

kook - a bad surfer or poor learner

nipped - nipples rubbed raw by surfboard or wetsuit

noodle - exhausted, as in "noodle arms"

pit - the hollowest portion of a breaking wave

pitch - throw or angle of any run to rise

pitted - being in the pit or barrel of a wave

pearl - as in "pearl diving", when the nose of the board goes underwater taking the rider with it

pumping - large, above average swell

quiver - as in archery, a surfer's collection of boards or a board bag that holds several boards

rip - to surf really well or a strong under current in the ocean (riptide)

schlong - long, thick, old style single-fin surfboard

scab - a rock or reef

scabbed - getting damaged by a rock or reef

shred - shortboard term for the ability to execute rapid, repeated turns

sick - excellent

sideslip - when the board stops heading forwards and moves sideways

slam - bounce off the lip of the wave as it begins to pitch

slash - cutback

snake - paddling around behind someone who is already in position and stealing their wave