Chav

A word that until recently I had not heard used in real life, 'Chav'.
My sib made a remark about a small family group who were (in his opinion) acting in a 'Chavish manner' in the middle of an ICU ward, one of them was leaving the ward and realised he hadn't finished talking to the other members of the family, so he shouted the length of the ward (past 12 beds with incredibly sick patients and their numb families) about arrangements for meeting for a few drinks later that night.

But, according to the author of a book on new words published by the Oxford University Press, its usage has spread to the extent that she has chosen it as the "word of the year" for 2004. The term, always pejorative, has increasingly been used to describe a group of individuals set apart by ignorance, fecklessness, bad taste and a penchant for wearing Burberry, flashy gold jewellery and white trainers. Mostly classified by their clothes, they have also become known for their place in society. Some critics have gone further, proposing the notion that the term is derived from the phrase "council-house violent".