Oregon slang: regional words, sayings, and how locals talk.
This page collects regional vocabulary from Oregon: 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 Oregon picture.
30 wordspage 1 of 2
Warm tropical atmospheric river from near Hawaii.
Californian word for an HOV (high-occupancy vehicle) lane.
Local nickname for Vancouver, Washington, the city just across the Columbia River from Portland.
Portlanders' nickname for the U.S. Bancorp Tower, named for its pinkish granite exterior.
Shorthand for the Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall, a historic downtown Portland venue.
The Goodwill Outlet stores where secondhand goods are dug out of large bins and sold by the pound.
Affectionate local name for Fred Meyer, the Oregon-born one-stop grocery and department store chain.
An important or self-important person of authority, from the Chinook Jargon once spoken across the Pacific Northwest.
An outdoor party where everyone pays into and drinks from a shared container of mixed alcohol and sugary drinks.
The layer of partially decayed needles, leaves and litter that builds up on the forest floor.
the sea or salt water
a self-important person of authority; a big shot
Oregon slang is the set of dialect words, regional sayings, and local pronunciations used in Oregon but not in standard American English. This page lists them with meanings, examples, and the type of each word.
Words and phrases associated with Oregon include spendy, sun break, skookum, potlatch. Open any entry above to see its meaning, type, and where in Oregon it is used.
"spendy" is listed on Dialectly as a regional word connected to Oregon. Each word page shows the full set of states and cities where it is recorded, plus a map.
Like every region, Oregon keeps vocabulary and pronunciations that mark a speaker as local. Standard American English levels these out; a regional dictionary like Dialectly records them before they fade.
