mandem

Mandem means a group of guys, usually your friends or crew. It is London slang: “the mandem” are the boys you hang around with. The female equivalent is “gyaldem.”

What does mandem mean?

Mandem is a collective noun. You don’t say “a mandem,” you say “the mandem” or “my mandem,” meaning your circle of male friends. It can also mean a group of men in general (“some mandem were outside the shop”), or occasionally one guy referring to himself as “man,” which is its own London habit.

How to use it

• “I’m linking the mandem later for football.”
• “The mandem are coming round to watch the match.”
• “Some mandem from the other school turned up.”
• “Can’t make it, the mandem have got a birthday thing.”

Where it comes from

The word comes from Jamaican Patois, where “dem” after a noun makes it plural: “man” plus “dem” means “the men.” It moved into London speech through Caribbean communities and became a core part of Multicultural London English, the youth dialect heard in grime, UK drill and British comedy. “Gyaldem” follows the same pattern for girls.

Related terms

• bruv: brother, mate
• roadman: a young guy into street culture
• innit: “isn’t it,” the all-purpose tag
• ting: thing, or an event
• wasteman: a useless, annoying person

See more terms like this in our British slang dictionary.