British Slang For Poor (Explained!)

The most widely used British slang words for poor are skint or strapped. These are ways of saying you or someone else has no money. There are other phrases such as “tightening your belt,” though this just implies a careful budgeting as opposed to outright poverty. Skint is the most common term.

There are a handful of uniquely British ways to describe someone as poor, then.

Without doubt, the most widely used and understood slang term for poor in Britain is skint, and just about everyone across the country uses this in some capacity.

Let’s find out more.

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What do the British say for poor?

The British have a couple of different words for poor with slightly different senses.

The most universal, widely understood and widely used is “skint”.

This is a term you’ll hear just about anywhere in Britain, from the far north of Scotland to the port cities of the south coast of England.

Everyone in Britain will understand, if not use themselves, this term.

“I can’t come out tonight, I’m absolutely skint,” for example.

It means you have no money currently, and you can’t afford to come out or do anything.

You might also use it to say you can’t afford to fix something right now.

It could mean either that you have no money temporarily, or that you do not expect to have any spare money for a while yet.

On the other hand, another very common slang term used in Britain for poor is “strapped”.

This has a subtly different sense to skint.

Skint generally implies you have literally no money whatsoever, or you only have enough to cover your basics like rent and bills.

To be strapped means you are still struggling, but just that you are short of disposable income—not that you don’t have any at all.

“We’re a bit strapped for cash this month,” for example. It doesn’t necessarily mean you are completely out of money—just that you’re struggling a bit at the moment.

This is similar to another slang term for poor, “tightening your belt”. I’ll get into where these terms come from shortly, but to “tighten your belt” also means to cut down on things because you need to save money.

Other than that, the British definitely use popular and common slang terms for poor such as “broke”, which are widely used outside Britain.

However, this is far less common than other terms for poor.

Where do these terms come from, then?

Why do the British say skint?

Skint is a relatively recent term meaning poor in British slang, even though it has become by far the dominant slang way of saying poor.

Our first written attested use of the term comes from 1925, when the sense was that someone is out of money and broke.

This was a slang variant of the word “skinned”, meaning that the person who had no money had been “skinned” of all their money.

So, as I said, it does have a fairly subtle meaning in that the sense is that you’ve recently lost or spent all of your money on necessities and you have nothing left.

You’ve been skinned.

Why do the British say strapped?

What about strapped, then? This, as I said, is not quite as common and does have a slightly different meaning.

This one is a bit older than skint, despite not being as widely understood or used.

Our first attested use of the term comes from 1857 when it meant short of money.

This was in the older sense of financial credit.

You are strapped of credit.

Credit was obviously a much bigger deal in the 19^th Century, with things like creditors jail, and yet the slang term for it seems to have survived largely unchanged to the modern day.

Why do the British say “tighten your belt”?

The idea of tightening your belt has become popular in Britain, too, and this is a widely used phrase.

To tighten your belt means to cut back on spending because you are short on money.

This originates from the Depression era, the idea being that because no one had enough money even for food in a lot of cases, they would need to keep tightening their belt around their waste because it was getting looser.

So, certainly one of the less pleasant ways of saying you are poor in British slang, which in fact comes down to us from the American tradition.

Do the British say broke?

Yes, the British certainly do say broke.

However, they don’t use it anywhere near as commonly as they use phrases like skint.

Broke is considered to be an Americanism, and has made its way into British culture through movies and television.

However, it’s just nowhere near as common.

It seems to come from the Italian, where bankrupt literally translates to “broken bench”.

Someone who is broke is broken financially, they are bankrupt, and have no money at all.

While not the most common slang phrase in Britain, you will certainly still hear it.

So, there are several ways of saying you are poor or without any money in British slang.

The most common without a doubt is “skint”—this can describe a state of being poor until your next paycheck comes in or just a constant state of poverty.

Of course, you want to be careful with how you use these terms, but if you’re looking for a British slang term for poor, then look no further than skint.

More in British Slang

Founder - @PollyWebster

Polly Webster is the founder of Foreign Lingo and a seasoned traveler with a decade of exploration under her belt.

Over the past 10 years, she has journeyed to numerous countries around the globe, immersing herself in diverse cultures, traditions, and languages.

Drawing from her rich experiences, Polly now writes insightful articles about travel, languages, traditions, and cultures, sharing her unique perspectives and invaluable tips with her readers.

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