Pretty Much Every Canon Troll Term Ever
Biological Traits and Terms
Auricular sponge clots – Ears! Or rather, I suppose it’d be the internal structure of the ear, the external structure being composed pretty much entirely of cartilage and not being very relevant to much of anything unless you want to grab someone and haul them around by it.
Bone bulge – Apparently somehow related to reproduction? May or may not be gender specific. Unlikely to be, seeing as the gender binary is basically meaningless in Trolls.
Cartilage nub – This is pretty unclear, actually. At first, I thought it was a nose, but that may not be correct. The term “nub” itself can take the place of many terms in Troll dialects, such as “[something] I’ve been meaning to get off my nub for a while now” (chest) and “take that chip off your nub and tell me what’s the matter” (shoulder), but it’s also been used derogatorily–i.e. nubslurping, which appears to be the Troll equivalent of “cocksucking.” I have a theory about what a cartilage nub is, but it’s pretty rude, so…
Chitinous windtube – Exactly what it sounds like. It seems like trolls have a chitinous lining to their windpipe–and possibly the inside of the throat and mouth, which pretty much would have to be shed periodically as they grew. It’d probably have to slough off in layers or pieces, which they either spit/cough up or swallow or both.
Collapsing and expanding bladder based aquatic vascular system – Exclusive to aquatic trolls. Used in place of referring to Feferi’s heart. So yeah, basically the heart of an aquatic troll.
Hemospectrum– Handled for me.
Hoof– Foot. They are not actually hooved. Trolls, like humans, tend to use a lot of different words to mean the same thing. This is one of them.
Nook– …as in “up to your nook in” something, or something which “really gets stuck in your nook.”
Protein chute – What it sounds like. Basically the esophagus.
Seed flap – Move along, nothing to see here.
Sniffnode– Yet another word for nose.
Spinal crevice – The ass, to put it bluntly. Not an asshole, just the ass and/or specifically the ass crack. Basically the consequence of being bipedal and having legs situated at the end of the spinal column. Wow, you can tell I’m tired now.
Sponge– Brain/mind. Being out of your fucking sponge, as a result, means being out of your fucking mind.
Thinkpan– Another term for the brain. Emblazoned on your think pan, etc.
Other Termology of Use
12th Perigee’s Eve – A troll holiday. The only known detail about it is a festive ritual in which the troll’s lusus drags home a fresh behemoth leaving, and the troll and lusus decorate it together.
Ablution trap – A bath tub, to use the vernacular of the blue bloods. Most trolls use this term.
Beefgrub – At one point, Vriska gets a “huge 8eefgrub lodged in [her] nook just thinking about [Tavros].” A troll food-item?
Beetles– A Troll currency. No, seriously, they have imperial beetle coffers, which are serious business. However, they also have coins? Troll Caegars, actually. This subject is really confusing and inconsistent. Moving on.
Corpse box – Presumed to mean a coffin. HOWEVER, and I quote, “trolls don’t typically bury their dead. Leaving bodies to be consumed by wild animals is more customary.” Burial DOES happen, very rarely (Aradia ‘left so abruptly, [she] didn’t even have time to bury [her] lusus’), but… it is so rare as to be markedly unusual. Death is so common to trolls that it’s not really noteworthy, making the bigger mystery why burial happens at all rather than why they practically never bother with it. Possibly corpse boxes are for trolls in metropolitan areas, where wild animals are not exactly a troll caegar a dozen. If so, however, it may be simply for transport of the corpse(s?) to a more convenient area. (Mass graves???) Or it could be that highbloods get burials and lowbloods get left to rot.
Cotton Candy – A sweet troll delicacy you’ve probably never heard of.
Culling– Apparently a pretty regular thing, despite the fact that it’s literally killing undesireable or unsatisfactory trolls and removing them from the populace. You can be culled, for example, if you fail to have filled the twin pails when the Imperial Drone comes knocking. Or for any number of things. It frees up a lawn ring, though.
On Beforus, culling had a very different meaning: it meant being taken in by a Troll of a higher blood caste and being coddled mercilessly. Still something to avoid, at least if you desire any form of autonomy or respect for the rest of your life, but at least you’re still alive, I guess.
Dross Coffer – A trash can. These are picked up by waste drones and emptied. Handy!
Enclosure Talons – Quotation marks.
Exoskeleton– Used in place of skeletons sometimes; reflective of the insectoid nature of troll biology. For example, the exoskeleton of my argument would be the backbone of it.
Faygo– A brand of Troll soda, sold in bottles. Plays a significant role in Gamzee’s religion/philosophy/diet. We’ve seen several flavours so far, including Grape and Red Cherry. (For those unaware, Faygo is an actual brand of pop that can be found in the midwestern United States, and has about a thousand goddamn flavours. The author of this glossary prefers 60/40, but it has yet to appear in MSPA, which makes him sad. The fact that it is found on both Alternia and Earth is a source of some confusion/ speculation by the characters in canon.)
Filial Pail– … no comment. Pails and buckets are really, really uh… scandalous and rude. Let’s put it like that.
Frond nub – “Braying up the wrong frond nub” is the troll equivalent of “barking up the wrong tree.”
Getting [your] horns handed to you – Getting trolled, basically. You got served. Or however that’s supposed to go.
Grubloaf– A troll food, which is apparently capable of being freshly leavened. You put mucus on it. Sweet, tangy mucus. Saying something is just mucus on the grubloaf is the troll equivalent of saying something is just icing on the cake. Trolls sure are weird!
Hivestem– The troll equivalent of an apartment building. Tall.
Hoofbeast– Troll equivalent of a horse. Or, at the very least, used as a replacement for the concept in dialogue–for examle, calling someone a one- or two-trick hoofbeast instead of a one trick pony (two added mostly because Sollux was saying it to begin with), or telling someone to get off their high hoofbeast.
Husktop– The troll equivalent of a laptop. Apparently either actually grown, much as they do their games (which come in the form of variously-coloured, living grubs), or else made out of some sort of organic husk of something. This term is not to be used for regular, more stationary forms of computing devices.
Kraft grubsauce – Apparently, shit can be more real than this. Presumably a troll condiment. Guess what’s in it. NEW: It is apparent the same colour as Kanaya’s blood: very very green. Given what it’s possibly made of, however, I’d be willing to speculate that it might be found in any colour on the hemospectrum. Food for thought. (Ha ha.)
Lawn Ring – Basically the space around a young Troll’s hive, which is grassy or at least green, and is in fact in the shape of a circle. There’s actually a white outline to show where the boundary of the lawn ring is. Must be kept watered, on pain of culling.
Load gaper– A toilet. The term 'load gaper’ is common vernacular, eschewed by trolls of a more sophisticated blood colour.
Mind honey – YOU DO NOT UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES EAT THE MIND HONEY. Mind honey, which is produced by purple bees (and a by-product of apiculture networking, harvested out of the silicomb), is a powerful substance that apparently augments psychic abilities. It appears to do so in dramatic fashion, sometimes with… explosive results.
Musclebeast– A sort of creature endemic to Alternia, which–as the name suggests–is grotesquely muscled. Often used to replace the term “bull” in various oaths, but not necessarily bovine in nature at all.
Nut creature – The human word is 'squirrel.'
Nutrition plateau – A plate.
Rainbow drinker – Troll culture’s equivalent of a vampire. Rainbow drinkers–named for the deeply multicoloured wells of blood from which they obtain nourishment, sleep at night and walk out in the sunlight ('daywalkers’), and are generally considered to be mysterious and romantic and terrifying. Also, they glow. Like fucking lightbulbs.
Recuperacoon– A cocoon-like structure filled with sopor slime. Basically a Troll bed. “Every young troll enjoys the cozy embrace of such a vessel each night, and the relaxing ooze helps assuage the terrible visions of blood and carnage that plague the dark subconscious of your species.” The appearances of these purple pods vary.
Respiteblock– The Troll word for “bedroom.” By extension, any kind of room is generally referred to as a 'block.’
Shout pole – ! (An exclamation point.)
Sopor slime – The brilliant green ooze that fills a recuperacoon. Sleeping in sopor slime makes sleeping easier for Trolls, whose subconsciouses are plagued by “terrible visions of blood and carnage.” This is a species trait. Not for eating. (It does funny things to a Troll’s head.)
Surprise noodle – ? (A question mark.)
Sweep/Solar Sweep – A single passage of Alternia around its blistering sun. One Alternian sweep is equivalent to a little more than one Earth year.
Thermal hull – More sophisticated Trolls who are higher on the hemospectrum call this a refrigerator.
Weakslime– Weaksauce.
Wiggler– A very young troll, basically. More precisely, refers to the age before pupation. I.E. a troll that’s still a grub. Also a derogatory or demeaning term, when applied to a troll older than that.
Wriggling Day – The Troll equivalent of a birthday.
Whirling device – A fan.
Trivia and Misc.
Trolls can usually regenerate any teeth that have been lost or broken. This does not, however, extend to horns.
Alternian paint sets are manufactured with the pigment from the blood of culled wigglers.
Most trolls think fashion is stupid, and thus wear the same thing every day. They change their clothes, but all their clothes are the same. Kanaya is a notable exception to this rule. Vriska herself seems to bend this rule, applying not only blood-blue lipstick but also donning a snazzy coat… and advising John on his choices in fashion.
List of foods/flavours mentioned so far: (lusus) milk, tea, (soft summer) peaches, mustard, lemon, orange, cherry cough syrup, grape jelly, licorice, kiwi, blueberry bubblegum, chocolate (and fudge), marshmallow, creamsicles, cotton candy, appleberry blast. Also: Tab (the really gross sugary energy drink), Fruit Troll-ups (fruit roll-ups, Alternian style), and pie. S'mores and graham crackers were both recognisable to dead!Tavros.
–Pulled directly, 100% word-for-word from this excellent homestuck resource page.