List of Police-related Slang Terms - M

M

Madero

Spain, slang, derogatory for police officers (plural: los maderos, la madera). Translates as "wood." Reference to the brown uniforms formerly worn by the Policía Nacional.

la Madama / le Madame

Italian, slang, meaning the State Police/the policemen. Featured also in Monicelli's movie "I soliti ignoti".

Maison poulaga

French, slang, derogatory, of police officers and police stations. Means roughly "henhouse".

Mama (Maman in the south)

Indian. Derogatory. Hindi (Malayalam in south) word which means uncle. Sarcastic reference to a policeman.

Manaek

Israel, mostly for the Military Policemen.

Mapita

(Little map in Spanish) for highway patrol because of the little map displayed on the side of their units.

Mata

Singapore. Malay word for eye.

The Man

English language, underground slang, used frequently during the 1960s and 1970s during the anti-establishment and anti-authoritarian movements. Implies that police are a tool of the powerful "man" that is trying to keep others down.

Maréchaussée

Old French slang, mostly used in rural areas and aimed to the gendarmes.

Meat Wagon

UK. a police van

Meathead

Canadian. Military police, the term dates as far back as World War II, when other corps of the Canadian army also had "head" names. The name for the military police refers to perceived intellectual capacity. The Engineers were known as Thumper Heads, from a hand-held post driving tool called a thumper, and the Armoured corps as "Zipper Heads", from a helmet featuring a number of zippers to allow concurrent use of head phones.

Member

Canada. Internal slang, used in the Royal Canadian Mounted Police to refer to fellow Mounties, in place of the usual "officer" or "constable" (or equivalent) in other police forces.

Ment

Russian (мент, pl menty менты). Origins of the word are the older Romanian border mounted guard part of uniform – the short windcoat named "ment".

Messing

Norwegian slang, the Norwegian word for "brass".

Milico

Uruguay and Argentina. Coming from "militar", the Spanish word for military. Once police in those countries was a military institution, not a civil one.

Millicent

Nadsat slang for Policemen, derived from the Russian "Militsiya" (Used in A Clockwork Orange).

Mil'ton

(ru мильтон) rarely using in contemporary for militia men in Russia.

Mingara

Sometimes spelled Mingara Kaingara. From traveller slang especially Newark, Nottinghamshire, England.

Mistelbacher

Viennese slang for police officer, because it was said many of them came from Mistelbach in Lower Austria.

Mizzder Berllizeban Badger. ("Mr Policeman Badger")

UK, literary. The constable in the Rupert Bear stories by Mary Tourtel.

Mr. Plod, P.C. Plod or Plodder

UK, slang, literary, (also used in Australia) from the Noddy books by Enid Blyton, in which Mr. Plod was the village policeman. "Plod" has also commonly been used by the British police themselves, as has its (generally disparaging) female equivalent "plonk".

Monos

Spain, slang, derogatory, collective term in reference to the police officers' uniform.

Mounties

Canada, colloquial, Royal Canadian Mounted Police.

The Mustached Pagoda

Canada, slang, originally coined in Halifax, Nova Scotia. A surrealist term summoning from such noted philosophers as AJ Ayer and Josiah Royce, intended as a confusing and somewhat ambiguous insult.

Muppet

acronym of Most Useless Police Person Ever Trained

Murija

A Serbo-croatian term for police, with a singular "murjak". True origin somewhat unknown.

Musgarers

gypsy or Romani term.

Musora

in Russia plural unusing in other situations to "musor" (ru мусор) literally translated as "garbage". Origins – in obsolete abbreviation ru МУС (MUS) fully Московский уголовный сыск (Moskowskii ugolownyi sysk, Moskow criminal investigations)