talk turkey
Proposed by a contributor, not yet supported by evidence.
Meaning · English
Discuss something practically and seriously
Literally: talk about turkey
Where it’s used:
Used
Widespread English
Examples
Explorers talk turkey in the middle of the desert
Up to, you know, few hours where we've been together, he'll actually be prepared or at least to the rest of us, who the hell he's talking about.
British National Corpus sentence via the MAGPIE corpus (CC BY 4.0, retrieved 2026-07-30)
Sources & notes
Listed in Wiktionary’s “English idioms” category (retrieved 2026-07-29); definition pending editorial review. Definition drafted by AI (@cf/meta/llama-3.3-70b-instruct-fp8-fast) and auto-approved by rule on 2026-07-31; pending editor spot-check.
Common questions
What does “talk turkey” mean?
Discuss something practically and seriously Literally: talk about turkey
Is “talk turkey” formal or informal?
No register label has been reviewed yet — treat it as neutral and check the usage notes above.