Slang from years past is a constant source of intrigue. It’s hard to believe that anyone really went around saying “cool beans” or “groovy” with a straight face. While you might be able to notice when a word has fallen out of use, it’s harder to place exactly when these words were popular. Fortunately, you can test your knowledge with our fun decade slang quiz.
We should start with a disclaimer: it’s hard to pinpoint when a word is “popularized.” You can’t just choose the year it first appeared in print, because it could’ve been used in casual speech for years before then. Also, a word might appear in print years before it’s actually “popularized.” We did our best to assign each term to the decade where they had the most cultural cachet, but there’s always room for argument. You can dig further into our articles on slang from the 1920s, 1950s, 1960s, 1970s, 1980s, 1990s and 2000s.