Coming Soon

Snowboard slang, explained

A glossary with sources, which is rarer than it should be on this subject. Along the way: four things most slang pages state confidently and get wrong, and the words we will not print on a garment.

Snow and conditions

Powder, pow: Soft, fresh, loosely packed snow. Burton's own glossary notes that how much it takes to qualify is permanently disputed.

Corduroy, cord: The parallel ridges a snowcat leaves behind, and by extension a freshly groomed run.

Bluebird: A clear, sunny day with little cloud, classically the morning after a storm.

Crud: Choppy, lumpy, uneven snow, what powder becomes once enough people have ridden it.

Boilerplate: A hard, glazed, icy surface from melting and refreezing that an edge will not bite into.

Mashed potatoes: Wet, heavy snow with roughly the consistency the name implies, usually after a warm spell.

Dust on crust: A thin layer of new snow sitting on a hard, icy base. Flattering from the lift, unforgiving underfoot.

Sierra cement: Heavy, wet, dense snow, named for the Sierra Nevada. The Pacific Northwest has its own version of the insult: Cascade concrete.

Graupel: Soft hail, snow pellets formed when supercooled droplets freeze onto a snow crystal. A meteorological term riders borrowed, not slang they coined.

Corn snow: Coarse, granular, wet spring snow produced by repeated melting and refreezing. The American Meteorological Society lists it as a synonym for spring snow.

Firn: Old snow compacted and granulated on its way to becoming glacial ice. A glaciology term, and not a synonym for corn snow however often the two get swapped.

Riding and culture

Shred: To ride hard. A shredder rides hard habitually.

Stomp: To land a trick cleanly and in control, both feet down.

First tracks, freshies: Being first onto fresh snow.

First chair: The first lift of the day, and the people who organise their lives around catching it.

Bomb: To descend fast and straight down the fall line.

Huck: To launch off a cliff, cornice or jump, traditionally with limited regard for the landing.

Face shot: Snow thrown up into your face on a deep turn. The reason people put up with everything else.

White room: Being inside your own snow spray, visibility gone.

Tracked out: A slope with no untouched snow left on it.

Dawn patrol: Starting before light so you are climbing or riding at first light.

Snow snake: The mythical creature responsible for catching your edge. The joke is at the speaker's expense, which is why we like it.

Après: The social part after riding. Note the accent: it is après, grave, leaning left. Even POWDER's own glossary has misprinted it.

Tricks and terrain

Regular and goofy: Which foot you lead with: left forward is regular, right forward is goofy. Neither is better and goofy is not an insult.

Switch: Riding with the opposite foot forward from your natural stance.

Fakie: Riding backwards. Whether it is simply a synonym for switch is genuinely disputed, the governing-body glossaries treat them as the same, and Burton flags that purists from the skate tradition do not.

Ollie, nollie: Popping into the air off the tail is an ollie; off the nose, a nollie. No jumping involved either way.

Butter: Pressing and balancing on the nose or tail with the other end lifted, often while spinning on the snow.

Jib: To ride anything that is not snow, rails, boxes, logs, walls. In competition it means any non-snow feature.

Kicker, booter: A built jump. The governing-body glossary treats the two words as interchangeable, and we are not going to tell you one means a bigger one, because the sources flatly contradict each other on that.

Cork: An off-axis rotation where your feet pass above your head. Two of them is a double cork.

180, 360, 540, 720: Degrees of rotation, counted in halves: 360 is one full spin, 540 is one and a half. Spoken aloud as “a five”, “a seven”. Rail tricks are counted in 90s instead.

Method: Front hand grabs the heel edge, both knees bend, board pulled up toward head height with the back arched. The governing-body glossary calls it one of the most stylish things in the sport, and it is the trick most often misattributed: see below.

Indy: Rear hand grabs the toe edge between the bindings. Named after the Independent Truck Company, the skateboard brand.

Weddle (formerly the mute grab): Front hand grabs the toe edge in front of the front foot. The old name came from other skaters mislabelling Chris Weddle, who is deaf, as the quiet or mute one, his own reply was that he is deaf, not mute. Tony Hawk renamed the trick in the 2020 remaster of Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 1+2, and FIS Snowboard adopted Weddle for judging and communication from the 2020/21 season.

Kit

Deck: The board itself.

Camber, rocker, hybrid: The board's profile seen side-on: camber arches up in the middle, rocker curves the other way, hybrids mix the two.

Duck stance: Both feet angled outward from centre, which lets you ride switch as comfortably as forward.

Quiver: The collection of boards someone owns for different conditions, and the reason their garage is like that.

Splitboard, skins: A board that separates into two touring skis, with fabric skins on the base for climbing.

Base, edge, P-tex: The sliding surface, the metal strip around it, and the polyethylene the base is made of. P-tex is a trade name, not a generic word: Burton's own glossary says so.

Four things most glossaries get wrong

We checked these against publications of record and a slang dictionary rather than against each other, which is how the errors propagate.

The method air was not invented by Terry Kidwell.

It is the most repeated error on this subject. The trick is credited to the vert skateboarder Neil Blender, who is said to have invented and named it at a 1985 highest-air contest, in skateboarding, not snowboarding. By the late 1980s riders like Kidwell were throwing methods on snow. Both sources hedge even the Blender attribution with “legend has it”, so we will not state it harder than they do.

“Steeze” is not snowboard slang, and probably does not mean style plus ease.

The industry gloss, style combined with ease, is real and widely cited, including by Burton. But the standard historical slang dictionary derives it from style with an -iz- infix, the pattern behind shizzle, and dates it to hip-hop: Run-DMC in 1990, Gang Starr in 1997. Snowboarding borrowed it decades later. Burton's own glossary also notes the word now reads dated.

Nobody knows where “jerry” came from.

Jerry Garcia, jerry-rigged, a generically goofy first name, none of these has a source behind it. Freeskier interviewed the person most responsible for spreading the word and he supplied synonyms and a definition but no etymology. What is documented is the Instagram account's name, founded in 2012 after a teammate forgot his shin guards at Stowe, which is a different thing entirely.

“Gaper” has no sourced etymology either.

The open-mouthed-stare explanation is the most plausible and is asserted by nobody credible. The goggle-gap explanation probably has the causation backwards: the gap is far more likely named after the gaper than the other way round. No source establishes the direction, so we are not going to pretend one does.

Firn and corn snow are not the same thing.

Firn is a glaciology term for old snow on its way to glacial ice. Corn snow is the American Meteorological Society's spring snow. Enthusiast glossaries blur them constantly.

Words we will not print on a sweatshirt

We sell to people who are learning. A good half of snowboarding's funniest vocabulary exists to laugh at exactly those people, and two of the most popular phrases are somebody else's registered trademark on this exact product. So this is the list we rule out, and why.

Gaper, jerry, gorby, joey, punter, beater

These exist to mock people who are new, or who are visiting. POWDER, a publication of record, labels gaper flatly derogatory and appends “be nice, though”. We sell sweatshirts to people learning to snowboard. Printing the word for laughing at them would be an odd way to thank them.

Heelside hero, never-ever, noob, pizza, french fry

All real, all in a legitimate industry glossary, and all of them precise descriptions of a beginner used as a put-down. Worst possible fit for this brand.

Full send

A registered US trademark in Class 025, covering clothing and naming sweatshirts expressly, registered 31 August 2021 and recorded as registered when we checked. This is not a style judgement; it is somebody else's mark on exactly the product we make.

Jerry of the day

Also a registered US trademark in Class 025, covering shirts, hats and sweatshirts. Registered 17 May 2016 with its Section 8 and 15 filings accepted in 2021; its ten-year renewal fell due in May 2026 and the public record we checked showed no renewal filed, so its current status needs confirming at source before anyone relies on it either way.

Mute

Not a slur, but the name records other skaters mislabelling Chris Weddle, who is deaf, as the quiet or mute one. Tony Hawk renamed the trick in the 2020 Pro Skater remaster and FIS Snowboard adopted Weddle from the 2020/21 season. The new name has the better story anyway.

No friends on a powder day

Snowboarder ran a tongue-in-cheek piece declaring this one retired, on the grounds that powder days are in fact better with friends. Take that as a joke rather than a ruling, but it is also among the most printed phrases in the sport, which rather defeats the point of printing it.

Common questions

What does shred mean in snowboarding?

To ride hard. A shredder is someone who does it habitually. It is the most general-purpose compliment in the sport.

What is the difference between regular and goofy?

Which foot leads. Left foot forward is regular, right foot forward is goofy. Neither is better, neither is more common to be ashamed of, and goofy is not an insult despite the name.

Who invented the method air?

The vert skateboarder Neil Blender, in skateboarding, in 1985. It is very widely credited to Terry Kidwell, who brought it onto snow afterwards but did not invent it.

Is it apres-ski or après-ski?

Après, with a grave accent leaning left. It is worth getting right if you are putting it on anything permanent, and plenty of published glossaries do not.

What does steeze mean?

Style that looks effortless. The snowboard industry glosses it as style plus ease, but the standard historical slang dictionary derives it from style with an -iz- infix and dates it to hip-hop in the 1990s, well before snowboarding borrowed it. Burton's own glossary notes the word now reads dated.

What we do print

Phrases that are the wearer's own joke rather than somebody else's expense. The full line is thirteen styles.

  • I'm Difficult Sweatshirt. A black diamond on a white crewneck, the trail rating for runs that aren't for everyone. 100% Cotton. Sizes S, M, L, XL. Colours Lucent White. $34.99

  • Board Meeting Sweatshirt. Three riders on a chairlift, the only board meeting worth attending. Sizes M, L, XL. Colours Flower Gray. $44.99

  • Snowboard Social Club Sweatshirt. Nine illustrated riders across the front of an all-cotton crewneck. 100% Cotton. Sizes S, M, L, XL. Colours Apricot. $34.99

Sources

Trademark status was read from USPTO records via a public trademark database on 2026-10-11 and is not legal advice. Anyone printing a phrase on a garment should run their own clearance search in International Class 025.