ladies' tresses

Any of several species of the orchidaceous genus Spiranthes, in which the white flowers are set in spirals around a slender axis and remotely resemble braided hair.

Spiranthes arcisepala M.C. Pace (2017) – Appalachian ladies'-tresses

southern Caspian Sea and Himalayan Mountains to the South-West Pacific

Spiranthes australis Lindl. – Austral ladies tresses

Spiranthes bightensis M.C. Pace (2021) – Atlantic ladies'-tresses

Spiranthes brevilabris Lindl. (1840) – Texas ladies'-tresses

Spiranthes casei Catling & Cruise (1974) – Case's ladies'-tresses

Spiranthes cernua Rich. (1817) – nodding ladies'-tresses

Spiranthes delitescens Sheviak (1990) – reclusive ladies'-tresses

Spiranthes diluvialis Sheviak (1984) – Ute's ladies'-tresses

Spiranthes eatonii Ames ex P.M.Br. (1999) – Eaton's ladies'-tresses

Spiranthes flexuosa Lindl. (1824) – Nepalese ladies'-tresses

Spiranthes floridana Cory (1936) – Florida ladies'-tresses

Spiranthes graminea Lindl. (1840) – Canelo ladies'-tresses

Spiranthes igniorchis M.C. Pace (2017) – fire ladies'-tresses

Spiranthes incurva M.C. Pace (2017) – Sphinx ladies'-tresses

Spiranthes infernalis Sheviak (1989) – Ash Meadows ladies'-tresses

Spiranthes × kapnosperia M.C.Pace (2017) – Smoky ladies'-tresses

Spiranthes lacera Raf. (1833) – northern slender ladies'-tresses

Spiranthes laciniata Ames (1905) – lace-lipped ladies'-tresses

Spiranthes longilabris Lindl. (1840) – giant-spiral ladies'-tresses

Spiranthes lucida Ames (1908) – shining ladies'-tresses

Spiranthes magnicamporum Sheviak (1973) – Great Plains ladies'-tresses

Spiranthes niklasii M.C. Pace (2017) – Niklas' ladies'-tresses

Spiranthes ochroleuca Rydb. (1932) – yellow nodding ladies'-tresses

Spiranthes odorata Lindl. (1840) – fragrant ladies'-tresses

Spiranthes ovalis Lindl. (1840) – October ladies'-tresses

Spiranthes perexilis M.C. Pace (2019) – Slender starry ladies'-tresses

Spiranthes porrifolia Lindl. (1840) – leek-leaved ladies'-tresses

Spiranthes praecox S.Watson in A.Gray (1890) – early-blooming spiranthes

Spiranthes romanzoffiana Cham. (1828) – hooded ladies'-tresses

Spiranthes torta Garay & H.R.Sweet in R.A.Howard (1974) – southern ladies'-tresses

Spiranthes triloba J.K. Schum. (1898) – Panther ladies'-tresses

Spiranthes tuberosa Raf. (1833) – little ladies'-tresses

Spiranthes vernalis Engelm. & A.Gray (1845) – spring ladies'-tresses


cyberrights

One group, organized around free expression issues, was led by the American Civil Liberties Union and by a variety of cyberrights organizations including the Electronic Privacy Information Center.

1999, Patricia Aufderheide, Communications Policy and the Public Interest, page 96:

Similarly, a campaign for cyberrights must also recognize the economic contradictions within hypermedia freedom.

2001, Peter Ludlow, Crypto Anarchy, Cyberstates, and Pirate Utopias, page 57:

Rights in cyberspace or on the Internet.


sowens

It was sowens she had in her hand for our supper, when a little old woman walked in and begged a lippie of meal of her.

1860, Thomas Pattieson, “The Smith and the Fairies”, in J[ohn] F[rancis] Campbell, transl., Popular Tales of the West Highlands: Orally Collected: With a Translation, volume II, Edinburgh: Edmonston and Douglas, →OCLC, page 61:

(Scotland) A food item made from the husk of the oat by a process similar to that by which common starch is made; flummery.


Penrose steps

After a drawing by Lionel Penrose and Roger Penrose.

In a dream, you can cheat architecture into impossible shapes. That lets you create closed loops, like the Penrose Steps. The infinite staircase.

2010 July 8, Inception (Movie), spoken by Arthur (Joseph Gordon-Levitt):

I'll have my heaven, / Where heaven is love and love is my heaven. / I just have to climb through those Penrose steps! / Till I find sky number seven.

2011 May 13, Amal A. Islim, Walking with the Vain Cattle: In the Womb of Life, the Plant of Miracle Is Ready to Blossom a White Flower, Bloomington: Balboa Press, →ISBN, →OL:

At this book's inception, when we came to, we found ourselves already traipsing around Penrose steps, already reactively enclosed in an unceasing loop.

2012 April 16, Rob Coley with Dean Lockwood, Cloud Time, Alresford: Zero Books, →ISBN, →OL, page 100:

An impossible loop of endlessly ascending and descending stairs, or an optical illusion appearing to be one.


French fits

‘We've got a file on what we call the barred window boys, Doctor. Places where you can't jump out of when the French fits take over.’

1953, Raymond Chandler, The Long Goodbye, Penguin, published 2010, page 144:

‘I was having the French fits coming out of it.’

1940, Raymond Chandler, Farewell, My Lovely, Penguin, published 1949, page 148:


safety thongs

(Australia, informal, humorous) Inappropriate or unsafe footwear in an industrial workplace.


tag-rag

If the tag-rag people did not clap him and hiss him, I am no true man.

1599 (first performance), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Iulius Cæsar”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act I, scene ii]:

(obsolete) The lowest class of people; the rabble.


Barbarian Invasions

en-proper noun

the Barbarian Invasions pl (plural only)

the Barbarian Invasions (canonical plural)

Theoderic's life conventionally takes up part of the history of the barbarian invasions of Europe, the Völkerwanderung or “migration of peoples.”

2011, James J. O'Donnell, The Ruin of the Roman Empire, Profile Books, →ISBN, page 72:


pearlings

Probably a corruption of purflings. See purfle.

And d'ye hear, Gudyill, let Jenny Dennison slip on her pearlings to walk before my niece and me, and the three women to walk behind; and bid my niece attend me instantly.

1816, Jedadiah Cleishbotham [pseudonym; Walter Scott], chapter VIII, in Tales of My Landlord, […], volume II (Old Mortality), Edinburgh: […] [James Ballantyne and Co.] for William Blackwood, […]; London: John Murray, […], →OCLC, page 217:

(Scotland) A kind of lace of silk or thread.


little people

(military slang, dated) The Vietnamese, particularly in the Vietnam War.


Ahl al-Quran

Borrowed from Arabic أَهْل الْقُرْآن (ʔahl al-qurʔān)

bor

أَهْل الْقُرْآن


grave goods

en-noun

grave goods pl (normally plural, singular grave good)

(archaeology) The artefacts (jewellery, animals, slaves, etc) buried with a dead person in a grave or tomb.


true stripes

(idiomatic) One's real beliefs, sentiments, or character.


boys of summer

LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-boys of summer.wav

Baseball is a traditional summer pastime for young men.

(poetic) People who play baseball, particularly in the major leagues.


lady lumps

“I was just going to fix your dress before you flash the driver your lovely lady lumps.”

2008, Adrianne Byrd, Her Lover's Legacy, Kimani Press, →ISBN, page 114:

The chest strap is higher, too, though this tester found it still a bit smushy on her lady lumps.

2008 July, Selene Yeager, “A Round of Drinks”, in Mountain Bike:

If not to prevent droopiness and backache, why do we underwire and wrap our lady lumps at all?

2013 April 12, Emer O'Toole, “The pros and cons of going braless”, in The Guardian:


sparklies

Once the C/NR of the incoming satellite signal reaches +2 or more dB above the threshold rating of the receiver, the last few stray sparklies disappear and the video appears to be totally clear.

1993, Mark Long, Jeffrey Keating, The world of satellite TV, page 179:

One of the most common troubles with a satellite home unit is sparklies, as shown in Fig. 4.8.

1999, Eugene Trundle, Newnes TV and Video Engineer's Pocket Book, page 96:

(television) A kind of interference pattern on analogue satellite television, caused by a signal that is either too weak or too strong.


this, that, and the other

LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-this, that, and the other.wav

These returns exhibit a curious annual uniformity in results; the sort of uniformity which you find in the annual output of suicides in the world's capitals, and the proportions of deaths by this, that, and the other disease.

1897, Mark Twain, chapter 57, in Following the Equator […] , New York: American Publishing Company:

She meant to use the cumbrous machine to pick out this, that, and the other interesting person from the muddle of the world.

1919, Virginia Woolf, chapter 6, in Night and Day:

Looking at his paintings, we sense the intense performance of making them, not as an Expressionistic process, but as a notational, seismographic record of the dodging feints his mind made in this, that and the other direction.

2005 March 11, Roberta Smith, “Jean-Michel Basquiat: Collisions on Canvas That Still Make Noise”, in New York Times, retrieved 2013-04-23:

Particular items belonging to a large, diverse set, but items of the general kind of item indicated.


this, that, and the other

this, that, and the other pl (plural only)

A knowing old sheet-anchor-man, an unprincipled fellow, putting this, that, and the other together, ferrets out the mystery; [...]

1850, Herman Melville, “Smuggling in a Man-of-War”, in White Jacket; or, The World in a Man-of-War, volume I, London: Richard Bentley, […], →OCLC, page 285:

Very much admired, indeed, the young woman was. What with her dress; what with the air and sun; what with being made so much of; what with this, that, and the other; her merits really attracted general notice.

1849 May – 1850 November, Charles Dickens, “Intelligence”, in The Personal History of David Copperfield, London: Bradbury & Evans, […], published 1850, →OCLC, page 473:

Anyway, we were sitting here doing this, that, and the other, and she said she positively was not going to do the other any more with Carstairs sneering at her while she did it.

1943, Norbert Davis, Sally's in the Alley:

"There's such an onslaught of people wanting information, people wanting this, that and the other," she says.

2001 November 12, Andrea Sachs, “Out Of Africa”, in Time:

A wide range of actions, circumstances, characteristics, topics, or other items.


leazings

Ears of corn picked up from the fields after the harvest.


Ebisu

Borrowed from Japanese 恵比須, 恵比寿, 夷, 戎 (Ebisu).

Synonym of Emishi (“ancient ethnic group of Japan”)


disco fries

(US, New Jersey, New York) Fries served with mozzarella and brown gravy, similar to poutine.


horse latitudes

Various theories; probably from a sailors' ritual of parading a straw-stuffed effigy of a horse around the deck before throwing it overboard.

At the equator, an immense mist seems permanently to encircle the globe. It is known as the cloud-ring. The function of the cloud-ring is to temper the heat of the tropics. . . . These are what are called horse latitudes. It was here that navigators of bygone ages were accustomed to cast their horses into the sea to lighten the ship in stormy weather.

1866, Victor Hugo, chapter 6, in W. Moy Thomas, transl., Toilers of the Sea:

The north boundary of Zone A is a belt of high barometric pressure known to many generations of seafaring men as the "Horse Latitudes." Here air currents are divergent and there is relatively low humidity.

1945 May, “What is Weather?”, in Flying Magazine, volume 36, number 5, page 31:

The 27,000-mile course starts in November in the Bay of Biscay on the coast of France; points south through the horse latitudes and doldrums, past Africa to the bottom of the world; rounds Cape Horn; then turns north to home.

1999 August 15, Lance Morrow, “Captains Courageous”, in Time:

The captain used the idle Horse Latitudes to train and prepare the remainder of the crew.

2011, Dominic Smith, Bright and Distant Shores, →ISBN, page 125:

(informal, geography, meteorology) The warm, subtropical bands which encircle the globe between approximately 30 and 35 degrees both north and south of the Equator, characterized by high atmospheric pressure and dry variable winds ranging from calm to light.

зони на безветрие

warm, dry subtropical bands encircling the globe


Veientines

1838, B. G. Niebuhr (tr. Julius Charles Hare and Connop Thirlwall), The History Of Rome, second volume, third ed. rev., London, http://archive.org/details/historyofrome001903mbp
But those whom Cæso Fabius led against the Veientines (28), did not look upon him as a legitimate consul: - - (footnote 28) Thus Zonaras, VII. 17, and Dionysius, IX.2. so also the manuscripts in Livy, II.43, not the author, whose meaning unquestionably requires the change introduced by Sigonius, ducendus Fabio in Aequos in Veientes etc. But that the former is the correct view is proved decisively by the superiority of the Veientines after the campaign, while the Æquians were so far from this that Rome was able to turn all her forces against the others

(historical) The people of the ancient city Veii.


Veientes

The first were the Veientes, a people of Tuscany, who had large possessions, and dwelt in a spacious city; […]

1996, Plutarch (tr. A. H. Clough), Lives Of The Noble Grecians And Romans, Project Gutenberg EBook #674

(historical) The people of the ancient city of Veii.


Veintines

- - and after doing the state good service for one year, were surprised during a religious festival by a band of Veintines and slaughtered to a man.

2006, Mary Platt Parmele, Short History of Rome and Italy, New York: Cosimo, Inc.:


trousies

'No, 'e wasn't drunk,' said the little man loyally, 'the liquor was no more than feelin' its way round inside of 'im; but 'e went an' filled that 'ole bloomin' palanquin with bottles 'fore 'e went off. 'E's gone an' 'ired six men to carry 'im, an' I 'ad to 'elp 'im into 'is nupshal couch, 'cause 'e wouldn't 'ear reason. 'E's gone off in 'is shirt an' trousies, swearin' tremenjus—gone down the road in the palanquin, wavin' 'is legs out o' windy.'

1896, Rudyard Kipling, “The Incarnation of Krishna Mulvaney”, in Soldier Stories, page 160:


heads of the bill

Mr. Monck Mason then a young barrister, on a motion that the heads of the bill should be committed, displayed great talents, liberality and thorough knowledge of the fundamental principles of political economy, in a luminous speech.

1813, Mathew O'Conor, The History of the Irish Catholics from the Settlement in 1691: With a View of the State of Ireland from the Invasion by Henry II, to the Revolution:

(Ireland, law) Early draft of a bill usually agreed at cabinet but not yet published.


szlachta

(historical) A legally privileged noble class in the Kingdom of Poland, the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, and the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth.


Acoemetae

From Ancient Greek ἀκοιμητής (akoimētḗs, “one who doesn't sleep”), from κοιμάω (koimáō).

bor

(historical) An order of fifth-century monks who, by turns, kept up a divine service day and night.

acemetas

fifth-century monastic order who kept up divine service day and night


Borromean rings

From the coat of arms of the Italian Borromeo family.

Three rings joined together so that no pairs are individually linked


session laws

(law) The published set of all laws passed during a specific legislative session, including those that will not be incorporated into the statutes of the jurisdiction.


Spetsnaz

From Russian спецна́з (specnáz), abbreviation of войска́ специа́льного назначе́ния (vojská speciálʹnovo naznačénija, “special purpose forces/troops”).

Special forces in Russia and other post-Soviet states.


comicana

Charlie Rice, of This Week magazine, is one of the few serious students of comicana around.

1975, Mort Walker, Backstage at the Strips, Mason/Charter, →ISBN, page 30:

The guide, available at comic-book stores and by subscription, is where everybody advertises to buy, sell, or swap comicana.

The new International Museum of Cartoon Art in Boca Raton, Fla., claims to have the world's largest and most comprehensive collection of "comicana."

1996 June 9, Barbara Shea, “On The Go”, in Newsday:

Things, ideas, or practices associated with or distinctive of comic books.


rptr. nn.

reporter's notes
reporter's notes#English

(in bibliographies) Abbreviation of reporter's notes.


prtgs.

(in bibliographies) Abbreviation of printings.


pearls before swine

Your lecture deserved a much better reception than it got. Pearls before swine!

(idiomatic) Something of value, beauty, refinement, or wisdom left to people who will not appreciate it.


heavenly virtues

(Catholicism) All the cardinal virtues and theological virtues.


theological virtues

(Christianity) Virtues that are bestowed upon human beings during baptism.


men in blue ties

From the association of the colour blue with the Liberal party.

2013, Gillard's warning on 'men in blue ties', Skynews.com.au
Prime Minister Julia Gillard has played the gender card as she fights for electoral survival, warning the coalition's 'men in blue ties' would marginalise female politicians and treat abortion as a political plaything.

(Australian politics, derogatory) The men of the Liberal party and their background lobbyists, particularly with regard to women's issues.


loaded dice

From loaded (“weighted asymmetrically”) + dice.

Slave states have always won. They have played with loaded dice—loaded with Slavery.

1960, Charles Sumner, The Republican Party its origin necessity & permanence, J. A. H. Hasbrouck & Co., page 10:

In fact, the need for a cultural-relativistic point of view has become apparent because of the realization that there is no way to play this game of making judgments across cultures except with loaded dice.

1972, Melville Jean Herskovits, Cultural Relativism: Perspectives in Cultural Pluralism, page 56:

The riverboat gambler’s most intriguing insight on the stock market is that all investors use loaded dice if they only knew it.

2012, Fred Carach, Forty Years a Speculator: My Discoveries and Insights, Dog Ear, page 53:

(figuratively) An advantage obtained by manipulating rules or insider influence.


high hundreds

The range of an unspecified number between 100 and 200 that is rather close to 200 than 100, as opposed to low hundreds and mid hundreds.


mid hundreds

A normal blood sugar is in the low to mid hundreds.

An unspecified number between 100 and 200 that is rather in the middle between those limits, as opposed to low hundreds and high hundreds.


low hundreds

A normal blood sugar is in the low to mid hundreds

An unspecified number between 100 and 200 that is rather closer to 100 than 200, as opposed to mid hundreds and high hundreds.


middle hundreds

Unspecified number greater than 133 (when compared to low hundreds) and less than or 166 (when compared to high hundreds)


land legs

(informal) The sense of balance, slowly regained after a time at sea.


rose-colored lenses

rose-colored glasses
rose-colored glasses#English

Alternative form of rose-colored glasses


Cardinal Virtues

cardinal virtues
cardinal virtues#English


MUSD

Initialism of million United States dollars.


Flandreau

A city, the county seat of Moody County, South Dakota, United States.


Achuar

Synonym of Achuar-Shiwiar (“a Jivaroan language”)


Königsberger Klopse

Borrowed from German Königsberger Klopse (literally “Königsbergian meatballs”).

An East Prussian dish of meatballs in a white sauce with capers.


Gallaeci

An ancient Celtic people who inhabited Gallaecia.


sileni

And so, while husbands are worshiping at their boyhood shrines, being the lawyers, merchants, or masterminds their parents wanted them to be, their wives, even after fourteen years of marriage and two fine children produced and raised, are still on the search for love - which can come to them only from the centaurs, sileni, satyrs, and other concupiscent incubi of the rout of Pan, either as in the second of the above-recited dreams, or as in our popular, vanilla-frosted temples of the venereal goddess, under the make-up of the latest heroes of the screen.

1968, Joseph Campbell, The Hero with a Thousand Faces, 2nd edition, London: Fontana Press, published 1993, page 12:

(Greek mythology) A group of minor deities or demigods similar to fauns or satyrs.


Carbonari

en-noun

Carbonari pl (normally plural, singular Carbonaro)

/ˌkɑːbəˈnɑːɹɪ/

/ˌkɑɹbəˈnɑɹi/

From Italian carbonari, plural of carbonaro (dialectal, literally “charcoal burner”), from carbone (“coal”). Cognate with carbonara.

(historical) Members of secret revolutionary societies founded in early 19th-century Italy, often with a patriotic and liberal focus.

carbonários

members of secret revolutionary societies of early 19th-century Italy


flowers of antimony

(obsolete, inorganic chemistry) antimony trioxide


Sea Peoples

Calque of Egyptian nꜣ ḫꜣswt nt pꜣ ym (“the peoples/foreigners of the sea”), as written in the Great Karnak Inscription.

cal

(historical) A confederacy of seafaring raiders of unknown nationality, who invaded the eastern Mediterranean at the end of the Bronze Age.


swimshorts

shorts designed for aquatic sports or as beachwear, typically worn by males


terms of trade

(economics) Relative price of exports in terms of imports, defined as the ratio of weighted average export prices to weighted average import prices.


swimming shorts

A pair of shorts worn for swimming or bathing.


Rhodopes

A mountain range in Southeastern Europe, with over 83% of its area in southern Bulgaria and the remainder in Greece.


golden years

To make the most of your golden years, study the points enumerated above and then resolve to do just the opposite.

1958 October 16, Robert Peterson, “Growing Old Disgracefully”, in St. Petersburg Independent, US, page 9:

If, by the time you are 50, you haven't started planning for retirement, the golden years won't be golden.

1986 December 18, “Planning key to financially secure retirement”, in Edmonton Journal, Canada, page C1:

A huge wave of baby boomers may need long-term care in their golden years.

2011 February 8, Janet Morrissey, “Preparing for Long-Term Care: Any Good Options?”, in Time, archived from the original on 2013-08-24:

(idiomatic, euphemistic) Old age; especially, the leisure years in later life after one has retired from employment.


Umbri

Borrowed from Latin umbrī. Also called Ombrii in some Roman sources. Many Roman writers thought the Umbri to be Celtic; Cornelius Bocchus wrote that they descended from an ancient Gaulish tribe. Plutarch wrote that the name might be a different way of writing the name of the Celtic tribe Ambrones, which loosely means "King of the Boii". He also suggested that the Insubres, another Gaulish tribe, might be connected; their Celtic name Isombres could possibly mean "Lower Umbrians", or inhabitants of the country below Umbria.

(historical) An Italic tribe of ancient Italy.


apols

Apols for TMI but that really is all that has happened.

2008, Susie Day, serafina67 *urgently requires life*, Scholastic, published 2008, →ISBN, page 105:

On the other, the self was also confirmed as authentic via a process of interaction, whereby Fry answered and apologised to his critic for the subsequent abuse he received on Twitter – 'Pls accept my apols ... I feel more sheepish than a sheep'.

2011, James Bennett, Television Personalities: Stardom and the Small Screen, Routledge, →ISBN, pages 173–174:

Apols if this letter is a disarray, but my head is like a drum made of cymbals.

2013, Robert Hudson, The Dazzle, Jonathan Cape, published 2013, →ISBN, page 68:


giggleberries

No great confidence in anything though, and I'll be off to the coast today to freeze my giggleberries off.

2003 April 21, Firebeast [username], “Re: Irish Grand National”, in uk.sport.horseracing (Usenet):

The City players had done us proud and one had made a great sacrifice in the line of duty. Captain Jim Rollo literally took one for the team and needed a visit to the RUH due to an injury to his giggleberries. He may well need a wheelbarrow to get his swollen undercarriage to training!

2011 November 3, “Daggers draw provides chance to hit Bullseye”, in Bath Chronicle:

It's a damn good thing I was born with the twig and giggleberries as I'd make a terrible fucking girl.

2013, Axe, Bouncing Off Guardrails: Somewhere in Life Between Victorious Triumph and Horrific Annihilation, Morgan James Publishing, →ISBN, page 163:


jacobs

He'd hit you with his wallet? What an opportunity!!! You could have kicked him in his jacobs, jumped on his head & ran off with his money.

2004 December 24, Guppings, “Re: I hate Xmas”, in uk.sport.football (Usenet):

"last time I was at Muirkirk (In april I think) I was moaning about the cold while dressed in a few arctic fleeces, bunnet etc and a local came up to me in a thin jacket and said "braw warm today eh mate" I was freezing my jacobs off"

2005 March 5, Paul C, “Some photos: Glenbuck Cherrypickers and Muirkirk”, in uk.sport.football (Usenet):

It was almost 6:30 and the sun was breaking the horizon, better get the boss back to the safety of her fortress-like house on Beverly St., or it might be his jacobs in a jar!

2005, Ken Knight, The Midnight Oil, AuthorHouse, published 2005, →ISBN, page 240:


giggle berries

His nose starts squirting blood right before I kick him square in the twig and giggle berries.

2008, Stephanie Hale, Twisted Sisters, Berkley JAM, →ISBN, page 72:

Or, "Pardon me, Brad, while I reach down and scratch my giggle berries."

2008, Zombies Ate My Headlines, Carbolic Smoke Books, →ISBN, page 167:

"Cowboys," he explained. "They cut 'em off the bulls to calm 'em down."
"Hmmm, you'd think it would have the exact opposite effect," I retorted to the delight of the waitstaff. But the moment Sam saw them smile he drove the knife deep into the table and pushed the plate of deep-fried giggle berries against my chest.

2010, Mark DeCarlo, A Fork on the Road: 400 Cities/One Stomach, Lyons Press, →ISBN, page 188:


love spuds

We crossed paths at the hospital a few months ago after his wife convinced him to get a vasectomy following the delivery of their fifth child. Knowing I'd be among the crew wielding a scalpel in the area of his love spuds allowed Bobby and me to reconnect in no time.

2010, Annelise Ryan, Scared Stiff, Kensington Books, →ISBN, page 220:

The Labrador would lie on his stomach with his legs splayed out behind and then proceed to move back and forth as if he were in the missionary position and going for glory. His love spuds would sort of squeeze under his body as he moved back, and then pop out again as he moved forward.

2011, Michael Riddel, Life, A Little Brown Dog and Shite Like That, Balboa Press, →ISBN, page 55:

They saw his you-know-whats: his family jewels, his nuggets, his love spuds. His balls.

2012, Susin Nielsen, The Reluctant Journal of Henry K. Larsen, Tundra Books, →ISBN, page 10:


Helvetii

From Latin Helvetii, from a Celtic name. First element from Proto-Celtic *ɸelus (“many”), from Proto-Indo-European *pélh₁us (“many”); second element said to be from Celtic root *ɸeitu (“grassland, terrain”), which shares an origin with Old Irish íath (“grassland, territory”).

(historical) A Gallic tribe that occupied the plain of Switzerland.


Pennine Alps

The western range of the Alps that covers part of Italy and Switzerland.


fee-fees

From feelings by shortening and reduplication.

Well, 'sorry to have bruised your fee fees with an intelligent, opposing viewpoint […]

1998 December 15, Mikey, “Re: New Troll (was Re: Big Steve's Weekly Voyager Review (will not say Waterworld...will not say Waterworld...)”, in alt.fan.jeri-ryan (Usenet):

“Oh yes, we mustn't let sweet Sarah get her fee-fees hurt. God knows how fragile she is. […]

2006, Lauren Dane, Tri Mates, Ellora's Cave, →ISBN, page 56:

I can see why you want me to stop making your fee fees hurt.

2010 August 21, Aratzio, “Re: Meat Plow Caloed Out as a Pussy was: Violent Crime In Maricopa County up 58% Under Sheriff Joe Arpiao (Cross posts removed)”, in 24hoursupport.helpdesk (Usenet):


Coeur d'Alene

From French cœur (“heart”) + d’ (“of”) + alêne (“awl”).

Coeur d'Alene language
Coeur d'Alene people
Coeur d'Alene, Idaho

A city, the county seat of Kootenai County, Idaho, United States.


allegorics

the doctrinal allegorics of the poem's narrative

2006, Seth Lehrer, Courtly Letters in the Age of Henry VIII, page 83:


dying seconds

The very final part of something timed, especially a sports game.


harem pants

Baggy, long pants tapered at the ankle, with side flaps on the hip that button at the waist area, worn by both men and women.

alladynki

baggy, long pants tapered at the ankle, with side flaps on the hip that button at the waist area


teens · twenties · thirties · forties · fifties · sixties · seventies · eighties · nineties

Gay Nineties · Naughty Nineties · Roaring Twenties · Dirty Thirties · Swinging Sixties


Bruneliana

Object and mementos relating to famed English engineer Isambard Kingdom Brunel.


doe eyes

Large, wide-open (purportedly innocent-looking) eyes.


ships that passed in the night

en-noun

ships that passed in the night pl (plural only)

ships that pass in the night
ships that pass in the night#English

Alternative form of ships that pass in the night


ships passing in the night

ships passing in the night pl (plural only)

You'll never get my mind right / Like two ships passing in the night

2003, “In My Bed”, performed by Amy Winehouse:


Yehudi lights

Developed, in part, by the US Navy's "Project Yehudi" from 1943 onwards. Yehudi in then-contemporary slang meant "the little man who wasn't there". The slang term may perhaps allude to the popular catchphrase and novelty song Who's Yehoodi? The catchphrase is said to have originated when violinist Yehudi Menuhin was a guest on the popular radio program of Bob Hope, where sidekick Jerry Colonna, apparently finding the name itself humorous, repeatedly asked "who's Yehudi?"

(rare) Lights placed under aeroplanes that raise their brightness to the same level as that of the sky, as a form of camouflage.


ships that pass in the night

ships that pass in the night pl (plural only)

From a poetic metaphor by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807–1882).

[T]he central figures in the action seem vaguely unrelated to one another, like ships passing in the night.

1966 February 9, James Reston, “Ships Passing In The Night”, in St. Petersburg Times, retrieved 2013-10-19, page 14A:

"Education and business used to be like two ships that passed in the night," said Delaware Gov. Pierre duPont.

1984, Susan C. Farkas, Changes & Challenges: City Schools in America, →ISBN, page 129:

In "Episode"—the opening dance—choreography, music, performances and underlying apparent themes looked like ships passing in the night. Nothing connected until a solo danced by a prowling, sensual Christopher Bonomo.

1998 October 26, Jennifer Dunning, “In Performance: Dance”, in New York Times, retrieved 2013-10-19:

Ordinarily the missionaries' religion and the slaves' religion were like two ships that pass in the night.

1999, Janet Duitsman Cornelius, Slave Missions and the Black Church in the Antebellum South, →ISBN, page 68:

As a connoisseur of enigmatic titles . . . the Gouldian title that gives me most pleasure is a joint paper, "Clams and brachiopods: Ships that pass in the night," in a learned journal.

2009 February 14, Richard Dawkins, "The Science Show: Interpreting Darwin's theory" (transcript of interview), abc.net.au (Australia) (retrieved 19 Oct 2013)

(by extension) Things which have no significant connection or commonality.


Antichthones

From Ancient Greek ἀντίχθονες (antíkhthones), plural of ἀντίχθων (antíkhthōn), from χθών (khthṓn, “earth”).

(geography) Those peoples who inhabit the antipodes, regions on opposite sides of the Earth.


lamboys

lamboys pl (normally plural, singular lamboy)

Unclear. Perhaps from French lambeaux (“shreds, tatters; the fringe on a military cloak”), or perhaps a misreading of jamboys, jambeaus (“leg armor”).

m+

On the wall back of these cases is the skirt (lamboys) of a suit of armor said to have belonged to Henry VIII of England. Near by on the right are swords of the […]

1922, Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York, N.Y.), Guide to the Collections, page 30:

(historical) Bases (skirts made of armour)


kuih

From Malay kuih, from Hokkien 粿 (kóe, “rice cake”).

Bite-sized snack or dessert foods in Malaysia and nearby countries, usually made from rice and often brightly coloured.


Tangut

Bilgä Qaǧan
Ming dynasty
Richard Hakluyt
Secret History of the Mongols
Tangut language
Tangut people
Tangut script
William of Rubruck

From a Middle Mongol exonym used by the Mongols, which would become the Classical Mongolian ᠲᠠᠩᠭᠤᠳ (tangɣud) that was phonetically transcribed in Ming-era Early Mandarin Chinese as 唐兀_惕 (/*tʰaŋ(ŋ)ut/) in the Chinese edition of the Secret History of the Mongols (《元朝秘史》). The designation ultimately derives from Old Turkic 𐱃𐰭𐰆𐱃 (t¹ŋut¹) as attested in the 8th-century Bilgä Qaǧan stele. The English word, and similar forms in European languages, derives from Medieval Latin Tangut (*Tangunt in the Leiden manuscript) from the accounts of William of Rubruck compiled in the 1250s. The English form was attested in the writings of Richard Hakluyt who translated parts of William's accounts in the late 16th century.

A Qiangic people of mediaeval northern China.


Tangut

The logographic script uniquely used to write their language.

西夏文

the script used to write the Tangut language


Tangut

en-adj

Tangut (not generally comparable, comparative more Tangut, superlative most Tangut)

more Tangut (comparative)
most Tangut (superlative)

Of or pertaining to the Tangut people, language or script.


mycobiota

the mycobiota of Ireland

the mycobiota of cocoa

(biology) All of the fungi present in a particular geographic region or habitat type


Dongyi

From the pinyin romanization of the Mandarin Chinese 東夷／东夷 (Dōngyí).

(historical) a cultural group of ancient China centered in what is now Shandong province.


cowboy beans

(Southwestern US) A dish of beans and ground beef in a sweet tangy sauce.


the cat's pajamas

the cat's pyjamas
the cat's pyjamas#English

(idiomatic) Alternative spelling of the cat's pyjamas


Ore Mountains

A mountain range dividing Germany and the Czech Republic


Crimean Mountains

A mountain range running parallel to the south-east coast of Crimea.


letters of horning

In untechnical language, we may describe letters of horning as the authority by which a person, directed by the decree of a court of justice to pay or perform anything, is ordered to comply therewith.

1876, A concise law dictionary by Herbert Newman Mozley and George Crispe Whiteley, barrister at law:

(law, historical, Scotland) The process or authority by which a person, directed by the decree of a court of justice to pay or perform anything, is ordered to comply.


babies in the eyes

Shee clung about his necke, gave him ten kiſſes, / Toy'd vvith his locks, look'd babies in his eyes, […]

1634 (first performance), Thomas Heywood, Loves Maistresse: Or, The Queens Masque. […], London: […] Robert Raworth, for Iohn Crowch; and are to bee sold by Iasper Emery, […], published 1636, →OCLC, Act I:

"Nay, my lord, you must give me leave to conclude my picture.--Sussex governs England--the Queen's health fails--the succession is to be settled--a road is opened to ambition more splendid than ambition ever dreamed of. You hear all this as you sit by the hob, under the shade of your hall-chimney. You then begin to think what hopes you have fallen from, and what insignificance you have embraced; and all that you might look babies in the eyes of your fair wife oftener than once a fortnight."

1821 January 8, [Walter Scott], Kenilworth; a Romance. […], volume (please specify |volume=I to III), Edinburgh: […] Archibald Constable and Co.; and John Ballantyne, […]; London: Hurst, Robinson, and Co., →OCLC:

(idiomatic, archaic) The minute reflection which one sees of oneself in the eyes of another.


roaring forties

Its official demarcation is forty degrees south latitude. It includes the latitudes sailors long-ago nicknamed the roaring forties, the furious fifties, and the screaming sixties. It's an area of almost constant high wind and frequent gales, often exceeding hurricane strength.

1998, Derek Lundy, chapter 1, in Godforsaken Sea: Racing the World's Most Dangerous Waters, page 5:

(geography, meteorology) The area of the earth between 40 and 50 degrees south, prone to gale-force westerly winds.


niggerati

These niggerati are the conventional referent of “Harlem Renaissance.” In fact, the niggerati were but lily pads floating on the surface.

1977, Richard Miller, Bohemia: The Protoculture Then and Now, page 238:

[…] his experiences in Paris during the 1950s and 1960s did not replicate the halcyon days of the Harlem Renaissance – there was no cohesive “niggerati” akin to the one Zora Neale Hurston wrote of during the 1920s […]

1996, Keith Clark, “Baldwin, Communitas, and the Black Masculinist Tradition”, in Trudier Harris, editor, New Essays on Go Tell It on the Mountain, →ISBN, page 151:

Using the language of acceptance, members of the niggerati began reimagining the lived experiences and social realities of Black people and their African heritage by retelling generational narratives employing a present day context.

2018, Tammie Jenkins, “From Harlem to Haiti: A Niggerati Renaissance in Caribbean Negritude”, in Celucien L. Joseph et al., editors, Between Two Worlds: Jean Price-Mars, Haiti, and Africa, →ISBN, page 144:

The group of young African-American artists and intellectuals of the Harlem Renaissance.


odds and sods

Perhaps it's for the best, if this is what his recording career has sunk to: a slapdash assortment of odds and sods from all parts of his career.

1993 Dec. 16, Andy Gill, "Rock Albums: Up Until Now" by Art Garfunkel, Independent (UK) (retrieved 20 Dec 2013)

The new News Corp (unkindly referred to as “crap co”) will consist of around 130 newspapers, including the Wall Street Journal and the Times of London, an education business and other odds and sods.

2013 June 22, “The News Corp split: Murdoch 2.0”, in The Economist, retrieved 2013-12-20:

(chiefly UK, informal) Miscellaneous items.


Numunuu

From the Comanche autonym, Nʉmʉnʉʉ (“the people”).


Idren

(Rastafari) One's peers, or spiritual brothers and sisters.


Iceni

(historical) A Brythonic tribe in Britannia who inhabited an area corresponding roughly to the modern-day county of Norfolk, from the 1st century BC to the 1st century AD.


dairy cattle

Cattle of breeds developed primarily to provide milk; most of their male calves are used for the production of veal.


Hamer

* As an English surname, from the place in Lancashire, from Old English hamor (“cliff”), apparently a rare use instead of the sense for "hammer" (compare Old Norse hamarr (“stone, cliff”).
* As an English surname of Norman origin, variant of Amer.
* As a Dutch surname, from hamer (“hammer”).
* As a German and Jewish surname, variant of the noun Hammer (“hammer”), with several Slavic derivatives.

An unincorporated community in Dillon County, South Carolina.


Hesperides

From Latin Hesperides, from Ancient Greek Ἑσπερίδες (Hesperídes).

(Greek mythology) A group of nymphs who tend a blissful garden filled with trees that grew golden apples in a far western corner of the world, located in Libya or the Atlas Mountains in North Africa at the edge of the encircling Oceanus; they are said to be the daughters of Hesperus.


pribumi

A group of people in Indonesia who share a sociocultural heritage and whose members are regarded as natives of the country.


two sides of the same coin

en-noun

two sides of the same coin pl (plural only)

Low income and poor health are two sides of the same coin.


Oirish

en-adj

Oirish (comparative more Oirish, superlative most Oirish)

more Oirish (comparative)
most Oirish (superlative)

Pronunciation spelling
pronunciation spelling


Oirish

Now there are Oirish an' Oirish. The good are good as the best, but the bad are wurrst than the wurrst.


dump months

From the sense that movie studios are "dumping" poor-quality and limited-appeal films during those months.

(film) The two periods of the year, often described as January and February and mid-August through September, when new movie releases are either poor-quality, cheaply made, or intended for niche audiences, since low movie attendance limits the potential box office return.


Moesi

A Daco-Thracian tribe who inhabited present-day Serbia and Bulgaria, part of the then Roman province of Moesia.


Lesser Caucasus

the second of the two main mountain ranges of Caucasus mountains, which runs parallel to the Greater Caucasus and limits the Armenian Highland from the North and North-East.


Embden groats

Emden (previously Embden), in the extreme north-west of modern Germany, was an important port for the export of goods to England, including oats. However, the connection to Embden groats is not clear.

(historical) Crushed or cracked groats (hulled oats) for making gruel.


partheneia

en-noun

partheneia pl (normally plural, singular partheneion)

/pɑː(ɹ)θəˈniːə/

From Ancient Greek παρθένειᾰ (parthéneia, “songs sung by a chorus of maidens”).

uder

Greek lyric poems sung by choruses of maidens at festivals.


bigger fish in the sea

other fish in the sea
other fish in the sea#English

Alternative form of other fish in the sea


other fishes in the sea

en-noun

other fishes in the sea pl (plural only)


other fish in the sea

(idiomatic, figurative) Other goals or objectives to pursue.

(idiomatic, figurative) Other romantic partners or significant others to pursue.


Breastapo

LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-Breastapo.wav

In that vulnerable post-natal daze, brainwashed by the NCT and other hard-line members of the Breastapo, I almost believed it was better to starve my son than pollute him with formula.

2011 May 11, Anna Maxted, “Breastfeeding: Protect us from the Breastapo”, in The Telegraph:

Not all women can produce enough milk to feed their babies, and many push themselves to the brink of sanity in the attempt to do so, partly because of the pressure piled on to them by the Breastapo.

2011 June 21, Emma Cowing, “The 'Breastapo' need to lay down their arms”, in The Scotsman:

I'd heard about the Breastapo but hadn't encountered a member yet. These are midwives and nurses whose keenness on breastfeeding somewhat overwhelms their ability to be kind and considerate.

2013, Jen Wight, Day 6: When Motherhood & Madness Collide, Green Olive Press, →ISBN:

(slang, derogatory) Overzealous lactivists who pressure women to breastfeed and criticize formula-feeders, taken as a group.


breastapo

Debate over breast feeding versus formula has flared this year, with formula-feeding mothers complaining they feel vilified for choosing formula for their babies - with "breastapo"-like tactics on many maternity wards.

2012 October 9, Teuila Fautai, “Little need seen for warning on baby formula”, in Wanganui Chronicle:

Breastfeeding experts like Ms Burbridge must help us banish the breastapo, the mafia, breastfeeding nazis and the witches of breastmilk, those so-called carers who can no longer see the women for the tits.

2013 March 7, Anna White, “The 'Breastapo' need to stop nipple gazing”, in The Telegraph, UK:

As news emerges that supermarkets are rationing popular brands to prevent formula being bought in bulk and shipped to China, where it can fetch three times the price, the ‘breastapo’ are out in force, berating the formula-feeding pariahs who feed our babies this manufactured ‘poison’.

2013 April 10, Jill Foster, “The formula milk shortage is stressful enough without the breastapo piling on the guilt: A cry of anguish from a mother of seven-month-old twins”, in Daily Mail:

Alternative letter-case form of Breastapo


Dhulbahante

A Harti clan in northern Somalia, known for being the backbone of the Darwiish; Darwiishi.


all hands

all hands on deck
all hands on deck#English


Ahle Kitab

From Classical Persian اهل کتاب (ahl-i kitāb), possibly via Urdu, from Arabic أَهْل الْكِتَاب (ʔahl al-kitāb).

der

أَهْل الْكِتَاب


Daunii

The ancient inhabitants of Daunia in southern Italy.


Peucetii

An ancient tribe inhabiting Apulia in southern Italy.


People of the Book

Calque of Arabic أَهْل الْكِتَاب (ʔahl al-kitāb).

cal

أَهْل الْكِتَاب

(Islam) Non-Muslims who adhere to an Abrahamic religion.


kegel balls

en-noun

kegel balls pl (normally plural, singular kegel ball)

A sex toy shaped like a set of balls, used for strengthening pelvic floor muscles and sexual stimulation


Popovtsy

Popovtsy pl (normally plural, singular Popovets)

Borrowed from Russian поповцы (popovcy, “the priested ones”), the followers of the Popovshchina movement.

bor+

The members of one of the two principal movements (along with the Bezpopovtsy) of the Old Believers.


bitch tits

Too much estrogen, and you get bitch tits.

(slang, vulgar) Gynecomastia caused by steroid abuse or obesity.


Rurales

(historical) The Mexican Guardia Rural (Rural Guard), a force of mounted police or gendarmerie that existed between 1861 and 1914.


Spokane

A number of etymologies of the name have been proposed, most frequently Sun children, children of the Sun, or muddy people. According to Barry Pritzker (2011), these interpretations are most probably popular etymologies derived from an actual self-designation of Spoqe'ind, meaning round head.

A large city, the county seat of Spokane County, Washington.


Xianbei

zh-l

鮮卑／鲜卑 (Xiānbēi)

(historical) An ancient Mongolic nomadic people who resided in what is now eastern Mongolia, Inner Mongolia, and northeast China.


sidies

I see you shuffle in the courtroom
With your rings upon your fingers
And your downy little sidies
And your silver-buckle shoes.

1972, “Thick As A Brick”, Ian Anderson (lyrics), performed by Jethro Tull:


ancient lights

It was reſolved by the Opinion of the aforeſaid Judges, That the Cuſtom of London will not enable a Man to erect a new Houſe upon a void Space of Ground, whereby the ancient Lights of an old Houſe are ſtopp'd up.

1723, William Bohun, Privilegia Londini: Or, The Rights, Liberties, Privileges, Laws, and Customs, of the City of London, 3rd edition, page 103:

If a house or wall is erected so near to mine that it stops my ancient lights, which is a private nuisance, I may enter my neighbour's land, and peaceably pull it down.

1823, Sir William Blackstone (author), Vincent Wanostroch (editor), The British Constitution, or an Epitome of Blackstone's Commentaries on the Laws of England, for the Use of Schools, p. 403 (Google preview)

At home he might hang himself out of window, and nobody would mind much, provided he did not obstruct anybody's ancient lights or break away and injure any passer underneath.

1900, Jerome K. Jerome, chapter 9, in Three Men on the Bummel:

Writing the majority decision, Judge Shirley S. Abrahamson noted that the English common law "doctrine of ancient lights" entitled a landowner to an unobstructed access to sunlight across an adjoining property if the landowner had already enjoyed the privilege for some time.

1982 July 10, “Landmark Decision on Sun Access”, in New York Times, retrieved 2014-02-05:

Those who have successfully claimed the right to “ancient lights” down the years, understood this in a way today’s development-hungry councils do not.

2013 February 26, Mary Dejevksy, “Don’t let the developers take your last civil right–the right to light”, in The Independent, UK, retrieved 2014-02-06:

(law) The right, based in English common law, of a property owner to retain an accustomed, unobstructed view and satisfactory illumination from his or her window(s), restricting nearby construction that would obstruct such a view or such illumination; the window(s) providing such an accustomed view or satisfactory illumination.


huevos divorciados

A Mexican breakfast dish of two fried eggs separated by a column of chilaquiles (or, sometimes, refried beans with tortilla chip). Typically, one egg is covered in salsa roja and the other in salsa verde.


Waco

A city, the county seat of McLennan County, Texas.


nymwars

(Internet, neologism) Conflicts over policies mandating that users of Internet services identify themselves using their real legal names.


pommes Anna

French; perhaps named after the actress Dame Judic (Anna Damiens), or after Anna Deslions.

A French dish of sliced layered potatoes cooked in melted butter.


hook-ups

They are said to hook up with a washing machine.

(colloquial) A pair of miniature valves right next to each other on a wall, connecting through the wall to the household plumbing, used to provide water to a washing machine. (They are usually red and blue, with the red one delivering hot water and the blue one delivering cold water.)


minor arcana

The court cards and numbered pip cards in a tarot deck.


cafe curtains

A style of curtain where both the lower half of a window and the top are covered, but with a gap in the upper half.


furious fifties

Its official demarcation is forty degrees south latitude. It includes the latitudes sailors long-ago nicknamed the roaring forties, the furious fifties, and the screaming sixties. It's an area of almost constant high wind and frequent gales, often exceeding hurricane strength.

1998, Derek Lundy, chapter 1, in Godforsaken Sea: Racing the World's Most Dangerous Waters, page 5:

The area of the earth between 50 and 60 degrees south, prone to strong winds.


screaming sixties

The area of the earth between 60 and 70 degrees south, prone to strong winds and extreme waves.


invertebrae

The invertebrae are usually forbidden, the only exceptions being several types of locusts enumerated in the Torah.

2013, Adin Steinsaltz, The Essential Talmud:


Lobedu

A tribe of the Northern Sotho group; the Balobedu.


Lobedu

A dialect of the Bantu language of Northern Sotho.


Diegueño

The Kumeyaay, a Native American people of Southern California and Baja California.


Kavalan

From Kavalan kebalan, meaning "people of the plains".


Bernese Alps

A group of mountain ranges in the western part of the Alps, in Switzerland.


simultaneous equations

(mathematics) finite set of equations whose common solutions are sought


gun rights

The Supreme Court refused Monday to consider any new cases seeking to expand gun rights, including two challenges to restrictions on young adults.

2014, Richard Wolf, Justices won't hear challenge to young adult gun limits, USA Today:

Gun rights advocates are urging the Canadian government to drop charges against a retired U.S. soldier who says he mistakenly brought a gun into the country due to a faulty GPS directions during a weekend getaway.

2014, National Rifle Association, "U.S. Army vet faces 3 years in Canadian prison after mistakenly bringing gun to border", NRA Institute for Legislative Action

The entitlement of individuals to own and carry guns.


smoked Irish

From the joint low status of blacks and the Irish in Britain and the United States during the 19th century.

(derogatory, ethnic slur, dated) Synonym of blacks: black people. Also By addition Irish and all people of Irish descent of the time regardless of color creed or religion.


piece goods

(historical, textiles) textiles sold by pieces or fixed sizes, such as cloth from clothes-making, calicos, sheetings, etc.


menfolks

‘Deyʼs grabbinʼ all de menfolks dey kin git dey hands on and makinʼ ʼem help bury de dead.’

1937, Zora Neale Hurston, Their Eyes Were Watching God, Virago Press (2018), page 193:


midsixties

Both began as “reformist” feminist theologians in the optimistic postconciliar mood of the midsixties, that is, they recognized the problems inherent to Christianity but believed, with reform, that Christianity could lead people to justice and liberation.

2008, Mary J. Henold, Catholic and Feminist:


midseventies

In the midseventies, just as the Naughton-Peterson stories were becoming popular, surfers everywhere were becoming familiar with Uluwatu, a glistening temple-fronted break located on the southwest corner of Bali.

2011, Matt Warshaw, The History of Surfing, page 305:


mideighties

Jerry started his career as a sportswriter in the late sixties, held titles like editor and publisher for various print publications during the seventies, was promoted to vice president of Moody Publishing in the mideighties[…]

2013, Amanda Jenkins, Confessions of a Raging Perfectionist, page 14:


allsorts

People are like a bag of allsorts; we are all different.

2014, Wendy Riley, Tales of Enchantment: Stories to Empower Positive Self-Change:


frillies

The older girls rode in a long habit. Helen's legs and mine were too young to be considered improper by Mrs. Crane. So our frillies flapped joyously.

1942, Emily Carr, “Mrs. Crane”, in The Book of Small, Toronto, Ont.: Oxford University Press, →OCLC:


naughties

Alternative form of noughties (“first decade of a century”)


chair days

Wast thou ordain'd, dear father,
To lose thy youth in peace, and to achieve
The silver livery of advised age,
And in thy reverence and thy chair-days, thus
To die in ruffian battle?

1591 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Second Part of Henry the Sixt, […]”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies. […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act V, scene ii]:


labor relations

industrial relations
industrial relations


snocksnarls

Jordan sat tight against Mom's legs, the nightly position for her mandatory hundred strokes, because time, tide and snocksnarls wait for no man.

2006, Dorothy Palmer, When Fenelon Falls, page 145:

(UK, dialect, obsolete, rare) intertwistings and entanglements of thread, string, etc. when carelessly handled


erasings

These brushes will keep you from ruining your work by brushing away erasings with your hand and smearing your pencil work.

2005, Lee Hammond, Lifelike Drawing with Lee Hammond, page 17:

The shavings left behind when an eraser is used.


dividings

All the Sea Islands have what are called dividings, shoal areas behind the barrier islands where the tides meet and divide.

2005, Mary R. Bullard, Cumberland Island: A History, page 5:

A line at which tides from two inlets meet and tide-borne sediment deposits.


underdaks

(Australia, New Zealand, informal) underpants


teiglach

From Yiddish טייגלעך (teyglekh), plural of טייגל (teygl).

Small knotted pastries boiled in a honeyed syrup, a traditional Ashkenazi Jewish treat.


angel wings

confectioner's sugar
confectioner's sugar

A sweet, crisp pastry in the form of twisted ribbons dusted with confectioner's sugar.

klejner

crisp pastry in the form of twisted ribbons dusted with sugar


spurrings

(UK, dialect, Northern England) banns of marriage


Kamayurá

A Tupian language spoken by the Kamayurá people.


seven shades

I'd have to be seven shades of stupid not to catch their drift.

2008, Susan Bryant, Solitary Hearts, page 107:

You can make that garbage predict anything you want, and that's exactly what those cretins have been doing for centuries—scaring seven shades of shit out of each other on the basis of the writings of a demented second-century surrealist.

2008, Timothy Freke, Peter Gandy, The Gospel of the Second Coming, page 158:

Get out there in the mud and allow your dearest friends to shoot seven shades of crap out of you.

2013, Andrew O'Hagan, The Atlantic Ocean: Reports from Britain and America, page 194:

[…] she had hunted out a wide selection of articles about Michael Andreas and the companies he owned. She had also included old payroll records. 'Christ,' Jonah had said. 'Police information, and now this? It must be seven shades of illegal. […]

2013, Sean Patrick, The Reviver, page 221:

(slang) A complete range; a whole lot; used with of and a noun or occasionally an adjective.


grappling tongs

Broad-mouthed tongs for gathering oysters.


potato skins

en-noun

potato skins pl (normally plural, singular potato skin)

A snack food or appetizer made of slices of half-spherical pieces of potatoes with the skin left on one side and a quarter-inch or so of the inside of the potato on the other, covered with various toppings.


scotched collops

Reanalysis of earlier Scotch collops from Scotch (“of Scotland”) to scotched (“that has been cut”). The dish was labeled variously during the 18th and 19th centuries as Scotch collops, scorched collops, or scotched collops, among others. The latter form is first attested from the 18th century, with Scotch collops from the 17th.

What signifie Scotcht-Collops to a Feast?
Or you can make whip'd Cream! Pray what Relief
Will that be to a Saylor who wants Beef?

1708, William King, “The Art of Cookery”, in All Poetry, retrieved 2023-02-15:

438. Scotch-Collops.^*―Cut small slices of equal thickness out of the fillet[…]^*This properly means scotched, or scored collops, though the word has come to be understood as above.

[1829, Margaret Dods, The Cook and Housewife’s Manual, page 285:

Scotched Collops. In cookery books and on bills of fare we are constantly meeting with this term, spelt ‘Scots collops’ or ‘Scotch collops.’ The dish, however, has not a Scottish origin. The collops, or slices of flesh, before being cooked are ‘scotched,’ which means, according to Worcester, that they are ‘cut with shallow incisions, or in a slight manner.’

[1882, Eliezer Edwards, Words, facts, and phrases; a dictionary of curious, quaint, and out-of-the-way matters, page 501:

cakes and ales those may still have who can command them, but down with the roast-beef of Old England! be scotched collops anathema maranatha, and Irish stew accounted an unclean thing!

1899, Herbert Maxwell, “Our obligations to wild animals”, in Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine, volume 166, page 232:

Like scaloppine, scotched collops must not be overcooked or they will take on a texture not unlike dried buffalo.

1995, Damon Fowler, Classical Southern Cooking, page 183:

You will also be served oysters and scotched collops and quails and chickens, as well as biscuits and tarts and various sweetmeats.

2017, Graham Masterton, The Coven, page 157:

(now chiefly US) A dish made of pieces of beef or veal cut thin or minced, beaten flat, and stewed with onion and other condiments.


vikinger

After this he joined a body of Vikinger, and became so distinguished, that King Harold, for the aid he lent him, gave him his daughter Helga in marriage.

1828, Thomas Keightley, The Fairy Mythology, volume I, London: William Harrison Ainsworth, page 126:


owings

I've heard of people, they have to work the rest of their lives and don't ever get out of debt. Then it's left up to the offspring to work off the owings.

2010, Don Ballew, Clear Creek: The Moon and Yellowtail, page 98:


ownings

Special privileges should be reserved for family and village life, while steps should be taken to prevent families and family ownings from being broken up by inheritance.

2001, Paul H. Kratoska, South East Asia, Colonial History, page 323:


merry dancers

Beams of the northern lights when they rise and fall alternately without any considerable change of length.


oil and water

We are oil and water. There are few things he and I agree on but I believe we would agree on this.

1982, Winston Graham, The Miller's Dance, Pan Books, published 2008, →ISBN:

[…] second, that the white and red man were oil and water, incapable of safely sharing a landscape.

2009, Brian Schofield, Selling Your Father's Bones: America's 140-Year War against the Nez Perce Tribe, Simon & Schuster, →ISBN, page 31:

Forgiveness and making bargains are oil and water. They don't mix.

2011, Loretta M. Siani, The Alchemy of Prayer: How It Began and Why It Is the Medium of Miracles, iUniverse, →ISBN, page 47:

(idiomatic) Two things which are incapable of mixing or coexisting harmoniously with each other.


jects

A few days later, Pharoah, now eleven, told a friend: "I worry about dying, dying at a young age, while you're little. I'll be thinking about I want to get out of the jects. […]

1991, Alex Kotlowitz, There Are No Children Here: The Story of Two Boys Growing Up in The Other America, Anchor Books, published 1992, →ISBN, page 264:

Monie grew up in the music industry, not in the jects.

2006 December 28, TJ Xenos [username], “Re: Monie Love gets fired for making Young Jeezy sound like a tard...”, in rec.music.hip-hop (Usenet):

"Whattaya expect? We in the 'jects, baby, a project for rejects," Jasmine sneers.

2010, Carol Taylor, The Ex Chronicles, New York N.Y.: Plume, →ISBN, page 200:

Olander grew up around the “jects,” but wasn't born there; he actually lived about two blocks away in a three-story house with his mother and younger siblings.

2011, Garrett S. King, Something to Live For, Xlibris, →ISBN, page 116:

(US, slang) A multi-story low-income housing development; projects.


ducks and geese

Cockney rhyming slang
Cockney rhyming slang


marching cubes

(computer graphics) An algorithm for extracting a polygonal mesh of an isosurface from a three-dimensional scalar field.


land rights

the rights of indigenous peoples to land, either individually or collectively.


upper ten thousand

Coined in the 1800s by American poet and author Nathaniel Parker Willis.

(dated, colloquial) The ten thousand people, more or less, who are highest in position or wealth; the upper class; the aristocracy.


troglofauna

Small cave-dwelling animals that have adapted to their dark surroundings.


elbow scissors

Surgical scissors bent in the blade or shank for convenience in cutting.


violent profits

(law, Scotland) Rents or profits of an estate obtained by a tenant wrongfully holding over after warning. They are recoverable in a process of removing.


long clothes

(historical) clothes worn by a young infant, extending below the feet


MEMS

microelectromechanical systems
microelectromechanical systems#English

Acronym of microelectromechanical systems.


clean hands

He that hath clean hands shall be stronger and stronger.

1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Job 17:9:

(figurative, idiomatic, law) Freedom from guilt, especially from the guilt of dishonesty in money matters, or of bribe-taking.


too many balls in the air

too many balls in the air pl (plural only)

An allusion to the situation of juggler who is attempting to juggle an excessive number of objects.

[Prime Minister] Harold Macmillan frequently complained of having to keep too many balls in the air at the same time.

1989 July 27, Ian Gilmour, "Holding all the strings" (review of Macmillan, Vol. II by Alistair Horne), London Review of Books (UK) (retrieved 25 May 2014)

Some analysts say the mediocre performance of the asset-allocation funds may result from the massive amounts of data their managers must sort through: central bank policies, business cycles, stock values, inflation rates and sector performance in various markets, both here and abroad. They may simply have "too many balls in the air at one time," said Anthony J. Ogorek.

1991 June 23, Carole Gould, “Mutual Funds: Drawbacks to Asset Allocation”, in New York Times, retrieved 2014-05-25:

If you get too many balls in the air, or are changing your focus too often, as one might argue President Clinton did in his first term, people have a hard time staying with you, much less following your leadership.

2004 October 7, Anthony B. Robinson, “Bush message is a broken record”, in Seattle Post-Intelligencer, retrieved 2014-05-25:

"He has too many balls in the air. He can't stay on top of initiatives from people who report to him. He's a terrible manager."

2005 May 18, Liz Ryan, “No Sale? Don't Blame Your Boss”, in Businessweek, retrieved 2014-05-25:

(idiomatic) Too many tasks, responsibilities, or details to cope with or manage successfully.

for mange bolde i luften

too many tasks, responsibilities, or details to cope with or manage successfully

akys didesnės už pilvą

literally: eyes are greater than stomach


Kiwiana

Cultural items and icons representing New Zealand.


black cattle

(UK, dated) Any bovine cattle reared for its meat, as opposed to dairy cattle.


false works

Construction works, such as scaffolding, to facilitate the erection of the main work.


Nez Perce

LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-Nez Perce.wav

A Native American people who live in the Pacific Northwest region (Columbia River Plateau) of the United States.


Tohono O'odham

A group of Native Americans who reside primarily in the Sonoran Desert of southeastern Arizona and northwestern Mexico.


statutes at large

Published collections or series of legislative acts, in certain jurisdictions.


Manobo

An Australasian indigenous agriculturalist people of the Philippines.


women's troubles

(dated, euphemistic) Unpleasant symptoms associated with menstruation.


leading strings

In the hey-day of youth, and hardly out of the leading strings of a school, he formed an intention to nuptialize, and joined heart and hand with sweet Ann Hathaway at the age of eighteen and a half.

1827, The Boston Lyceum, volumes 1-2, page 206:

(figurative) Guidance given during childhood.


funeral potatoes

Commonly served as a side dish at traditional after-funeral dinners.

(US) A casserole of hash browns or cubed potatoes, cheese, and onions, in a creamy soup or sauce.


Ameritrash

Blend of American + trash. The board game sense was originally used by Eurogame fans to deride American-style board games, but was later adopted by fans of these games.

It's worth noting that Ameritrash games seem to have the most in common with modern video games: heavily thematic experiences with a big focus on production values.

2012, Keith Burgun, Game Design Theory: A New Philosophy for Understanding Games, CRC Press, published 2013, →ISBN, page 55:

Ameritrash players like to play games with lots of dice, blind luck and space marines fighting zombies.

2012, Scott Rogers, Swipe This!: The Guide to Great Touchscreen Game Design, John Wiley & Sons, →ISBN, page 231:

Risk and Monopoly are the poster children of Ameritrash.

2014, James Stubbs, “Traditional Board Games: From Ameritrash to Eurogames”, in Julie Scordato, Ellen Forsyth, editors, Teen Games Rule!: A Librarian's Guide to Platforms and Programs, ABC-CLIO, →ISBN, page 72:

(board games, sometimes derogatory) A genre of board games predominant in the United States, characterized by a high degree of luck, longer playtimes, player conflict, and highly developed, often dramatic themes, especially involving war or adventure.


Shompen

The indigenous people of the interior of Great Nicobar Island, part of the Indian union territory of Andaman and Nicobar Islands.


Appalousa

(historical) A group of Native Americans who occupied the area around Opelousas, Louisiana, west of the lower Mississippi River.


Mijikenda

Borrowed from Swahili miji kenda (“nine villages”).

Nine Bantu ethnic groups inhabiting the coast of Kenya.


Pedi

A group of people inhabiting the Limpopo Province of South Africa and speaking various dialects of Northern Sotho.


Pedi

The Northern Sotho language as spoken by these people.


horizontal refreshments

horizontal refreshments pl (plural only)

/ˌhɔː.ɹəˈzɑːn.təl ɹɪˈfɹɛʃ.mənts/

The cold, during the winter night, is very severe, and the sentinels are frequently obliged to be relieved every half-hour, and the officers, so long as they possess the "prima flora juvenus," may enjoy horizontal refreshments in peace; but when they obtained those manly appendages, yclept whiskers, find that turing in bed becomes hopeless, and being "brought up with a round turn," discover that they have become frozen to the sheets.

1846 January 5, Richard George Augustus Levinge, “Echoes from the Backwoods”, in The New Monthly Magazine, volume 76, number 301, chapter 2, page 38:

Here at The Federalist, we talk about sex a lot as is. Join us this week for some additional fun and deep-thinking about, well, you know — dancing in the sheets, horizontal refreshments, the beast with two backs, Blitzkrieg mit dem fleischgewehr, gland to gland combat, and more.

2015 February 9, Mollie Hemingway, “A Sex Week For The Rest Of Us”, in The Federalist, retrieved 2017-06-01:

(idiomatic, euphemistic) Sexual intercourse.


sunshine and rainbows

[…] she saw those words these days, and it was easy to take them lightly, to think that God was saying life would be all sunshine and rainbows, good plans and easily answered prayers.

The students are of an astonishingly high quality, it's very hard to find an uninteresting professor, the campus is beautiful, the night life is fun and the campus community is overall really strong. That being said, it's not all sunshine and rainbows.

2011, Joe Quinn, Camille Thompson, College of William and Mary 2012: Off the Record:

ELVA: You know, you think everything is lovely. You're a happy, optimistic uni-canary exploding with sunshine and rainbows—go tweet up another tree with that.

It wasn't all sunshine and rainbows for the Japanese, though, although the first U.S. Navy strike force had... decidedly-mixed results; the Avengers in that group got lost and went after the cruiser Tone on their way back (missing), and the Wildcats got neatly peeled away by a single flight of Zeros, leaving the Dauntlesses wide open to another dozen Japanese fighters.

2021 February 3, Drachinifel, 14:49 from the start, in Guadalcanal Campaign - Santa Cruz (IJN 2 : 2 USN), archived from the original on 2022-12-04:

(informal) Happy, positive things, sometimes with a connotation of unrealistic expectations.


Muong

A minority group inhabiting the mountainous region of northern Vietnam.


Mascouten

(ethnology) A tribe of Algonquian-speaking Native Americans, believed to have dwelt on both sides of the Mississippi River adjacent to the present-day Wisconsin-Illinois border after being driven out of Michigan.


afterhaps

But in my triumph I lost sight

1898, Thomas Hardy, 'The Ivy-Wife' in Wessex Poems and Other Verses, Harper & Brothers (1899), page 139


afteryears

I sang that song in summer, […] I sang it when in afteryears / The shades stretched out, / And paths were faint […]


grapes of wrath

Derived from a passage in the Biblical book of Revelation.

A symbol of impending vengeance, especially in reference to the Last Judgment.


cunt lips

I wanted to make her come before she did it herself, and slid down the bed until my mouth was on her tender cunt lips.

1992, Letters to Penthouse III: Hot, Bothered, and Ready, Warner Books, published 2007, →ISBN:

Hold your cunt lips apart with two fingers of one hand. Insert the speculum sideways, longest handle facing your body.

2002, Inga Musico, Cunt: A Declaration of Independence, Seal Press, →ISBN, page 70:

I drop my head back again, close my eyes and, wrapping my arms under my legs just behind my ankles, I pull my cunt lips apart as wide as I can.

2008, Mitzi Szereto, editor, The New Black Lace Book of Women's Sexual Fantasies, Black Lace, →ISBN, page 121:


fanny flaps

Ewwwww, just hope to God she had plastic surgery on her fanny flaps.

2002 March 8, Wobblemetits [username], “Re: Party Party Party”, in alt.sports.soccer.manchester.united.scum-haters (Usenet):

'This is where Lady Luck parts her fanny flaps and lets you dip your fingers in her pudding, if you get my drift. […]

2013, Chris Ryan, Most Wanted Mission 2, Coronet, →ISBN:

On the train there, it was dark because at one point I saw her fanny flaps in full view. I swear she wasn't wearing no knickers.

2014, Robb Peters, D. A. Diary, AuthorHouse, →ISBN, page 40:


meat flaps

I bet her meat flaps are^([sic]) smell like rancid dumpster swill.

2001 November 6, Jake778899 [username], “oh Robin”, in alt.fan.howard-stern (Usenet):

A little clitoral resurfacing here, an aesthetic snip of the meat flaps there, and you're ready to spread for Playboy.

2007, Jonathan Selwood, The Pinball Theory of Apocalypse, Harper Perennial, →ISBN, page 22:

And I haven't bought a cup from McDonald's since that old lady spilled some on her crotch, burned her meat flaps, and sued for $2 million.

2008, Jim Norton, I Hate Your Guts, Simon Spotlight Entertainment, →ISBN, page 39:


beef flaps

Of course I couldn't help myself and I had to take a quick peek at her squating^([sic]) in the bushes her beef flaps hanging down like the undercarriage on a 747.

1991 October 19, John N. Young, “Change of mind by Youngie - Controversial”, in alt.tasteless (Usenet):

If you listen very closely, you can hear her beef flaps slap together everytime^([sic]) she walks into a scene.

2003 March 24, RJ, “Re: Brady Girl Question”, in alt.tv.brady-bunch (Usenet):

Naiive female, dost thy believe the world revolves around thy wrinkled, overly droopy beef flaps?

2005 June 27, Roy. Just Roy., “Re: Musings on the future”, in alt.slack (Usenet):


vertical lips

I moved her vertical lips aside to allow for easy access.

2007, Marissa Monteilh, Dr. Feelgood, Dafina Books, published 2011, →ISBN, page 59:

Her moist vertical lips part as she lowers her knee and therefore her pelvis, down around me.

2008, Robert L. Dark, Ruthless, Lulu.com, →ISBN, page 83:

Chelsea squealed as Shady pressed his tongue against her vertical lips getting a good taste of her clit.

2014, S. K. Collins, Wide Open, Strebor Books, →ISBN, page 16:


Kanye glasses

This style of sunglasses, which first became popular in the 1980s, was re-popularized in the early 2010s by American rapper Kanye West.

It used to be trucker hats and Ray-Bans, followed by Kanye glasses and Day-Glo jewelry.

2010, Patrice Evans, Negropedia: The Assimilated Negro's Crash Course on the Modern Black Experience, Three Rivers Press, published 2011, →ISBN, page 181:

Finally, someone even approaching futuristic enough to pull off those damn Kanye glasses.

2012, Vice Magazine, Dos & Don'ts: 2013 Daily Calendar, Chronicle Books, →ISBN:

My freshman year, I cheered beside a guy with a huge Afro and Kanye glasses and a guy in a toga.

2013, Alyssa Newton, "Football season is here again Jag Fans", The Vanguard (University of South Alabama), Volume 53, Number 3, 12 August 2013, page 17

A style of sunglasses which have frames containing horizontal slats as opposed to tinted lenses.


Mojave

Audio (US)

census-designated place
census-designated place

A census-designated place in Kern County, California, United States.


Mohave

From a shortened form of the endonym, Mojave Hamakhaave (“beside the water”), spelled Mojave in Spanish.

A Native American people indigenous to the Colorado River in the Mojave Desert.


smartglasses

Google Glass smartglasses are finally available in the UK for £1,000, two years after they were extravagantly launched by skydivers in the US.

2014 June 24, “Google Glass go on sale in the UK for £1,000”, in The Guardian:

Glasses worn to provide software functions through augmented reality.


fieldfolk

And soon anon came crossing
The chamber in the gray
Figures of jigging fieldfolk—
Saviours of corn and hay

1922, Thomas Hardy, 'In the Small Hours' in Late Lyrics and Earlier with Many Other Verses, Macmillan, page 181


ship's days

The days allowed for a vessel to load or unload.


nervous nineties

I have never found anything particularly significant in the term nervous nineties for I firmly believe that a batsman should treat every ball on its merits, be his score 9 or 90.

Watson nearly fell again in the nervous nineties when Bresnan took an overhead catch at long off when the all-rounder was on 90 but the fieldsman tumbled over the rope and a six was declared.

2013, Chris Barrett, “Shane Watson belts brutal century as George Bailey sets record against James Anderson”, in The Sydney Morning Herald:

(cricket) The set of individual scores between 90 and 99, when a batsman may play badly due to feeling pressure to convert the score into a century.


daily average revenue trades

daily average revenue trades pl (plural only)

(finance) A metric used by brokers to represent the number of trades the broker can expect to make revenue from in a day


sinecatechins

An ointment of catechins extracted from green tea and other components, used to treat genital warts.


torpids

From torpid + -s, since the boats used were slower than those in other races.

(UK, Oxford University) A series of annual boat races held at Oxford University in Hilary Term.


doll's eyes

Actaea pachypoda, the white baneberry, a flowering plant native to eastern North America.


eggs Sardou

A Louisiana Creole dish made with poached eggs, artichoke bottoms, creamed spinach and hollandaise sauce.


FFO

(accounting) Initialism of funds from operations.


good folk

(colloquial, UK) Fairies, brownies, pixies, etc.; magical humanoid creatures.


eyetracks

When you read a new book you get eyetracks all over it. Then it isn't mint any more.

1952, Arthur Rapp, Lee Hoffman, Redd Boggs, Fanspeak, page 5:

"You look good in that," he said. "Especially wet."
I'd noticed the difference. "Feel like an ad for a Broadway parlor. I'll be scraping off eyetracks all night."

1955, Joe Haldeman, “Try calling on the World for peace of mind”, in Worlds, page 150:

"The only good thing in Readerville," said the Lion, "is their library, where they keep copies of science fiction magazines. But all those copies are terribly worn out from being read so much. They have all sorts of unsanitary eyetracks all over them, and the spines are broken because the readers fold their magazines over when they read."

1959, Terry Carr, Ron Ellik (as Carl Brandon), “Readerville”, in The BNF of Iz, archived from the original on 2013-07-21:

(dated, fandom slang, humorous) Imaginary marks left by looking at things, especially by reading books.


small unmarked bills

small, unmarked bills
small, unmarked bills#English

Alternative form of small, unmarked bills


small, unmarked bills

Claude Harmon, the former Masters champion, immediately withdrew from the tournament with the booming declaration, "I wouldn't play that course again if they gave me $5,000 in small unmarked bills."

1968 January 22, Alfred Wright, “Johnny Bags A Winner's Pott”, in Sports Illustrated, retrieved 2014-08-02:

THE MOVIE "Speed". . . . WHAT HE WANTS $3.7 million in small, unmarked bills. OR ELSE A bomb on the bus will be detonated.

1994 June 12, Pat H. Broeske, “Film: Death is Hard . . . Reincarnation Is Easy”, in New York Times, retrieved 2014-08-02:

"[I]f the commander wants all the dirt I've already uncovered, and all the dirt I'm going to uncover about him to stay neatly under the rug, then he's going to have to pay. Two hundred and fifty thousand in small, unmarked bills."

1998, Suzanne Brockmann, It Came Upon a Midnight Clear, published 2007, →ISBN, page 181:

Vice City is . . . a steaming Cuban sandwich of sultry Latin sirens, drug deals gone bad and seedy mobsters with big metal briefcases full of small unmarked bills.

2002 October 27, Lev Grossman, “Busjacking for Grownups”, in Time, retrieved 2014-08-02:

(set phrase) Paper currency which consists of small-denomination banknotes that have not been inscribed with hidden markings which would help authorities identify and trace them.


show notes

Several schools of thought exist on how to approach show notes. Some podcasters say you should be very brief, using notes only to hold URLs and other pieces of important offline data that your listeners may not have had time to write down as the show was playing.

2020, Tee Morris, Chuck Tomasi, Podcasting For Dummies, John Wiley & Sons, →ISBN, page 197:

Text notes that accompany a podcast and describe its content.


townsfolks

From townsfolk + -s.
Etymology tree
English town
English -s-
English folk
English townsfolk
English -s
English townsfolks


beautiful people

Now these "rich young brats" have succeeded café society, the jet set and the beautiful people as social pacesetters.

1975 June 16, “People: Millionettes”, in Time, retrieved 2014-08-06:

Polo . . . is a jewel of a game for the beautiful people, though, and nowhere is there a higher incidence of beautiful people than Palm Beach.

1981 November 13, Red Smith, “Place Where Polo Reigns Supreme”, in New York Times, retrieved 2014-08-06:

We were granted access with her VIP passes and received a first-hand look at the Dubai party scene. The club was filled with all the beautiful people of Dubai.

2007 July 18, Brent Elder, “Grant Writing and Sightseeing”, in Independent, UK, retrieved 2014-08-06:

(idiomatic, somewhat dated, sometimes capitalized, almost always preceded by the) Fashionable, privileged, glamorous people, especially those belonging to international high society; the beau monde.


Neusiok

A Native American people who lived on the south side of lower Neuse river, within the present Lenoir, Craven and Carteret Counties of North Carolina.


Menapii

A Belgic tribe of northern Gaul in pre-Roman and Roman times.


Mattole

A group of Native Americans in California, whose traditional lands were along the Mattole and Bear Rivers near Cape Mendocino in Humboldt County.


Syilx

A First Nations and Native American people whose traditional territory spans the U.S.-Canada boundary in Washington state and British Columbia in the Okanagan Country region.


Nervii

(historical) One of the most powerful Belgic tribes, living in northern Gaul at the time of its conquest by Ancient Rome.


streets in the sky

In the UK, the concept of 'streets in the sky' was first developed by the New Brutalist architects, Alison and Peter Smithson, in their widely published entry for the Corporation of London's Golden Lane Competition (1951).

2013, Ben Campkin, Remaking London: Decline and Regeneration in Urban Culture:

Architecture of a style that emerged in Britain in the 1960s and 1970s, generally built to replace run-down terraced housing with modern improvements, and including shops and other community facilities within high-rise blocks.


Belgae

From Latin Belgae, an Iron-Age European group of tribes located between the rivers Seine and Rhine.

(historical) A group of tribes living in northern Gaul, between the English Channel and the west bank of the Rhine, from at least the 3rd century BC.


duchess potatoes

Translation of French pommes de terre duchesse.

A purée of mashed potato and egg yolk, moulded or piped into various shapes which are then baked until golden.


forest fruits

Edible fruits that typically grow in forests, such as berries.


Mormon potatoes

A casserole of hash browns or cubed potatoes, cheese, and onions, in a creamy soup or sauce.


Wauja

The Wauja people of Mato Grosso, Brazil.


zip cuffs

disposable handcuffs made from plastic straps


Bath chaps

Named after the city of Bath in England.

The salted smoked cheek and jawbones of a pig, used as food.


ratfolk

Ratfolk are timid by nature and Singe was trying to make her own way outside her native society. Ratfolk males don't yell and threaten and promise massive bloodshed unless they intend to deliver. They don't banter.

2002, Glen Cook, Angry Lead Skies: A Garrett, P.I., Novel, Penguin, →ISBN:

If it's just the ratfolk looking for a bit of payback, there's no reason to think you and I are in any further danger.

2010, Ari Marmell, Agents of Artifice: A Planeswalker Novel, Wizards of the Coast, →ISBN:

Foreigners wouldn't know that some ratfolk can suck it down by the barrel. Once the kids were away, Singe began babbling about needing to get back to the house fast. We had a garderobe that a ratgirl could use.

2011, George R. R. Martin, Gardner Dozois, Down These Strange Streets, Penguin, →ISBN:

(fantasy) Intelligent anthropomorphic creatures akin to (or created from) rats.


hudud

en-noun

hudud pl (normally plural, singular hadd)

From Arabic حُدُود (ḥudūd, “boundaries, penalties”).

bor

(Islam) The maximum punishments for certain crimes, including theft, fornication, adultery, false accusation of adultery, drunkenness, and apostasy.


Sharpey's fibres

Scottish anatomist William Sharpey described them in 1846.

A matrix of connective tissue consisting of bundles of strong collagenous fibres connecting periosteum to bone.


Gyrwas

(historical) An Anglo-Saxon population of the Fens, divided into northern and southern groups.


Coharie

An indigenous people of southeastern North America, who now reside in the counties of Harnett and Sampson in North Carolina.


yoga pants

Flexible form-fitting pants (trousers) designed to be worn for physical activity.


Virginia bluebells

Mertensia virginica
Mertensia virginica#Translingual


lippies

However, to ſerve you as much at^([sic]) I can / (For nothing’s more dear to my life than a man) / Tho’ all my acquantances call me coquette, / And ſwear ſuch extravagant freedoms they hate, / And hanging their lippies, put on their grimace, / And call me immodeſt for ſhewing my face; […]

1773 April 11, Celinda, “Solution of the query propoſed by Mankind,—attempted by a Lady”, in The Perth Magazine of Knowledge and Pleasure, page 80:

Those sweet little lippies, like rosebuds at e’en, / Encircle a pipe-stem, impure and unclean?

1873, James Ogg, “Little Willie”, in Willie Waly; and Other Poems, Aberdeen: […] the Free Press Office, page 182:

“Make me immortal with a smack on the lippies,” Amos whispered, bending slightly forward, making an enormous kissing sound.

1967, William Goldman, The Thing of It Is..., New York, N.Y.: Harcourt, Brace & World, Inc., page 73:

She grabbed my ciggy from out between my lippies and lit hers with my heater, handing me the manhandled ciggy back, bent and smoldering.

2008, Kevin Pecore, My Iron Lung, KMDS Publishing Co., →ISBN, page 54:

I’ve been watching some “Honeys” sizing you up! / Yeah, right! / I’m not kidding you—right over there, sitting at the bar. Two of them! / Wow, you say two of them? Heaven awaits Marko at the bar! / So are you sure, Marko? A big one on the lippies? / Yepper! It’ll just signal to them that I’m a player!

2010, Matt Allman, To Bind Fast, Xlibris, →ISBN:

All bacteria infested, / They have cold sores on their lippies, / That’s the story / Of these roaming gypsies.

2019, Tommy Rhys Andrews, “Gypsies”, in Crossroads: Tommy’s Book of Poetry III, Xlibris, →ISBN:

His beautiful cheeks are like a bed of spices or balsam, such a rich, beautiful smell of the chief spices, and like banks of sweet herbs yielding the fragrances of princely freshliness. His gorgeous lippies are like blood red anemones, a beautiful little flower like a daughter, or even lilies distilling liquid sweet-scented myrrh, the chief of the chiefs!

2019, Ashley DD Hajny, From Golden Eagle to White Eagle: A Special Invitation to Become Like Christ, Xlibris, →ISBN:

Then Marjorie, who’d been sipping her wine all day, giddily said to me and everyone in the room, “Matthew, Meredith’s about to leave, why don’t you give her a kiss goodbye . . . on the lippies!”

2020, Matthew McConaughey, Greenlights, New York, N.Y.: Crown, →ISBN, page 75:


Pandean pipes

From Pan (Greek god of nature, often visualized as half goat and half man) + pipes.

Pandean pipes whereon the winds would play,
Long rows of chimney-pots the ridges crown;
And black on slates and skylights flicker and frown
Shadows of smoke that streams and wings that sway.

1875, William Henley, Notes on the Firth:

To me at my fifth-floor window
The chimney-pots in rows
Are sets of pipes pandean
For every wind that blows;

1875, William Henley, To Me at my Fifth-floor Window:


wild oats

Oats of non-cultivated species of Avena, a genus of grasses.


Dutchman's breeches

In the case of the plants, named because their flower petals resemble baggy pants worn by Dutch settlers to North America (compare slops, knickerbockers).

A plant of the species Dicentra cucullaria, native to eastern North America and the Columbia River basin.


Pemon

A Cariban language spoken by the Pemon people


Hashanot

(Judaism) Prayers chanted during the festival of Sukkot.


Olney's lesions

Named after John Olney, who conducted a neurotoxicity study in 1989.

NMDA receptor antagonist neurotoxicity, a potential form of brain damage.


eggs and bacon

Lotus corniculatus
Lotus corniculatus#Translingual

common birdsfoot trefoil, (Lotus corniculatus)


brishings

The first wood down is sere and small, / From the hills, the brishings off the hills; / And then come by the bats and all / We cut last year in the hills; […]

1917, Rudyard Kipling, “The Floods”, in A Diversity of Creatures:

The fire our friend, that symbol since the cave, / Which on a wintry morning, still half dark, / In roadside fireside when our days are stark / But bonfire brishings of the hedges spark / Touches our childish heart, and makes us brave.


Pehuenche

From Piñón ("Araucaria nut"), a primary source of food.

An indigenous people of South America, part of the Mapuche.


Puelche

An extinct language formerly spoken by these people in the Pampas region of Argentina.


datenkraken

Borrowed from German Datenkraken, plural of Datenkrake, itself a compound of Daten (“data”) and Krake (“octopus”), invoking an imagery of such a company being an octopus having its virtual "tentacles" deeply penetrating its users' online habits.

It is a narrative that has cast the American datenkraken as the arch enemy.

2014, Juliette Garside, The Guardian., Europe gears up to fight back against giant US beasts of the internet:

(derogatory) Internet-oriented companies that have a large number of users and possess detailed personal information on them, presumably without their consent.


Gcaleka

A major subgroup of the Xhosa found in the Transkei area of the Eastern Cape.


spirit fingers

A cheerleading move with outstretched arms and fingers wiggling up and down.


jazz hands

A dance move in which the performer's hands are extended with palms toward the audience and fingers splayed.


Bezpopovtsy

Borrowed from Russian безпоповцы (bezpopovcy) (pre-1917 spelling).

A branch of Old Believers which is primarily known for it's rejection of the ordained priesthood


sons of Ishmael

(circumlocutory, obsolete) children of Ishmael


eubiotics

food additives such as probiotics and prebiotics


children of Ishmael

(circumlocutory, obsolete) Muslims, especially those of Arab descent.


ergoloid mesylates

A mixture of the methanesulfonate salts of three dihydrogenated ergot alkaloids (dihydroergocristine, dihydroergocornine, and alpha- and beta-dihydroergocryptine), used to treat dementia and related conditions.


merryings

When ah was a boy, old Hampshire was a proud country, wi' the old coaches and the old squires, and Harvest Homes, and Christmas merryings.

1885, George Meredith, Diana of the Crossways:


Nasa

Nasa administrator Bill Nelson criticised Beijing on Saturday, saying the failure to share the details of the rocket’s descent was irresponsible and risky.

2022 July 30, “Nasa criticises China after space rocket makes uncontrolled return to Earth”, in The Guardian:

(UK, Australia, New Zealand) Alternative letter-case form of NASA (not used in North America)


outstandings

In general, the exposure consists of two major parts, the outstandings and the commitments.

2002, Christian Bluhm, An Introduction to Credit Risk Modeling, page 24:


Ooh, you're gonna get me with your h4x! I'm so scared.

(Internet slang, leetspeak) Alternative form of hacks


easy pickings

(idiomatic) Something easily acquired or stolen.


Bugun

An Asian tribe found in India and listed under the Scheduled Tribes of India. They speak Bugunish.


nerves of steel

(idiomatic) Great bravery, courage, or composure.


Holyworkfolk

More curious still is the position of certain tenants of the bishopric who called themselves Holyworkfolk, who claimed that their only duty was to pray

1877, The Saturday Review of Politics, Literature, Science, Art, and Finance, volume 44, page 525:

This they naturally considered an indignity, and made a party against on the ground that were Holyworkfolk and held their lands for the defence of the body of St. Cuthbert, and not at the bishop's pleasure

1878, Thomas Duffus Hardy, “Preface”, in Registrum Palatinum Dunelmense: The Register of Richard de Kellawe, Lord Palatine and Bishop of Durham, page viii:

Record made before justices in eyre by elder men of the Holyworkfolk (Durham) and Northumberland of a sworn inquest held in the time of King Henry I concerning fishery rights in the Tyne

1991, R. C. van Caenegem, English Lawsuits from William I to Richard I: Henry II and Richard I, page 437:

(medieval English law) Tenants who held land by the service of repairing or defending a church or monument and were therefore exempt from feudal and military duties; specifically, the caretakers of the body of St Cuthbert.


olds

From old + -s; compare old folks, old man.


Fenni

From Latin Fennī; compare Ancient Greek Φίννος (Phínnos). The name as used by Tacitus is unclear about whom it actually describes, but it may nevertheless be from Old Norse Finnr (“a Sami”). More at Fenni.

(historical) An ancient people of northeastern Europe first described by Cornelius Tacitus in Germania in AD 98. It is unclear whether the Fenni are connected with the present-day Finns.


fortunings

"Ah, peradventure my head being distraught by the manifold matters whereunto the confusions of these but late adventured haps and fortunings whereby not I alone nor you alone, but every each of us, meseemeth—"

1889, Mark Twain [pseudonym; Samuel Langhorne Clemens], A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court, New York, N.Y.: Charles L. Webster & Company, →OCLC:

And doth he counsel not / With thee in any wise pertaining to / His ailings, or of matters looking toward / His future purposes or his intents / Regarding thine own future fortunings / And his desires and interests therein?

1887, #James Whitcomb Riley, Afterwhiles:

(nonce word) Fortunes; things happening by chance.


Chwezi

A legendary African dynasty said to have ruled the Kitara empire.


Shaviana

/ˌʃeɪviˈænə/

/ˌʃeɪviˈɑnə/

From the neuter plural of New Latin Shaviānus (“Shavian”).

objects or texts relating to George Bernard Shaw


Laurentians

The Laurentian Mountains, a mountain range in Quebec, Canada.


Sammamish

A city in King County, Washington, United States.


Bolon

(lake in Russia): Transliteration of Russian Болонь (Bolonʹ), probably from Nanai [Term?].

translit

A Manding language spoken in Burkina Faso.


Box and Cox

From the characters of the 1847 farce Box and Cox by John Maddison Morton, in which an unscrupulous landlady rents a room to two men, one during the day and one at night.

(UK, often attributively) Two people who occupy the same post or location in an alternating arrangement.

Box and Cox (farce)
John Maddison Morton


Horsemen of the Apocalypse

en-noun

Horsemen of the Apocalypse pl (plural only)

Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse
Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse#English

Ellipsis of Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.


sucker tracks

(skiing) Tracks left by an experienced skier in a closed or dangerous area that may be followed by a less experienced skier who does not understand the risks.


Centor criteria

Introduced by R. M. Centor et al in 1981.

A set of criteria used to identify the likelihood of a bacterial infection in adult patients complaining of a sore throat.


baby's tears

(Soleirolia soleirolii):

Soleirolia soleirolii
Soleirolia soleirolii#Translingual

Any of various plants having parts (such as leaves or spots on leaves, petals, etc.) resembling teardrops; specifically, angel's tears (Soleirolia soleirolii), a plant in the nettle family grown as a green, mossy ground cover.


saat phere

He had to be helped up and steadied for the saat phere.

1997, Kiran Nagarkar, Cuckold, HarperCollins, published 2013, page 44:

In HINDUISM the couple takes SAAT-PHERE, in other words the couple circles round the fire for seven times, while the priest recites religious verses.

2010, Sher Gill, The Way to God, page 140:

So, did your parents have a romantic love affair followed by the saat phere or did it all happen the conventional way?

(India) The ‘seven steps’ or circuits taken around a sacred fire by the bride and bridegroom at a wedding ceremony, or the seven vows recited during this ceremony.


diffical techniculties

LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-diffical techniculties.wav

Very sorry for the multiple post just then, everyone. I am experiencing diffical techniculties.

1996 March 24, Bruce Thompson, “Re: ONLY 1% of the Western girls and guys are beautiful!”, in soc.culture.australian (Usenet):

[Apologies if this shows up twice. Diffical techniculties at google...]

2001 December 26, The Sanity Inspector [username], “Re: The Jihad”, in alt.quotations (Usenet):

(humorous) Spoonerism of technical difficulties


boyfriend jeans

From the practice of women borrowing clothes from their boyfriends.

“You can call me Syd for short,” Mrs. Potts—a petite brunette in torn boyfriend jeans, vintage peep-toe wedges, and a low-cut emerald sweater—smile-nodded at Claire.

2010, Lisi Harrison, These Boots Are Made for Stalking, Poppy, →ISBN:

Nikki Wang in boyfriend jeans, casual layers, and clog boots.

2012, Lois Joy Johnson, The Wardrobe Wakeup: Your Guide to Looking Fabulous at Any Age, Running Press (2012), page 115 (image caption)

The ways in which advertising taps into, and draws upon, what people do anyway is exemplified in the case of boyfriend jeans.

2012, Daniel Miller, Sophie Woodward, Blue Jeans: The Art of the Ordinary, University of California Press, →ISBN, page 51:

A style of high-waisted, loose-fitting, faded/worn-in jeans for women, intended to look like men's jeans.


Jivaro

A group of indigenous peoples in the headwaters of the Marañon River and its tributaries in northern Peru and eastern Ecuador.


skinny jeans

She ordered a pair of plus-size skinny jeans online.

Got your tongue pierced anyway / You in your high-tops any day / You in your skinny jeans anyway

(clothing) A style of form-fitting jeans with very narrow, straight legs, which often taper inward at the ankles.


highstrikes

(dated) Pronunciation spelling of hysterics.


little folk

Small magical humanoid creatures, such as elves, leprechauns, and fairies.


navigable waters

(law, US) Those waters that are subject to the ebb and flow of the tide and/or are presently used, or have been used in the past, or may be susceptible for use to transport interstate or foreign commerce. A determination of navigability, once made, applies laterally over the entire surface of the waterbody, and is not extinguished by later actions or events which impede or destroy navigable capacity.


batnipples

Alternative letter-case form of Batnipples