North Carolina slang: regional words, sayings, and how locals talk.
This page collects regional vocabulary from North Carolina: slang you'll hear in conversation, sayings that travel through families, and pronunciations that mark a person as a local. Pick a city to narrow the list, or keep "All cities" to see the full North Carolina picture.
23 words
A considerable amount; quite a bit.
Outer Banks NC: an outsider, a non-islander tourist.
Outer Banks NC: the Ocracoke brogue dialect itself.
South Carolina: green peanuts simmered in salty water.
Carolinas: a deep-fried ball of cornmeal batter.
Carolinas: a Southern farewell inviting return.
A western North Carolina loaf of pork liver, head meat, and cornmeal, sliced and fried.
A playful nickname for North Carolina or the Carolinas.
North Carolina runs from the Outer Banks to the Appalachian mountains, and its speech is just as varied. Most of the state is Southern — "y'all", "bless your heart", a "buggy" at the store, and "carry" for giving a ride — but the Outer Banks preserve the "Hoi Toider" brogue, where "high tide" sounds like "hoi toide", an accent traced to early English settlers. In the mountains you hear Appalachian vocabulary; in the Piedmont's Research Triangle, a more leveled, transplant-influenced English. To "mash" a button is to press it.
North Carolina slang is mostly Southern — "y'all", "bless your heart", "buggy" (cart), "carry" (to give a ride), and "mash" (to press) — with the distinctive Outer Banks "Hoi Toider" brogue on the coast and Appalachian speech in the mountains.
"Hoi Toider" is the brogue of North Carolina's Outer Banks, especially Ocracoke, where "high tide" sounds like "hoi toide". It descends from early English settlers and is one of America's most unusual surviving accents.
In North Carolina and the South, to "mash" something is to press it — "mash the button", "mash the brakes". It is everyday usage, not slang for crushing.
