Talk:gnarly

Gnarly is one of those slang terms that can be used to mean either good or bad, but I'm a little suspicious of how widespread some of the more specific uses listed are—in particular, "modern or current" and "cantankerous." It might be more of a candidate for RFC, admittedly. --Dajagr 20:46, 10 August 2006 (UTC)


 * Yes, please move to RFC instead. I've heard those uses colloquially (and therefore guess that citations for them are very numerous.)  Def 8 actually should have the word "intricate" in there somewhere.  --Connel MacKenzie 00:58, 11 August 2006 (UTC)


 * Fair enough. Will get that done. --Dajagr 18:25, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

It seems to have been cleaned, tidied and fixed. The rfv tag has been removed. There is a request for pronunciation. I will add this to the talk page, but am not transferring to rfc. Andrew massyn 19:07, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

From RFC
There are a lot of similar definitions for gnarly, and a number of the example phrases don't really do a lot to clarify the uses. For example, the example provided for "expensive-appearing" is "Look at this gnarly gear," but there's very little to indicate that the usage means "expensive-appearing" as opposed to, say, "very nice," "unkempt, in disrepair," or "modern or current." I'm not sure how possible it would be, but it would be nice to see the definitions collected a little into similar groupings and the addition of some examples that serve to clarify the meanings more distinctly. --Dajagr 18:34, 11 August 2006 (UTC)
 * + fixed. Foxjwill 00:16, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

Other meanings
Isn't there also another meaning of gnarly, meaning - I think either of an outdoor sport, e.g. mountaineering, or of a participant in such a sport - something like 'rugged'. Actually the current definition 2 of 'dangerous' perhaps should be changed to this definition instead (at least, judging by the example given there). 93.96.236.8 21:05, 6 February 2011 (UTC)

US-only slang senses?
The slang senses are of US origin; I’ve conservatively marked them as US-specific in the absence of non-US sources (as in the Glasgow source for “excellent”). Specifically, I’ve only heard the sense “unpleasant, ugly” from US (especially California/West Coast) street slang – is it used more widely?
 * —Nils von Barth (nbarth) (talk) 14:16, 21 April 2011 (UTC)