briefies

[…] Mary’s briefies appeared to have been sprayed on, and her halter too.

1951, Robert A. Heinlein, chapter 23, in The Puppet Masters, New York: Signet, page 125:

A whirlwind program loomed before me; I must hire a dinner coat, reserve a table at the Cocoanut Grove, have my teeth capped and my briefies monogrammed—in short, demonstrate that I was as suave a coxcomb as Greg Bautzer or Gene Markey.

1961, S. J. Perelman, “In Pixie Land I’ll Take My Stand”, in The Rising Gorge, New York: Simon & Schuster, page 245:

The lamentably, obnoxiously, insufferably tasteless broadcast fiend Howard Stern used to feature a beauty contest on his short-lived late, late, late-night TV show. He required his contestants to do vile, vulgar things like munch bananas and wrestle with potbellied men (talent?), then line up in the briefest of briefies and answer suggestive questions.

1992 September 16, Michael Kilian, “Here’s a talent that eludes any future Miss anything: Political correctness”, in Chicago Tribune:

(plural only, dated) Short underpants (usually for women and girls).


Ingaevones

(historical) A tribe of Germany mentioned by Pliny.


Chatti

(historical) An ancient Germanic tribe whose homeland was near the upper Weser (Visurgis).


Batavi

An ancient Germanic tribe living in the region of Batavia around Nijmegen.


Isthmia

(historical) The Isthmian Games of Ancient Greece.


Tiv

A Southern Bantoid language spoken mostly in Nigeria, with some speakers in Cameroon.


Nakoda

An indigenous people of Western Canada and, originally, the United States, formerly inhabiting large parts of Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Montana.


Frisii

(historical) A tribe of Northern Germany who dwelt between the rivers Rhine and Ems.


titushky

2014, Ukrainian тіту́шки pl (titúšky), тіту́шка sg (titúška) and Russian титу́шки pl (titúški), титу́шка sg (titúška), from the surname of mixed martial artist Vadym Titushko, Russian Вади́м Титу́шко (Vadím Titúško), Ukrainian Вади́м Тіту́шко (Vadým Titúško)

cog

Вади́м Титу́шко

Вади́м Тіту́шко

They were titushky, mercenary agents who supported the Ukrainian police during President Yanukovych’s administration, who were now in desperate need of a paycheck, one Guimond had arranged.

2017, Rick Campbell, Blackmail, New York: St. Martin’s Press, →ISBN, pages 102–3:

We see typically dressed titushky. One of them had a head injury and was bleeding a lot. Titushka or not, he’s a human being.

2016: Olesya Khremeychuk, “Sexuality and Revolution in Post-Soviet Ukraine: Human Rights for the LGBT Community in the Euromaidan Protests of 2013–2014,” in Journal of Soviet and Post-Soviet Politics and Society, v 2, n 1, p 26

The so-called titushky contributed greatly to the escalation of violence. They were young men from the provinces, often members of local athletic clubs, hired by the Party of Regions to pose as anti-Maidan protesters. The name refers to one Vadym Titushko, a paid thug from the city of Bila Tserkva, who had been convicted of physically assaulting journalists in 2013, before the EuroMaidan. Although they did not carry firearms, titushky freely employed violence and coordinated their actions with the police.

2015, Serhy Yekelchyk, The Conflict in Ukraine: What Everyone Needs to Know, New York: Oxford University Press, page 109:

[Taras Kuzio, “Vigilantes, Organized Crime, and Russian and Eurasian Nationalisms: The Case of Ukraine,” p 59] During the Euromaidan, over 100 unarmed protesters were murdered by vigilante skinheads (the so-called titushky named after Vadym Titushko who attacked journalists in Kyiv in May 2013) and the security forces.
[William Risch, “EuroRevolution: A Historian’s Street-Side Observations,” p 111] Then we started talking with so-called “titushky” who were camped out at the anti-Maidan. [note] Titushky is a term for mercenaries, mostly hooligans, who supported the Ukrainian police during Yanukovych’s presidency.
[p 118] While warming up with some coffee, Yevhen and I saw on Facebook that one of the sections had met in a church, and that titushky had broken in and thrown a tear gas canister at the attendees.

2015, David R. Marples, Frederick V. Mills, editors, Ukraine’s Euromaidan: Analyses of a Civil Revolution, Stuttgart: Ibidem Press:

I was actually more worried about the gangs of government thugs – the so-called titushki – who were randomly roaming the streets and who, by that point, were out of control and prone to simple theft and violence.

2014, Andrew Wilson, Ukraine Crisis: What It Means for the West, New Haven: Yale University Press, →ISBN, page vi:

The main characters of stickers are peaceful and romantic Ukrainian boy and girl who want peace most of all, even with “titushkos”.

2014, Natalia Usenko, “Political Issues in Contemporary Art of Ukraine”, in Journal of Education Culture and Society, number 2, Wrocław, page 185:

(neologism) Hired thugs used for violence and intimidation against protestors by the Ukrainian government during the Euromaidan revolution; (by extension) pro-government vigilantes attacking picketers, protesters in the ex-USSR

տիտուշկա

a violent pro-government vigilante involved in cracking down on popular protest


Silures

(historical) A powerful and warlike tribe or tribal confederation of ancient Britain, occupying what is now southeast Wales and perhaps some adjoining areas.


frosted tips

From the similarity in appearance to frost.

These are E. olitor, which is similar to E. melanogaster but smaller in size, with dark greyish-brown upperparts with pale frosted tips; and E. miletus, which is similar in size and colour to E. cachinus but with a relatively shorter tail and higher skull profile.

2008, Charles M. Francis, Priscilla Barrett, A Field Guide to the Mammals of South-East Asia, →ISBN, page 375:

Males are generally rich warm or reddish-brown with darker streaking on mantle and back, bright pink rump and underparts, and faint (not prominent) wingbar; long Supercilium to sides of nape is pale pink with pale silvery or frosted tips, with cheeks and ear-coverts similar.

2010, Peter Clement, Finches and Sparrows, →ISBN, page 277:

Their gray fur has a reddish tinge with whitish frosted tips, hence the name "hoary."

2011, Terence Barrow, More Incredible Hawaii, →ISBN:

White or light coloration at the ends of darker feathers or fur on a bird or mammal.


Ordovices

(historical) An ancient tribe of Britannia, situated opposite the island of Anglesey.


LAC

en-noun

LAC (countable and uncountable, plural LACs)

(uncountable, chemistry) Acronym of L-acetylcarnitine. (acetylated L-carnitine)


Bellovaci

(historical) A Belgic tribe inhabiting the modern Picardy region, near the present-day city of Beauvais, during the Iron Age and the Roman period.


Atrebates

(historical) A Belgic tribe of the Iron Age and the Roman period, originally dwelling in the Artois region.


Wurundjeri

An indigenous Australian people who occupy the Birrarung (Yarra River) Valley and its tributaries.


exposed services

(architecture) A building's functional ductwork, pipes, etc. when left visible and readily accessible rather than e.g. concealed above a suspended ceiling.


inogorodnie

Borrowed from Russian иногоро́дние (inogoródnije) meaning "people from another village".

bor

иногоро́дние

There is no need to mention the inogorodnie, who were and remain loyal sons of Soviet Russia, and whose interests the Soviet Government will always staunchly defend.

1953, Joseph Stalin, Works - Volume 4, page 415:

By 1910, slightly over half the population on Cossack land was non-Cossack, the inogorodnie.

1987, Robert H McNeal, Tsar And Cossack 1855-1914, →ISBN, pages 10–11:

To equalize newly arrived Inogorodnie with the Cossacks in land and in all other relations.

2005, Dinah Shelton, Encyclopedia of genocide and crimes against humanity, →ISBN:

(historical) Non-Cossack immigrants to Cossack-controlled land in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.


aviator sunglasses

Originally developed in 1936 by Bausch & Lomb for pilots to protect their eyes while flying.

A style of sunglasses with dark, often reflective lenses and very thin metal frames.


outquarters

Quarters situated away from headquarters.


duroys

Like most woolen cloths, duroys were not notably fashionable in England or her colonies; an unsuccessful 1741 scheme aimed to bring them into fashion through royal use (Montgomery 2007: 350).

2014, Christina J. Hodge, Consumerism and the Emergence of the Middle Class in Colonial America, page 138:


Ubii

(historical) A Germanic tribe dwelling on the east bank of the Rhine in the time of Julius Caesar, who formed an alliance with them in 55 BC in order to launch attacks across the river.


1000 meters

en-noun

1000 meters pl (normally plural, singular 1000 meter)


1000 metres

1000 metres pl (normally plural, singular 1000 metre)

(athletics) A middle-distance race of 1000 metres.


Chuj

A Mayan language spoken in western Guatemala and southern Mexico.


Aedui

A Gallic tribe of Gallia Lugdunensis whose chief town was Bibracte


turnip tops

There are many ways to eat this green: Italian-style, lightly boiled, rinsed, wrung and dressed in olive oil and garlic; south American-style with bacon, sausage or ham and Cajun seasoning; southern Indian-style in a poriyal (a fried vegetable dish); northern Spanish-style with potatoes, sweet paprika and a touch of red-wine vinegar; or fermented, Asian-style, as pickles. Turnip tops appear in many cuisines for good reason: they fill a very hungry gap.

2010 October 25, Alys Fowler, “Alys Fowler: Turnip tops”, in The Guardian:


whistleberries

From whistle + berries, a reference to the flatulence they cause.

“Hambone, how's for chuck?”
Hambone removed pipe from mouth, slowly. “Wal, I reckon I still got a few whistleberries left. Some sonofabitch stew mabbe. A few shot biscuits.”

1951, Frederick Feikema Manfred, Riders of Judgment, Second, published 2014, →ISBN:


Parisii

A Celtic tribe of Gallia Lugdunensis, whose chief town was Lutetia; Paris, the capital of France, is named after them.


Redones

(historical) A Gallic tribe dwelling in the eastern part of the Brittany peninsula during the Iron Age and subsequent Roman conquest of Gaul.


flood pants

Some clothes would be too big, which was good, because you could grow into them, while others would be too small and look like flood pants.

2017, Derrick Nearing, Anchor of My Heart: Memories of a Cape Breton Childhood:


labia minor

Any Bangkok prostitute can blow smoke rings through her labia minor and be certain of applause and thanks.

1974, Angela Carter, “Lovely Linda”, in Shaking a Leg, Vintage, published 2013, page 70:

The labia minor enclose the clitoris anteriorly. They also enclose the vagina and are fused posteriorly forming the fourchette.

2002, John N. K. Mbilu, Essentials of Obstetrics and Gynaecology for Clinical Officers and Midwives, page 2:


family pajamas

A set of matching pajamas of varying sizes, intended for the use of a family, sometimes including pets.


hostages to fortune

Stay home, keep house for my three newest hostages to fortune, and write while I waited for my modest pensions to kick in.

2004, Larry L. Meyer, No Paltry Thing: Memoirs of a Geezer Dad, page 26:


greyers

From grey + -er + -s, using the Oxford "-er".

(UK, school slang) Grey trousers as part of a school uniform.


tea-things

The teapot, cups, saucers, etc. used when serving tea.


Pictones

(historical) A Celtic tribe of Aquitania, whose capital was Limonum.


oodlins

(informal) Alternative form of oodles (“lots; a great number or amount”)


wigs on the green

In reference to the wigs that gentlemen used to wear, which might fall to the ground during a fight.

“I am sorry to perceive, sir, as you say; but you have been in some hot work, sir! I'll engage you have seen some wigs on the green?”
“Wigs on the green!” exclaimed the elegant stranger, with a very cold, aristocratical stare.
“Beg pardon, sir!” said Mr. Brown, when he became conscious of his vulgarity. “'Tis our Irish mode of expression, sir, when we speak of a row, or a skrimmage! I dare say you have been in many a skrimmage, Sir John![”]

1853 October 22, Captain Michael Rafter, “Done Brown”, in The London Journal, vol.XVIII no.452 p.119:

She says, If ye don't fix yeer brother's shoes an' I have to get out of this bed there will be wigs on the green.

1998 Frank McCourt, Angela's Ashes Ch.XII (Simon and Schuster) p.272

(dated, Ireland, as a formulaic threat) Big trouble.


Mangbetu

One of the most populous of the Central Sudanic languages.


Lemovices

(historical) A Gallic tribe dwelling in the modern Limousin region during the Iron Age and the Roman period.


lyreleaf greeneyes

Berlandiera lyrata, a sunflower native from Kansas and Colorado (US) to Jalisco (Mexico)


scavilones

(historical) Men's drawers worn under the hose in the 16th century.


Korean-style short ribs

Korean-style short ribs pl (plural only)

From originating with a Korean dish involving short ribs cut in a particular manner, that is different from the usual English-cut.

(cooking) Synonym of flanken short ribs (ribs cut across the bone, instead of along the bone)


overhours

(dated) Additional hours worked; overtime.


Kroo

Archaic form of Kru (“West African people”).


Kru

A West African ethnic group who originated in eastern Liberia and migrated and settled along the coast.


mixed feelings

I, for one, regarded this master-at-arms with mixed feelings of detestation, pity, admiration, and something opposed to enmity.

1850, Herman Melville, chapter 44, in White Jacket:

[A]ll Sabbath observances, like a Scottish accent, strike in me mixed feelings, grateful and the reverse.

1903, Robert Louis Stevenson, chapter 2, in Travels with a Donkey in the Cevennes:

Arriving at Paddington, Mike stood on the platform, waiting for his box to emerge from the luggage-van, with mixed feelings of gloom and excitement.

1910, P. G. Wodehouse, chapter 3, in Psmith in the City:

Last week Madison (pop. 67,500) learned, with mixed feelings, that it would get a morning paper and lose an afternoon one.

1948 November 29, “The Press: The Rivals”, in Time, retrieved 2017-12-29:

I had mixed feelings about the Sonata in F (Op. 54) — a departure from the printed program, noted in an insert — in which a deftly managed, elegantly characterized first movement was wedded to a tumultuous but unfocused Allegretto.

2013 May 8, Steve Smith, “Music Review: On Piano, a Point of View”, in New York Times, retrieved 2017-12-29:

(set phrase) Sentiments or opinions regarding a person, situation, or other matter which are conflicted and cause perplexity or confusion.


Bongo

A Central Sudanic language spoken by the Bongo people in sparsely populated areas of Bahr al Ghazal in South Sudan.


Koplik's spots

Named after Henry Koplik (1858-1927), an American pediatrician who published a short description of them in 1896.

(medicine) Clustered white lesions on the buccal mucosa, a prodromic viral enanthem of measles.


finer things

I'm not materialistic, though I do enjoy the finer things in life.

(idiomatic, informal) That which is considered of a high quality, expensive or tasteful.

美好的事物

that which is considered of a high quality


wypipo

Phonetic spelling of “white people” in African American Vernacular English.

“@PaulCantor: @Me you just need one rich white guy to believe you will be the one who makes him cool, and you're set.” WHERE U AT WYPIPO

2013 October 6, THE KID MERO 🇩🇴, “THE KID MERO 🇩🇴 on Twitter”, in Twitter, archived from the original on 2018-01-06:

For now, let's take a step into Black History Month since that is the only time wypipo generally give two Fun-Dip sticks and a lick about Black history.

2017 February 1, Aaryn Belfer, “Backwards & In High Heels: Rounding up my cousins”, in San Diego CityBeat:

However, the Powhatan people told the Jamestonians that Matoaka's name was"Pocohontas," which loosely translates to "stolen by thieving-ass wypipo" (my Powhatan is a little rusty).

2017 November 30, Michael Harriot, Why Calling Elizabeth Warren "Pocohontas" Is Racist, Explained, in San Bernardino American Newspaper, volume 48, number 32

Wypipo: Quit making excuses. Work hard. Pull yourself up by your bootstraps. Go to college. No one's just going to hand opportunities to you.
Also wypipo: Wow, you applied to 20 colleges? And got into all of them? How obnoxious.

2018 April 19, Anne Branigin, Black Teen Who Won Full ride to 20 Colleges Wants Apology From Reporter Who Called His Effort "Obnoxious", in San Bernardino American Newspaper, volume 48, number 52, front page

MAGA hat wearing, confederate flag waving, tiki torch bearing wypipo.

2019 September 4, Ted Neill, “Reaper Moon”, in Race War in the Post Apocalypse, page 6:

Because wypipo stay annoying, during his victory speech, McConnell gave a shout out to King and his “I Have a Dream” speech, aka literally the only MLK speech that exists as far as white conservatives are concerned.

2020 November 5, Zack Linly, “Mitch McConnell Referenced Martin Luther King Jr. in His Victory Speech. MLK's Family Graciously Invite Him to STFU”, in The Root:

(slang, African-American Vernacular, derogatory, usually offensive) White people.


corpse hounds

Gabriel's hounds
Gabriel's hounds#English

(UK, dialect, obsolete) Synonym of Gabriel's hounds


Gabriel's hounds

(UK, dialect, obsolete) curlews or nightjars, whose cries are associated with various superstitions


empty words

(informal, idiomatic) Any type of talk with little meaning; a message that seems to contain meaningful content but is actually vapid.


stubborns

From stubborn + -s, as if the plural of a singular noun.

He's been proven wrong twice and keeps writing those protest articles! That old man definitely has a case of the stubborns.


rose-coloured spectacles

rose-coloured spectacles pl (plural only)

rose-colored glasses
rose-colored glasses#English

Alternative form of rose-colored glasses


rose-tinted spectacles

THE LONDON & NORTH WESTERN RAILWAY. By O. S. Nock. Ian Allan. 30s.
[...] One cannot but feel, however, that when writing, Mr. Nock was wearing a particularly rose-tinted pair of spectacles, such is his enthusiasm for the "Premier Line".

1960 October, “New reading on railways”, in Trains Illustrated, →ISBN, page 640:


ehevi

The four Hebrew letters that can serve as vowels: alef, he, vav, and yodh.


headscissors

While he was distracted, the Puma ran the length of the ring, leapt into the air and locked both legs around Diablo's neck, taking him down to the mat with a spectacular flying headscissors.

2002, Greg F. Gifune, Night Work, →ISBN:

professional wrestling
professional wrestling

(professional wrestling) A hold in which a wrestler wraps his or her legs around either side of the opponent's head, crossing them under the opponent's chin, and squeezing.


Gaetuli

(historical) An ancient Berber tribe inhabiting Gaetulia.


Sibe

A Tungusic people living mostly in Xinjiang, Jilin (bordering North Korea) and Shenyang in Liaoning, China.


Johnsoniana

He was able to add largely to the existing stores of Johnsoniana, and Dr. Hall, Dr. Harwood, Lord Rokeby, Lord Stowell, Sir James Mackintosh, Sir Walter Scott, and many others, give him valuable memoranda.

1887 August 5, The Bookseller, page 767:

The sayings or writings of Samuel Johnson (1709–1784), English writer and lexicographer.


Gadarene swine

2000 [1908, Weiser Books], R. Campbell Thompson, Semitic Magic: Its Origins and Development, Red Wheel/Weiser, page 208,
The most remarkable parallel to this spell is contained in the New Testament story of the Gadarene swine.

In fact, Hamsun now completes his allusion to the story of the Gadarene swine alluded to by Pauline in the previous novel. That the reader is expected to recall the Biblical story is quite evident from one simple fact: the number of sheep, according to August's rough reckoning, is "over two thousand"; the herd of Gadarene swine numbered "about two thousand."

2005, Sverre Lyngstad, Knut Hamsun, Novelist: A Critical Assessment, Peter Lang, page 294:

Here Dostoevsky uses the biblical story of the Gadarene swine—a tale of unclean devils that, having been exorcised from a sick or mad man by Christ, enter a herd of swine that then rushes headlong down a steep bank into the sea (Mark 5:2-20)—to generate a series of analogies that suggest that Russia is a sick or mad man possessed by devils and that the swine that the devils enter upon being exorcised are the revolutionaries (Devils, 647–48). In The Master of Petersburg, however, Coetzee applies the story of the Gadarene swine not only to Russia and the phenomenon of revolutionary nihilism but also to the character Dostoevsky himself.

2006, Michael Marais, “4: Death and the Space of the Response to the Other in J. M. Coetzee's Master of Petersburg”, in Jane Poyner, editor, J. M. Coetzee and the Idea of the Public Intellectual, Ohio University Press, page 87:

(biblical) A herd of swine that become possessed by demons after the latter are exorcised from men, in a parable told in each of the Synoptic Gospels, although not the Gospel of John.


skinfolk

It was, in part, this designation that Zora Neale Hurston sought to clarify with the distinction between "kinfolk" and "skinfolk" where one could imagine that all of one's skinfolk were not one's kinfolk (or lacked a good brain) and gave the skinfolk a bad name (Hurston, 1942).

1996, Diane L. Wolf, Feminist dilemmas in fieldwork:

“As the saying goes, not everyone who's our skinfolk is our kinfolk,” James would quip, and “it's more important to have a brother or sister in Christ than a brother or sister in skin.

2011, Keli Goff, The GQ Candidate: A Novel, Simon and Schuster, →ISBN, page 126:

Feminist analyses, critical in thinking through these myths of identity, have emphasized the methodological complications in being “skinfolk” but not necessarily “kinfolk,” to use Brackette Williams's trenchant distinction (1996), while reminding us also of the value of researchers who may be kinfolk in their depth of connection and commitment even if they are not skinfolk (Narayan 1993).

2015, Srimati Basu, The Trouble with Marriage: Feminists Confront Law and Violence in India, →ISBN, page 64:

The burned scent of the police car. Flashing blue light. Strong hands grabbed his wrists, hauled him up. “The hell are you doing out here this time of night, man, with all this stuff going on up the way?” This voice was different. It rolled in a way that Jackie's ears found acceptable. He turned, eyes meeting a pair similar to his own atop a black mustache. The black cop turned his mouth into a sneer. “Leavin' work,” Jackie replied, apprehensive. Skinfolk wasn't kinfolk, especially when [they're cops.]

2015, Laureen Cantwell, Leonard Gill, Memphis Noir, Akashic Books, →ISBN, page 278:

2022, Willie Jones (quoted in The Atlantic
But as Jones’s career launched, he was disappointed not to find artists who looked like him. “I didn’t have too many other skinfolk to relate to, honestly, in the mainstream country realm,” he told me, “until I started really digging.”

(uncommon) People who share the same skin color (race) with one another, especially when they are not otherwise closely associated or similar.


makoronyera

From Shona makoronyera, plural of goronyera (“unscrupulous person”).

(Zimbabwe) middlemen who buy produce from farmers and mark up the price, generally drastically, for resale


Naharvali

Alternative form of Nahanarvali (“Germanic tribe”)


Seldeniana

The sayings or writings of John Selden (1584–1654), English jurist and scholar.


netherlands

Play on Netherlands, from nether + land.

I remember Tofoli falling on his netherlands... Olof went hard angle on Giani and Gardini. And did they ever give him line.

2000 November 30, L. Ravi Narasimhan, “Marv Dunphy Chalk Talk - Nov. 28 at Moorpark College”, in rec.sport.volleyball (Usenet):

"Goddamn pieceashit yellow rat-bastard motherraping..." True to his nature, Kent swears like a soldier, an ability only slightly less extensive than that of a sailor. "Shiteyes couldn't take two cocksmokin' seconds to haul his head out of his Netherlands and read a little chickenshit FAQ..."

2004 February 18, Killjoy, “Translation report”, in alt.cyberpunk.chatsubo (Usenet):

Actually, I simply got a teasing bug up my netherlands and couldn't resist.

2006 July 15, Judee77, “OT - Private to Beach Bum (but I know better)”, in alt.fan.gene-scott (Usenet):

Why does she have a 'bulge' in her 'netherlands'?

2003 December 1, Chaz M., “Idle Hands”, in alt.fan.jessica-alba (Usenet):

The question that has bandied around is whether or not shaving his netherlands was a quirk of Oswald's.

2004 August 17, Barb Junkkarinen, “Oswald's privates”, in alt.assassination.jfk (Usenet):


labia major

Billie's own well-developed clitoris ‘pouts’ through her labia major in a manner which, in the real world, usually belongs only to the female orang-utan.

1981, Angela Carter, “The Sweet Sell of Romance”, in Shaking a Leg, Vintage, published 2013, page 575:

Extending down from the mons pubis are two longitudinal folds of skin, narrowing to enclose the vulvar cleft, and meeting posteriorly in the perineum, that area of skin between the junction of the labia major and the anus.

2002, Ethel Sloane, Biology of Women, 4th edition, Delmar, page 31:


upper ten

upper ten thousand
upper ten thousand#English


grouchies

(informal) A case of grouchiness; a state of being grouchy, irritable, easily angered.


Sicambri

A Germanic people who during Ancient Roman times lived on the right bank of the Rhine river, in what is now Germany, near the border with the Netherlands.


Nakhi

I wanted to know if the Nakhi folktales were different, given that they originated in a matriarchal society. Mu Ji Xin. a Nakhi friend, helped me find a collection of tales that had been translated from Nakhi to Chinese.

1997, Carolyn Han, Tales from Within the Clouds: Nakhi Stories of China, →ISBN, page x:

An ethnic group centered in the foothills of the Himalayas in the northwestern part of Yunnan Province, as well as the southwestern part of Sichuan Province in China.


relations of production

relations of production pl (normally plural, singular relation of production)

(Marxism) The sum total of social relationships that people must enter into in order to survive, produce, and reproduce their means of life.


drygoods

The Alder had in her hold four hundred casks of musket flints, a quantity of bar lead, iron, and drygoods, the entire cargo and vessels being valued at twenty-four thousand dollars.

2004, Edgar Stanton Maclay, T. G. Cutler, A History of American Privateers, page 226:


Adam and Eve on a raft

(US, slang, when ordering food) Two eggs (poached or fried) on toast.


Trannies

(finance, slang) The Dow Jones Transportation Average.


sinews of war

(figurative) Money, seen as necessary to wage war effectively.


remarkables

For pens, ſo uſefull for Scholars to note the remarkables they read, with an impreſſion eaſily deleble without prejudice to the book.

a. 1662 (date written), Thomas Fuller, “Cumberland”, in The History of the Worthies of England, London: […] J[ohn] G[rismond,] W[illiam] L[eybourne] and W[illiam] G[odbid], published 1662, →OCLC, page 215:


grammar police

Coordinate term: wordie

The grammar police are cruising the info highway, and they're writing tickets. In newsgroups . . . bad English does not go unnoticed.

1997 September 7, Patricia T. O'Conner, “Grammar Cops”, in New York Times, retrieved 2018-03-13:

Some wordsmiths wield their lexicological powers like an angry red pen, rooting out errors and marking them for all the world to see. (We're talking to you, Grammar Police.)

2012 May 30, Heidi Stevens, “Language: More fun with fewer rules?”, in Chicago Tribune, retrieved 2018-03-13:

A leading Oxford University academic has implored “the grammar police” and spelling pedants to be a bit more relaxed about changing standards of written English.

2013 May 29, Harry Wallop, “Hay Festival 2013: Oxford professor asks for grammar pedants to relax”, in Telegraph, UK, retrieved 2018-03-13:

[S]ince my mother-in-law was a former public school teacher, she is the Grammar Police.

2015 September 24, Madeline Case, “Have you sworn an oath to the Grammar Police?”, in Business Management Daily, retrieved 2018-03-13:

(idiomatic) One or more people who make negative comments, which are usually unsolicited and unwanted, concerning the correctness of someone's English usage.


Picos de Europa

Cantabrian Mountains
Cantabrian Mountains

A mountain range in northern Spain, part of the Cantabrian Mountains


Cantabrian Mountains

A mountain range in northern Spain, stretching from the Pyrenees to the Galician Massif


Usipetes

(historical) An ancient tribe who moved into the area on the right bank (the northern or eastern bank) of the lower Rhine in the 1st century BC, putting them in contact with Gaul and the Roman Empire.


butcher stripes

Vertical stripes on a garment, usually thin white stripes on a navy blue background.


microgoggles

With a long-suffering sigh, Cale pulled the microgoggles from his eyes and followed her up the ladder onto the roof.

2000, Kevin J. Anderson, Rebecca Moesta, Titan A.E.: A Novel. Cale's story, →ISBN, page 27:

So whether you are out conquering worlds or are just concerned about these tiny pests, make sure you're prepared with a pair of germ-spotting microgoggles.

2001, Invader Zim, "Germs" (season 1, episode 4a)

She reached into her own field kit for microgoggles, took a closer look.

2015, J. D. Robb, Obsession in Death, →ISBN, page 40:

(rare, science fiction) Goggles that help to see minuscule objects.


cement hands

(sports, informal) Hands that do not catch or grip well because they are too tense.


Bambi eyes

Named from the protagonist of the 1942 animated film Bambi, a young white-tailed deer.


Goma

A tribe in the Kigoma Region of western Tanzania, a contingent of the Bantu.


tig ol' bitties

(Internet slang, humorous) Synonym of tig bitties


tig bitties

(Internet slang, humorous) Large breasts.


shirt-sleeves

A bunch of workmen were lying on the grass of the park beside Macquarie Street, in the dinner hour. It was winter, the end of May, but the sun was warm, and they lay there in shirt-sleeves, talking.

1923, D[avid] H[erbert] Lawrence, “Torestin”, in Kangaroo, London: Martin Secker […], →OCLC, page 1:

As Sherma S. Vinograd points out that we move from “Arms that are braceleted and white and bare” near the table and shawl to the narrow streets inhabited by “lonely men in shirt-sleaves."

2016, Abhijit Bagchi, The Early T. S. Eliot: An Artist in the Making, →ISBN:


baby names

baby names pl (normally plural, singular baby name)

He read a book of baby names.

First names or given names, in the context of naming a baby.


Nazerini

(historical) A tribe of Syria mentioned by Pliny.


Olukumi

From Yoruba Olùkùmi, ultimately from olùkù mi (“my friend”).

a Yoruboid language spoken by the Olukumi people


multidisabilities

(sometimes attributive) More than one disability.


holiday speeches

(archaic) fine-sounding but empty phrases


trench binoculars

A pair of binoculars consisting of two periscopes.


scissor binoculars

From scissor + binoculars, calque of German Scherenfernrohr.

A pair of adjustable stereoscopic binoculars consisting of two periscopes.


kamiit

Kamiit help feet deftly navigate the slip of the ice, the crunch of the snow, and the depths of the drifts.

2018, Tanya Tagaq, Split Tooth, And Other Stories (2023), pages 36-37:


granny specs

(informal) A pair of spectacles with round lenses in a light metal frame.


granny glasses

I tried it with a pair of old John Lennon-type NHS "granny glasses" I had in a bottom drawer and it really does work.

2000, Bill Oddie, Gripping Yarns, page 101:


pseudomenses

(medicine) Blood-tinged vaginal discharge in a female neonate, with an appearance resembling that of menses.


affordables

The affordables. The first cameras specifically designed for the school with lots of imagination, and a limited budget.

1968, National Association of Educational Broadcasters, NAEB Directory of Public Telecommunications, page 31:

Fodor's affordables are written for today's travelers who demand quality, comfort, and service-unforgettable vacations at prices that are affordable—even as low as $60 a day.

1994, Mademoiselle: The Magazine for the Smart Young Woman:


Walla Walla

/ˌwɒlə ˈwɒlə/

Walla Walla County
Walla Walla County#English

A city, the county seat of Walla Walla County, Washington, United States.

The Walla Walla River, a tributary of the Columbia River in Washington, United States.

A town in Greater Hume Shire, in southern New South Wales, Australia.


Walla Walla

/ˌwɒlə ˈwɒlə/

A kind of sweet onion from Walla Walla County, Washington, United States.


chebureki

chebureki pl (normally plural, singular cheburek)

From Russian чебуре́ки (čeburéki), the plural of чебуре́к (čeburék).

Deep-fried turnovers filled with ground meat and onions, a national dish of the Crimean Tatars.


Tunica

West Feliciana Parish
West Feliciana Parish#English

An unincorporated community in West Feliciana Parish, Louisiana, United States.

A town, the county seat of Tunica County, Mississippi, United States.


Tunica

An extinct group of linguistically and culturally related Native American tribes in the Mississippi River Valley.


gerontes

From New Latin Gerontes, from Ancient Greek γέροντες (gérontes, literally “elders”).

der

(historical, Ancient Greece) magistrates in Sparta who, with the kings, constituted the Gerousia


Houma

Comardelle - who left the island for the city of Houma in southeast Louisiana - splits her life between raising her family and the fight for her people's future, and has spent so much time in the office that her three children keep toys there.

2018 April 21, Nicky Milne, “Louisiana 'islanders' find a new home beyond the water”, in Megan Rowling, Belinda Goldsmith, editors, Reuters, World:

In hard-hit Houma, the dismal reality of life without air conditioning, refrigeration or other more basic needs began to sink in.

2021 September 1, “Hundreds of thousands in Louisiana face prolonged power, water outages after Hurricane Ida”, in France 24, archived from the original on 2021-09-01:

Terrebonne Parish
Terrebonne Parish#English

A city, the parish seat of Terrebonne Parish, Louisiana, United States.


remote hands

(computing) Technicians who perform tasks on demand at a remote site, typically a data centre.


dynabeads

superparamagnetic spherical polymer particles used for the adsorption or coupling of various bioreactive molecules or cells


filolamellipodia

filopodia and lamellipodia considered as a group


multidocuments

A powerful tool (and challenge) is the capability to work with multidocuments simultaneously.

1996, Edward G. Martin, Charles S. Parker, Mastering today's software:

There are multidocuments in this program — Job Analysis, Training Plan, Standard Operating Procedures, Skills Demonstrations, Compliance Verification, and General Purpose Documents.

1996, James R. Sawers, Margaret M. R. Eastman, Process Industry Procedures and Training Manual, →ISBN, page 272:

There are also various auxiliary technologies and standards that are used to provide more sophisticated mechanisms, such as for relating elements across multi-documents.

2005, Alan Hartman, David Kreische, Model Driven Architecture - Foundations and Applications: First European Conference:

First, we need to build summaries on the set of old documents' dataset, which means multidocuments' summarization.

2015, Bater Makhabel, Learning Data Mining with R, →ISBN, page 259:


Faeroes

A sea area, between Scotland and Iceland, centred on these islands


ones and twos

During hip hop's early days when the DJ was busy with his ones and twos, MCs (masters of ceremony, microphone controllers, or movers of the crowd) spoke over the records by invoking the spirit of the party gods.

2012, Ebony A. Utley, Rap and Religion: Understanding the Gangsta's God, page 11:


tits and bums

I mean all this tits and bums must pall after a while, doesn't it?" Graham was almost whispering, hoping that his own, much quieter approach to talking might rub off a little on Terry.

1982, Peter Finch, Between thirty-five and forty-two: short stories, page 46:

Now I come to think about it, the basic appeal of the show is probably on a par with the tits and bums in Sunday Sport — real lowest common denominator stuff.

1986, Blues & Soul - Issues 474-485, page 30:

After 1933, cabaret did not die out in Germany; but it was only the innocuous entertainment version that was allowed to flourish, interspersed here and there with a few 'tits-and-bums' shows.

1998, Richard Gough, Claire MacDonald, Ric Allsopp, Performance Research: On Risk, →ISBN, page 57:

If it's tits and bums, that's what they expect.

2013, Jo Bannister, Deadly Virtues, →ISBN:

'It was only when the tabloids started going lower orders with tits and bums that it started,' he muttered.

2014, Dan Davies, In Plain Sight: The Life and Lies of Jimmy Savile, →ISBN:

(British, vulgar, slang) Alternative form of tits and ass


Alaskana

Without the rich and eccentric collection of Alaskana at the Scott Polar Research Institute, Cambridge, England, my initial interest in Alaska could not have advanced very far.

1991, Peter A. Coates, The Trans-Alaska Pipeline Controversy, →ISBN:

Betty Cavanaugh was a retired librarian from Anchorage and a bibliophile who collected Alaskana.

2009, Dana Stabenow, Whisper to the Blood, →ISBN, page 224:

You could easily lose an afternnon just wandering among the stacks, enjoying the cozy sitting room on Level 3, studying the huge relief map of the state, browsing among the paintings hanging on the walls, or picking a book at random from the large Alaskana collection.

2011, Don Pitcher -, Moon Alaska, →ISBN:

Cultural items and icons representing Alaska.


dismals

"Well, this is a bright fit of the dismals," said little Toole, nothing overawed.

1863, J[oseph] Sheridan Le Fanu, “How an Evening Passes at the Elms, and Dr. Toole Makes a Little Excursion; and Two Choice Spirits Discourse, and Hebe Trips In with the Nectar”, in The House by the Church-yard. […], volume II, London: Tinsley, Brothers, […], →OCLC, page 279:


Whyos

en-noun

Whyos pl (normally plural, singular Whyo)

(historical) A street gang of New York City during the mid to late 19th century.


chops and changes

At last we were all arranged according to Mrs. Turnbull's wishes, although there were several chops and changes about

1834, Frederick Marryat, Jacob Faithful:


Nadar

A Tamil caste of southern India and Sri Lanka.


beadies

In reference to the common collocation beady-eyed or beady eyes.

Especially ones like the Broadway Park House, an old-world Central Park South upscale joint with uniformed doormen shooting me the beadies the moment Evelyn and I are disgorged into the lobby by a revolving door.

With its beadies on him from out in the corridor and its massive sneakers upon the wafer thin yielding (he yell'd!) glass of the compartment door.


fuerdai

From Mandarin 富二代 (fù'èrdài, literally “rich second generation”).

zh-l

(sometimes derogatory) The children of the nouveau riche in China.


happy landings

en-noun

happy landings pl (normally plural, singular happy landing)

We want our airplane pilots to anticipate failed engines as well as happy landings.

2009, Barbara Ehrenreich, Bright-sided: How the Relentless Promotion of Positive Thinking Has Undermined America, →ISBN, page 198:

Happy landings: every minute of every hour of every day, an average of 38 people touch down at Orlando airport, gateway to the centre of the Sunshine State.

2017 January 20, Simon Calder, “Discover the other side of Florida – Kissimmee”, in Independent, UK, retrieved 2018-06-05:

(travel, especially aviation) Successful arrivals on land (by air or water), without any untoward incidents.

But one set of Washington policies is all happy landings: the Government's campaign to stop skyjackers is working.

1973 June 18, “American Notes: Eureka! Something Works!”, in Time, retrieved 2018-06-05:

He missed much of his senior year, drifted, but finally graduated. He hasn't gone to college and realizes now that he wants that experience. […] Some of these stories have happy landings.

2002, Andrea Van Steenhouse, Empty Nest...Full Heart: The Journey from Home to College, →ISBN, page 47:

(idiomatic, by extension) Successful outcome or outcomes.


whatabouts

The things that a person is involved or occupied with.


cattel

His Cattel must of Rot and Murren die.

1667, John Milton, “Book X”, in Paradise Lost. […], London: […] [Samuel Simmons], and are to be sold by Peter Parker […]; [a]nd by Robert Boulter […]; [a]nd Matthias Walker, […], →OCLC; republished as Paradise Lost in Ten Books: […], London: Basil Montagu Pickering […], 1873, →OCLC:


Birks

Indeed, sneakers and Birks are by no means the giveaways they once were. They are pretty much an integral part of every wardrobe, not to mention every designer collection on Avenue Montaigne.

2023 August 7, Vanessa Friedman, “Do These Shoes Make Me Look Like a Tourist?”, in The New York Times, →ISSN:

(informal, footwear) Birkenstock sandals


multistakeholders

They should integrate common good concerns and user-driven as well as worker-driven multistakeholders in their governance models.

2014, V. Kostakis, Network Society and Future Scenarios for a Collaborative Economy:


Wet'suwet'en

A First Nations people of the northwestern Central Interior of British Columbia.


cryptadia

A list of the formulae, if not trenching upon the domain of cryptadia, might be desirable.

1886 July 31, Notes and Queries, page 87:

When long ago I penetrated the cryptadia of the Mashona concerning totemism, I did in fact find old traditions which supported the theory that totemism follows and implements the rules of the kinship system; but first it should be stated that some legends were certainly antithetical to this view.

1951, NADA: The Southern Rhodesia Native Affairs Department Annual:


folx

Variant of folks. While the word was already gender-neutral, the suffix -x is a deliberate social signal of awareness of sexual minorities. Compare English Latinx.

I presume yoᵣ lo. will fynde to be very stronge besides the qualitie of the peticonars to be lookte vppon, whoe if they be noe other then as folx [also fox] is stilde mear mariners, it cannot promise muche of their extraordinarie performancis, as hath bin made appeare formerlye in this perticuler designe, [...]

G. T. C[lark], R. O. J. (1862 July 5) “Some Account of the Parishes of St. Nicholas and St. Lythan (continued)”, in Archaeologia Cambrensis, number xxxi, London, page 192

De kommitte told me dere wus a great gedderin ob de culored folx at Brudder Jonson's Eatin House, [...]

1857, Julius Caesar Hannibal, Black Diamonds, Or, Humor, Satire, and Sentiment, page 183:

If some do, da hypocrites, and dat don't militate 'gains de siety; for cause da some hypocrites, dat proves dat some good folx.

1879, M. Star, in The American Temperance Cyclopaedia of History (Joseph Beaumont Wakeley), page 185, ostensibly quoting one Missa Param

Eye dialect spelling of folks, representing African-American Vernacular English.


tranx

tranx pl (normally plural, singular trank or tranq)

"If the girl wants to sleep, let her do it on her own time. She must have gulped a handful of tranx, for Christ's sake. I couldn't even get her to make conversation."
"Hey, man—now listen. Greta wouldn't take no tranx when she's working."

1975, Russell H. Greenan, Heart of Gold, page 114:

No tranx
Minor tranquillisers are among the world's most commonly prescribed drugs.

(slang) Medicinal tranquilizers for human consumption, whether legal or illegal.


chrusciki

(cooking) angel wings, a type of Polish pastry


emendals

Funds set apart for repairs in the accounts of the Inner Temple.


articles of war

A code of regulations for the government and discipline of the army and navy.


underbritches

(chiefly Southern US) Alternative form of underbreeches


fewtrils

(UK, dialect, obsolete) Little or unimportant things; trifles.


trunkhose

(now historical) Short, full and bag-like breeches covering the hips and thighs, sometimes stuffed with wool or other material, worn by men in the 16th and 17th centuries.


pumpkin pants

(historical) A form of hose (clothing) with a layer of panes, or strips of fabric, running from the waistband to the leg band.


Three Lions

A reference to the crest or badge of the team, which depicts three lions.

The Three Lions are in the last four for only the third time. They went on to win their home tournament in 1966 but lost to West Germany on penalties in 1990.

2018 July 7, Phil McNulty, “Sweden 0-2 England”, in BBC Sport:

(soccer) The England national football team.


Chemehuevi

Possibly from a Spanish corruption of Mojave 'achiimuuev (“those who play with fish”)

der

An indigenous people of the Great Basin; the southernmost branch of Southern Paiute.


Tarahumara

The Uto-Aztecan language of these people.


Emishi

From Japanese 蝦夷 (Emishi, literally “shrimp barbarians”).

bor

This area was one of the last pieces of tribal land to be taken from the indigenous Emishi, descendants of the Jōmon people, who had lived there from prehistoric times until they were defeated by the Japanese Imperial Army in the eighth century.

2013, Ruth Ozeki, A Tale for the Time Being, Canongate Books (2019), page 151:

(historical) An ancient ethnic group of northeastern Honshū in the Tōhoku region of Japan.


borrowing days

(Ireland, Scotland) The last three days of March, supposed in Scottish and Irish folklore to have been borrowed by March from April, and to be especially stormy.


Naskapi

An Innu-speaking First Nation in eastern Quebec and Labrador.


warmest regards

(idiomatic) Used as a polite closing of a letter


Volcae

(historical) A Gallic tribal confederation that invaded Macedonia c. 270 BC and fought the assembled Greeks at the Battle of Thermopylae in 279 BC.


hungries

"At my age, I'm lucky to get the hungries at all," he answered

1993, Henry St. Clair Whitehead, Robert Ervin Howard, To sleep, perchance to dream ... nightmare: thirty terrifying tales:

You have just been attacked by the hungries!

1990, Mary Joan Oexmann, The Heart Factor Food Plan:


curly fries

en-noun

curly fries pl (normally plural, singular curly fry)

(chiefly Canada, US) A kind of fries characterized by their spring-like helical shape, being cut from whole potatoes using a specialized spiral slicer.


Modistae

(grammar, historical) The members of a school of grammarian philosophy known as modism or speculative grammar, active in northern France, Germany, England, and Denmark in the 13th and 14th centuries. They believed in a tripartite theory of "modes" of meaning in language, relating to being, understanding, and signifying.


small shellies

Following this is the earliest Cambrian, where large shelly invertebrates are rare (and no trilobites occur), but the commonest fossils are tiny forms nicknamed the “small shellies.”

2009, Joseph Seckbach, Divine Action and Natural Selection, page 486:

Although difficult to interpret, small shellies may hold the key to understanding the origins of shelled and biomineralised groups of animals.

2018, Mark Carnall, “Unidentifiable fossils: palaeontological problematica”, in The Guardian:


isotonics

Isotonics cause more muscle hypertrophy. It is theorized that this is due to the increased capillarization which is stimulated much more by isotonics than isometrics.

1972, Clayne R. Jensen, A. Garth Fisher, Scientific basis of athletic conditioning, page 72:

The development of this kind of fitness is brought about only by dynamic movement, by isotonics, usually against fairly moderate resistance, and repeated many times so that the heart and lungs have to work increasingly harder and longer as training progresses.

1984, Linda Fox, The Complete Head to Toe Exercise Book: Get Fitter, Feel Better:

Hand and wrist isometrics and isotonics are performed in the sling.

2011, Robert A. Donatelli, Physical Therapy of the Shoulder, →ISBN, page 66:


salad greens

Leafy vegetables typically eaten raw, such as lettuce, rocket (arugula), etc.


superheroics

As the World Trade Center disaster changed global politics and the world's conception of America irrevocably, so The Authority had violently changed superheroics—and a lot of creative people with egos had their livelihood—or at least their relevancy—threatened as a result.

2007, Jeffery Klaehn, Inside the World of Comic Books, Black Rose Books Ltd., →ISBN, page 153:

That is to say, it's not supervillainy that's the opposite of superheroics[,] but pacifism. Thus, The Nail confirms the greatness of superheroics by having the greatest superhero of all explicitly repudiate nonviolence.

2017, Noah Berlatsky, Wonder Woman: New Edition with Full Color Illustrations, Rutgers University Press, →ISBN, page 77:


tweezertrodes

tweezers that also function as electrodes


black clergy

In Russia, the regular or monastic clergy, as distinct from the secular or parochial.


nasal prongs

(medicine, more common in the Commonwealth, often informal) Nasal cannula.


spondonical

(usually plural only) Alternative form of spondonicle


spondonicle

(Australia, colloquial, usually plural only) A metal tool used to pick up a hot pot or billycan which has been on a campfire or other heat source.


spondonicles

spondonicles pl (normally plural, singular spondonicle)

Rumoured to have first been used in a film by The Three Stooges, in which the term was allegedly used to refer to an unknown medical instrument used in a surgery.

Used spondonicles recently for the first time for a long time with a recently purchased car-camping stove.....

2002 17 July, David Springthorpe, "Re: Spondonicals", in aus.bushwalking, Usenet

"So I just picked [the billy] up by the spondonicles and walked it outside to cool it in the snow."

2006 January 28, Roger Caffin, “Re: Gas camping stove explodes”, in aus.bushwalking (Usenet):

(Australia, colloquial) A metal tool used to pick up a hot pot or billycan which has been on a campfire or other heat source.


spondonicals

spondonicals pl (normally plural, singular spondonical)


Bontoc

Mountain Province
Mountain Province#English

A municipality, the capital of Mountain Province, Philippines

A barangay of Bontoc, Mountain Province, Philippines

(historical) A former Spanish commandancy.

(historical) A subprovince of Lepanto-Bontoc, created from the commandancy.


steel toys

(archaic) Small articles made of steel, such as buttons and buckles.


probe-scissors

Scissors used to open wounds, the blade having a button at the end.


phytogenics

Phytogenics, or plant-derived compounds, have been incorporated in livestock and poultry feed to improve productivity. Phytogenics include a broad range of plant materials, most of which have a long history in human nutrition, where they have been used as flavors, food preservatives, and medicines, in solid, dried, and ground forms or as extracts or essential oils.

2010, T. J. Applegate, “Probiotics and phytogenics for poultry: Myth or reality?”, in Journal of Applied Poultry Research, volume 19, page 194:

A group of natural growth promoters used as feed additives.


surgery hours

The official surgery hours were from nine until ten every morning from Monday to Friday and from five until six every evening except Wednesday.

1977, Edward Vernon, Practice Makes Perfect, page 18:

The time during which a medical doctor regularly receives patients to his or her surgery for consultation or treatment.


dress clothes

Clothes intended to be worn on special occasions.


optical tweezers

A scientific instrument that uses lasers to manipulate objects on the micron scale as if by using tweezers.


duck's guts

Senator Collins —And the ILC will support it.
Senator ELLISON —If it supports it. This is the ducks guts, as we term it in Western Australia. It depends upon whether the ILC says it is a good idea, because I will bet Senator Collins a guinea to a gooseberry that these people—
Senator Collins —Is that another thing that Western Australians say?

1994 November 9, Christopher Martin Ellison, Robert Lindsay Collins, “ATSIC AMENDMENT (INDIGENOUS LAND CORPORATION AND LAND FUND) BILL”, in Parliament of Australia, Senate Hansard:

A line of stationary engines, knocked up between the wars in the wheat-belt town of Wagin, is just about the duck's guts of collectibles, so far as he is concerned.

2002, Brett D'Arcy, The Mindless Ferocity of Sharks, page 208:

But I'm not about t'grizzle -
she was th duck's guts, me time at th Pulp.
I always believed in a good day's work fr a fair pay
and I got on there.[…]

2012, Pete Hay, “The Duck's Guts”, in Last Days of the Mill:

(Australia, informal) Something superlative, something outstanding.

“We are at a really precarious time in our history. If we can’t get the investors in and we are not achieving a growth agenda as a country, but a consolidation agenda, we are in ducks’ guts,” he [Jeremy Stephen] said.

2018 January 31, “We are close to ducks’ guts, says economist”, in Barbados Today, archived from the original on 2018-02-01:

De cuntry in duck’s guts and wunna heah polemicizing bout how we must elect a former lady of the night cause she got potential

2018 March 27, pieceuhderockyeahright (username), “‘Natlee’ the Former Prostitute Vying to Expand Her Job Description in the City (comment)”, in Barbados Underground:

(Barbados, slang) A difficult or awkward situation, trouble.


eggs rancheros

huevos rancheros
huevos rancheros#English


ephebiatrics

(medicine) The branch of medicine that deals with the treatment of adolescents.


Dutch drops

(medicine, historical) A balsam, or popular nostrum, of oil of turpentine, tincture of guaiacum, etc.


Docetae

(Christianity, historical) The followers of the Christian heresy of docetism.


ground provisions

In Barbadoes, I doubt whether the corn, (it is Indian corn not wheat) and the ground provisions (I mean yams, and other roots) raised in the island, are sufficient to maintain the inhabitants for three months […]

1775, Richard Glover, The Substance of the Evidence on the Petition Presented by the West-India Planters and Merchants, London, page 40:

There is little cane grown in St. Mary: most of the cultivation is in fruit and ground provisions.

1890, Edgar Mayhew Bacon, Eugene Murray Aaron, The New Jamaica, New York: Walbridge, page 174:

Thirty Arawak Indians were brought to teach the English how to plant cassava, yams, and other ground provisions […]

1912, James Rodway, chapter 2, in Guiana: British, Dutch, and French, London: T. Fisher Unwin, page 59:

Lydia has made stewed chicken, rice, string beans, and the ground provisions that Mr. Sinclair likes: dasheen, cassava, and sweet potatoes.

2009, Elizabeth Nunez, chapter 7, in Anna In-Between, New York: Akashic Books, pages 82–83:

(Caribbean, Guyana, Jamaica) Starchy staple vegetables grown in the ground such as yam, taro, cassava and sweet potato.


Three Amigos

From three + amigo. From Spanish amigo (“friend”), and there being three of them.

NORAD

North American Aerospace Defense Command

(plural only, informal, Canada, US, politics) Canada, Mexico, and the United States.

(plural only, informal, Canada, US, politics) The prime minister of Canada and the presidents of Mexico and the United States.


fairy-beads

The separate joints of the stems of fossil crinoids found in carboniferous limestone.


Peculiar People

In reference to any of several places in the Bible where "a peculiar people", a people set apart from others, is mentioned, such as Deuteronomy 14:2, 1 Peter 2:9, and Titus 2:14: for example, "For thou art an holy people unto the Lord thy God, and the Lord hath chosen thee to be a peculiar people unto himself, above all the nations that are upon the earth" (Deuteronomy 14:2).

(Christianity) Any of several Christian sects who have used this biblical description as a self-appellation, as:


Gubbins

(folklore) A half-savage race said to live in Devonshire, described by the pastoral poet William Browne, among others.


tears before bedtime

(idiomatic, figurative) Harm or damage that is incurred before a matter is concluded.


devil's books

(derogatory) Playing cards, regarded as sinful because of their connection with gambling.


worry beads

A set of beads on a circle of string which are manipulated through the fingers one at a time, intended to relieve stress or pass time.


puxi

The most singular food, in all probability, is that larvæ of a fly, common in certain portions of California and known as Ephydra. […] Not only the eggs, but the larvæ, themselves a disagreeable-looking worm, are used as food under the name of puxi.

1904, “Curious Foods”, in Pacific Medical Journal, volume 47, page 691:

The "larvae", furthermore, are said to be eaten as puxi, so that the miraculous corixids are eaten in four different forms under as many names.

1957, Edward Smith Deevey, Limnologic Studies in Middle America: With a Chapter on Aztec Limnology:

They also gather aquatic insect eggs (ahuautle), brine flies (puxi), and algae (cuculito).

2008, Prehispanic Settlement Patterns in the Northwestern Valley of Mexico: The Zumpango Region, Museum of Anthropology, University of Michigan:

The edible larvae of various flies of the genus Ephydra, found in the alkaline lakes of western North America.


groziers

Pliers with serrated jaws, one curved and one flat, used by glaziers to break and finish glass in a controlled manner.


congressfolk

(US, informal) congressmen and congresswomen


skilvings

(UK, dialect, obsolete) A frame fixed on top of a cart to increase its carrying capacity.


downbelows

The G-Spot, according to the fat-headed, boss-eyed berk who invented it, is an area in a female person's downbelows that, when stimulated, causes instant and magnificent orgasms.

1988, Mark Lemon, Henry Mayhew, Tom Taylor, Punch, volume 294, page 21:

So there I was, scarlet with embarrassment, Mel and William giggling, no trousers on and about a million shoppers staring at my down-belows, when a man with a camera approaches Mum and says he's from the local paper.

2015, Jamie Rix, The Revenge Files of Alistair Fury: Dead Dad Dog:

More specifically, how do you find that lass who first induced priapic glee in the ol' fuzzy downbelows behind the bike sheds?

2007, Joe Shooman, "Whose Space is it Anyway?":


frings

Side orders of Caesar salad, french fries, onion rings, frings (fries and rings), or chili fries ($2-4).

2001, John Penisten, Kaua'I - The Garden Island: Making the Most of Your Family Vacation:

Hefty patties stacked high with fresh toppings are accompanied by a basket of “frings”–fries and rings.

2015, DK Eyewitness Travel Guide USA, page 713:

(slang, neologism) A combined portion of fries and onion rings.


deasphalter bottoms

The deasphalter unit is usually placed after the vacuum distillation tower, where, by the use of a low-boiling liquid hydrocarbon solvent, such as propane or butane under pressure, the insoluble asphalt-like product (deasphalter bottoms) is .separated from the feedstock.

2014, R Luque, J Speight, Gasification for Synthetic Fuel Production, →ISBN:

Propane (or sometimes propane/butane mixtures) is extensively used for deasphalting and produces a deasphalted oil (DAO) and deasphalter bottoms (propane deasphalter asphalt, PDA, PD tar) (Dunning and Moore, 1957).

2015, James G. Speight, Fouling in Refineries, →ISBN, page 210:

A mixture of tar and asphalt that is produced as a byproduct of the deasphalting process.


regalia minora

(Scots law) Things that inherently belong to the sovereign but may be conveyed to a subject.


regalia majora

(Scots law) Things that inherently belong to the sovereign and are inseparable from his or her person.


pitris

(Hinduism) The spirits of departed ancestors, venerated in Hindu culture.


Nisga'a

From Tlingit Naasgha. (“people of the Nass river”).

der

A First Nation people inhabiting northwest British Columbia, on the mouth of the Nass river.


smallstock

Pastoral systems in East Africa are dual operations which produce milk for subsistence and beef cattle and smallstock for sale.

1991, Solomon Bekure, “Livestock transactions, food consumption and household budgets”, in Maasai Herding: An Analysis of the Livestock Production System of Maasai Pastoralists in Eastern Kajiado District, Kenya:

(Botswana) Domesticated and farmed animals other than cows (commonly sheep, goats and pigs).


thinning scissors

A type of scissors used in hairdressing that has a serrated edge and which is used to reduce the bulk of a section of hair rather than the length.


suffioni

(archaic) Exhalations of hot sulfurous vapours, common in volcanic regions.


ones and zeroes

/ˈwʌnz n̩ ˈzɪəɹəʊz/

From the fact that the numerals 1 (one) and 0 (zero) are used to indicate binary numbers.

The incoming signals were broken down into digital code—ones and zeroes—by a relatively simple computer and downlinked to Fort Huachuca, where another computer of vastly greater power examined the bits of raw information and tried to make sense of them.

1989 August 17, Tom Clancy, Clear and Present Danger, New York, N.Y.: G[eorge] P[almer] Putnam’s Sons, →ISBN; Berkley premium tie-in edition, New York, N.Y.: Berkley Books, November 2018, →ISBN, page 360:

The so-called higher level programming languages, like the various dialects of BASIC and PASCAL familiar to students in the 1980s, greatly simplified the business of programming, since it is no longer necessary—at least for certain purposes—to do what is now called "machine language programming," or what in earlier days was programming, i.e., employing the ones and zeroes now frequently viewed as rather tedious and theoretical [...]

1990, G. E. Scott, “Malleable Persons”, in Moral Personhood: An Essay in the Philosophy of Moral Psychology (SUNY Series in Ethical Theory), Albany, N.Y.: State University of New York Press, →ISBN, page 40:

Hiro Protagonist [in Snow Crash (1992) by Neal Stephenson] must win, one might say, on both Surf and Turf against the wonderfully evil Evangelist Minister R. Bob Riff and his allies, both in the world of violence, swordplay, and aircraft carriers and in the world of ones and zeros.

1996, R[obert] James Woolsey [Jr.], “Resilience and Vulnerability in the Digital Age”, in Stuart J. D. Schwartzstein, editor, The Information Revolution and National Security: Dimensions and Directions (Significant Issues Series; vol. XVIII, no. 3), Washington, D.C.: Center for Strategic and International Studies, →ISBN, →ISSN, page 79:

Now one must also: [...] be able to discern or possess a device that is able to discern the ones and zeroes on the storage medium, [...]

1998, Doug Carlston, “Storing Knowledge”, in Margaret MacLean, Ben H. Davis, editors, Time & Bits: Managing Digital Continuity, Los Angeles, Calif.: Getty Conservation Institute, →ISBN, page 24:

But suppose there is a special and universal and innate language for thinking. Suppose, in particular, that just as computers have a language of ones and zeroes that underlies all of their programs and applications, there is an equally fundamental language shared by all humans: a language of thought (lot) [...].

2001, Andrew Brook, Robert J. Stainton, “Knowledge of Language”, in Knowledge and Mind: A Philosophical Introduction (A Bradford Book), 1st paperback edition, Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, →ISBN, pages 54–55:

You once said that the "ones and zeros" in the world's computers were demons that could trick the human race into losing all its history.

2007, Henning Mankell, chapter 8, in Laurie Thompson, transl., Kennedy’s Brain: Translated from the Swedish, New York, N.Y.: The New Press, →ISBN, part 1 (Christ’s Cul-de-sac), page 83:

If you are a developer or an architect, you are one for a good reason: Your magic and craft is turning ones and zeros into a solution that makes life and work better.

2008, Steven C. Seow, “Preface”, in Karen Gettman, editor, Designing and Engineering Time: The Psychology of Time Perception in Software, Upper Saddle River, N.J., Boston, Mass.: Addison-Wesley, →ISBN, page xvii:

Neo has been hacking since he was in elementary school. He is more at ease with ones and zeros than his own language.

2012, Wayne M. Smith, “The Wraith of Frank—Cyber War Style”, in The Sand Castle, [Bloomington, Ind.]: Xlibris, →ISBN, pages 99–100:

If the movie [Ralph Breaks the Internet] never falls into a feedback loop, credit should probably go to [John C.] Reilly and especially [Sarah] Silverman, who bring human vulnerability to little bits of ultra-branded ones and zeroes.

2018 November 14, Jesse Hassenger, “Disney Goes Viral with an Ambitious, Overstuffed Wreck-It Ralph Sequel”, in The A.V. Club, archived from the original on 2019-11-21:

(computing, informal) Binary code; on and off bits.


mandrix

(slang) Synonym of mandies (“the drug methaqualone”)


mandies

(slang) The drug methaqualone, used recreationally.


randy mandies

Chosen for the rhyme, from mandies, with randy describing the sexual desire they may induce.


deployment goggles

Camp Cupcake was somewhere where the grunts would make a pit stop. They'd see you and you were the most beautiful thing in the world. Back home you may not be much, but out there they've got deployment goggles—you look good, so you're in chow hall and it's kind of uncomfortable because you feel like a piece of meat or something on display.

2010, Laura Browder, Sascha Pflaeging, When Janey Comes Marching Home: Portraits of Women Combat Veterans, University of North Carolina Press, →ISBN, page 137:

(humorous, military slang) A tendency to regard people as more sexually attractive than one usually would, as a result of being deployed to a region where there are few potential partners.


youngfolk

Youngfolk are sometimes seen to have placed a ' puthi-mala ' (garland of beads) of blue, white or amber colour round their necks.

1939, Minendra Nath Basu, The Bunas of Bengal, page 61:

At a symposium on Sport and Recreation held in Manchester recently, Mr. R. C. Macmillan, a specialist in park administration said that he sometime noticed idle youngfolk gathered in groups, both boys and girls, at the park gate where their conversation was neither good nor healthy for teenagers.

1965, Calcutta Municipal Gazette - Volume 83, page 564:

Even when the older people were reluctant, the youngfolk persuaded them to dispose of the lands keeping only that much as was needed for the family, thinking, of course wrongly, that it would take a long time to secure cash money by cultivation and selling their products.

1968, S. P. Sinha, The Problem of Land Alienation of the Tribals in and Around Ranchi, 1955-65, page 29:

Using selection headings from the book (menfolk, womenfolk, children, and youngfolk), students record related data on a web as they read.

1994, Dorothy Grant Hennings, Communication in action: teaching the language arts, page 130:


housepants

She wears a thin T-shirt, and housepants. It is obvious where AUTUMN got her looks.

2009, Scott Phillips, Confessions of an Expat, →ISBN, page 40:

Changing his plaid housepants because he didn't shake well enough after pissing and had dribbled on them and they now smelled like piss.

2016, Dave Eggers, Heroes of the Frontier, →ISBN:

Simple, comfortable, informal pants such as are, or would typically be, worn around the house rather than when going out.


gloomies

LL-Q1860 (eng)-I learned some phrases-gloomies.wav

A fanciful plural of gloomy: gloomy + -ies (suffix forming plural nouns ending in y). Gloom is derived from Middle English *gloom, *glom, from Old English glōm (“gloaming, twilight; darkness”), ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *ǵʰley- (“to gleam, glow, shimmer”).

suffix

suffix forming plural nouns ending in <i class="Latn mention" lang="en">y</i>

der

The drear departing day, the coming night, / Increase the gloomies of the tempest's sound, / And damp the last faint hope those trembling souls had found.

1825, [Richard Rotton], “Canto I”, in Herban, a Poem. In Four Cantos, London: G. B. Whittaker, […], →OCLC, stanza XXXVI, page 23:

[…] Chichester was too good-natured not to exert himself for the enlivenment of a handsome girl suffering under a fit of the gloomies—more especially of one who happened to be an intimate friend of his sweet Cecilia!

1840, [Catherine] Gore, chapter XI, in The Dowager; or, The New School for Scandal. […], volume II, London: Richard Bentley, […] , →OCLC, page 295:

If anything happens to me I want you to promise me something. Promise me you'll make a new life for yourself. As soon as you can. You're very young. Don't get the gloomies and be a martyr, please.

1964, H[erbert] E[rnest] Bates, chapter 15, in A Moment in Time, London: Pollinger in Print, published 2006, →ISBN, page 168:

The Pacific Northwest is often overcast, and the Grumneys' decision to keep almost all of their trees around and in the middle of the compound meant we could be into the dark and gloomies if we were not careful.

1996, Jeffrey Prentiss, “A Cost-conscious House in North Carolina”, in Country Houses (Fine Homebuilding Great Houses), Newtown, Conn.: Taunton Press, published 1997, →ISBN, page 14:

But thanks for the opening night gift. If anything can keep away the gloomies and bad luck, this will.

2004 August, Flo Fitzpatrick, chapter 29, in Ghost of a Chance, New York, N.Y.: Zebra Books, →ISBN, page 287:

He's down in the dumps because nobody wants to buy his art and his wife died, while she's got a case of the gloomies in response to public apathy for the plight of the underclass.

2018 December 12, Charles Bramesco, “A Spoonful of Nostalgia Helps the Calculated Mary Poppins Returns Go Down”, in The A.V. Club, archived from the original on 2019-05-24:

(informal) Preceded by the: gloom, despondency.


petticoat breeches

(historical) Loose short breeches worn by men in the 17th century.


St. Cuthbert's beads

Named after Cuthbert, the apostle of Northumbria (635-687).

The perforated joints of encrinites found on Lindisfarne.


purchase shears

A very strong kind of shears, having removable cutters, and a strong spring at the back.


summary proceedings

(law) Certain statutory remedies taken without the formal bringing of an action by process and pleading.


gallows-bitts

(nautical) A frame fixed in a ship's deck to support spare spars.

sparrachroch

a frame fixed in a ship's deck to support spare spars


sunshine and lollipops

I hated to rain on their parade, but it wasn't all sunshine and lollipops on the other side of those trees, because every Friday night at nine, the Riverside Boys were getting ready to do some crooked business […]

2010, James Leck, The Adventures of Jack Lime:

sunshine and rainbows
sunshine and rainbows#English


Cadusii

(historical) A tribe of Media settled on the shores of the Caspian Sea.


both barrels

In reference to discharging both barrels of a double-barrelled shotgun simultaneously rather than one at a time.

to give someone both barrels

to let someone have both barrels

to hit someone with both barrels

(informal, figuratively) The maximum damage that a weapon can deliver.


sanitaries

He picked up his white sanitaries and the red and white striped stirrup socks and sat down on the dressing stool once again before he slipped his feet into the sanitaries, making sure that the elastic tops reached just above his knees.

2002, Emil Mihelich, Around the Horn, →ISBN, page 107:

The 1909 Genoa High School Baseball Club members are shown wearing striped leggings, or stirrups, over white stockings called “sanitaries.”

2010, Denise Moran, Genoa and Kingston, →ISBN:

He switched on the light and donned his uniform: white pants that stopped high up the calf for the look he liked, sanitaries, navy blue stirrups, worn cleats, and the navy blue shirt that buttoned down the front and had "All-Stars" written on the front and his surname, "Pleasance," and number, "9," on the back.

2011, Peter Abrahams, Revolution #9, →ISBN:

Somebody —and I am certain it was Cade Hernandez —must have picked the thing up, because Coach Ritchey's rotten tooth had a way of showing up in a randomly selected boy's sanitaries, cap, or athletic supporter before every game we played.

2014, Andrew Smith, 100 Sideways Miles, →ISBN, page 17:


Massagetae

(historical) An ancient Eastern Iranian Saka people who inhabited the steppes of Central Asia and were part of the wider Scythian cultures.


Heracleidae

(Greek mythology) The descendants of Heracles.


haypence

(archaic, dialect, nonstandard) halfpence


polar lights

The aurora borealis or aurora australis.


unessentials

For our part, we cannot help regretting that the un'''essentials of religion should, in any case, be confounded with its essentials; for nothing, we are certain, has so much hurt the cause of religion.

1779 April, uncredited correspondent, “Marshall’s Minutes of Agriculture,”, in The Monthly Review, volume 60, page 149:

[…] Jameson was encumbered by artillery, ammunition, and rifles. The facts of the battle show that he should have had none of those things along. They were heavy, they were in his way, they impeded his march. There was nothing to shoot at but rocks—he knew quite well that there would be nothing to shoot at but rocks—and he knew that artillery and rifles have no effect upon rocks. He was badly overloaded with unessentials.

1897, Mark Twain, chapter 67, in Following the Equator […] , New York: American Publishing Company:

Hers was no wholesome labor in which she could find sacred forgetfulness. It was the round of unessentials which all office-women know so desperately well.

1917, Sinclair Lewis, The Job, New York: Grosset & Dunlap, Part 2, Chapter 9, p. 133:

We have quite removed from men’s minds what that pestilent fellow Paul used to teach about food and other unessentials—namely, that the human without scruples should always give in to the human with scruples.

1944, C. S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters, London: Geoffrey Bles, Letter 16, p. 84:


Saulteaux

From French saulteux, or French saulteurs, from French sault (“waterfall”) in reference to Sault Ste. Marie (then called Sault de Gaston) where the French first encountered them.

an indigenous nation from the northern Great Plains and southern Canadian Shield, the Westernmost branch of the Ojibwe or Anishnaabe


trunk breeches

Peregrine, who was an expert swimmer, reached the shore in safety; the physician, in the agonies of despair, laid fast hold on the trunk-breeches of one of the men, who dragged him to the other side […].

1751, [Tobias] Smollett, The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle […], volume (please specify |volume=I to IV), London: Harrison and Co., […], →OCLC:


three Fs

(historical) Free sale, fixity of tenure, and fair rent: the three demands of the Irish Land League.


bag people

Calque of Russian мешочники (mešočniki), from the large sacks they often carried.

Small-scale peddlers or traders operating in the wake of economic and political collapse, often having been displaced from the cities into the countryside.


wasei kango

Borrowed from Japanese 和製漢語 (literally “Japan-made Chinese words”).

bor

Words coined in Japanese that are based on Chinese characters.

Japanese coinages using Chinese roots, not originally in use in Chinese-speaking countries nor by Chinese native speakers, but only by speakers of Japanese.


Vincenty's formulae

Two related iterative methods used in geodesy to calculate the distance between two points on the surface of a spheroid.


marble scissors

A tool for cutting glass to make marbles.


dalls

(US, obsolete) Rapids; a rough section of water.


Pele's tears

en-noun

Pele's tears pl (normally plural, singular Pele's tear)

Named after Pele, the Hawaiian fire goddess of volcanoes.

Small black pieces of solidified lava formed when airborne particles of molten material fuse into tear-like drops of volcanic glass.


four corners

(US, slang, chiefly California) A place where residents from multiple parts of a country or countries, or different cultures in general, come together.


Chosen People

(religion) A group having a special status and relationship to God.


guinea grains

guinea grains pl (normally plural, singular guinea grain)

From its native range in West Africa, formerly generally known as Guinea, q.v.

The tooth is plugged with a pounded mixture of the root of the lime tree and Guinea grains.

1904, Journal of the African Society, number 3, page 374:

grains of paradise
grains of paradise#English


Scirii

(historical) An East Germanic tribe of Eastern Europe, attested in historical works between the 2nd century BC and 5th century AD.


typographia

Miscellaneous materials relating to printers and printing.


pastures new

After fourteen years at the company, Bob is moving on to pastures new.


all the world and his wife

all the world and his wife pl (plural only)

From Polite Conversation by Jonathan Swift, 1731.


measurement goods

Light goods for which transportation charges are assessed based on bulk, not weight.


ways and means

Schemes for raising money for the carrying on of government.


usual channels

(UK politics) Communication channels between the government and the main opposition party, used to discuss matters pertaining to the business of parliament.


ungone

(slang) People temporarily remaining in Antarctica because their scheduled departure was cancelled.


pekpek shorts

She ran her gaze sharply over her sister's designer pekpek shorts and leggings, her layered silver and gold chains. 'You're doing alright, plus you don't have the responsibility of kids.'

2017, Dreda Say Mitchell, Blood Daughter: Flesh and Blood Series Book Three, Hodder & Stoughton, →ISBN:

(Philippines, slang) Extremely short shorts, worn by women, that exposes the buttocks.


Fancy Dutch

The Pennsylvania German people who do not observe requirements to wear plain clothes; often those not belonging to Anabaptist groups.


Plain Dutch

The Pennsylvania German people who observe religious strictures to only wear plain clothes; often those belonging to Anabaptist groups.


voces magicae

From Latin vōcēs magicae (“magic words”).

After that follow 5 passages, all introduced by the anaphorical “You are…” (sy ei) and separated from each other by voces magicae.

1982, Jan Bergman, edited by M Heerma van Voss et al., Studies in Egyptian Religion, page 29:

Bonner contends that while the two might have sounded similar, glossolalia was “spontaneous, unmediated utterance”, while the voces magicae consisted of carefully transmitted, stereotypical formulas.

2006, David Edward Aune, Apocalypticism, Prophecy and Magic in Early Christianity, page 412:

Jewish authors took over the voces magicae in particular, on a large scale, and with them the associated tradition of making geometric shapes out of words to combine the power of texts and mathematics.

2017, Ronald Hutton, The Witch, Yale University Press, published 2018, page 106:

Magical formulae, typically consisting of incomprehensible words or syllables, as used in ancient and early-modern amulets and magical texts.


waist overalls

From waist + overalls.
From being waist-length overalls, without the upper bib portion.
Coined by Levi Strauss Co. when the first denim blue jeans pants were marketed in 1873.

(obsolete) Synonym of denim jeans (pants, trousers)


Tuoba

The extinct language formerly spoken by the Tuoba.


tagadhari

From Sanskrit तागाधारी (tāgādhārī), from Sanskrit तागा (tāgā, “thread”) and धारी (dhārī, “one who bears”).

The people who wear the Hindu holy thread (yagyopavita) given after the upanayana initiation ceremony.


tongue troopers

UPDATE Jacques Nadeau Levesque: Sending in 'the tongue troopers"

2001, Robert Bothwell, A Traveller's History of Canada, Interlink Publishing Group Incorporated
To enforce the law, the government established an Office de la langue française, whose inspectors were promptly dubbed "the language police" or "the tongue troopers".

(Canada, informal, derogatory, specifically) The Office québécois de la langue française (Quebec Board of the French Language)


dead-clothes

(archaic) Garments in which to bury the dead.


Wednesday spoilers

I may have accidentally reblogged some Wednesday spoilers without tagging them today.

2014 January 8, Ruth, “Sorry”, in Books. Comics. Life. (blog):

Tumblr users tend to use tags like this to avoid spoilers – you can just blacklist the tag the fandom uses to post them, should you know what it is (and many Tumblr fans do). For Supernatural, for instance, fans use “spn spoilers” to note when a post contains spoilers, and “got spoilers” is the same thing for Game of Thrones. Comics has a fandom-wide tag of “Wednesday spoilers,” because that’s when most issues come out, Brennan added.

[2015 December 15, Abby Ohlheiser, “‘Star Wars’ fans are very, very afraid of spoiler trolls right now”, in The Washington Post:

Friendly reminder that tomorrow morning starts Wednesday Spoilers, so if you don't want spoilers from Batman #66, please, mute the account until you read it.

2019 March 5, @thebestofbatcat, Twitter:

(fandom slang) Spoilers for recent comic books (which are typically released each Wednesday).


Irish sunglasses

(slang) Two black eyes (eyes showing hematoma from bruises).


battleworks

Hearst had his little fingers on Mrs Tovey's ample waist, on what felt through the silk like an ironclad's battleworks.

1961, William Sansom, The last hours of Sandra Lee, page 195:

The horizon of heaven is felt as a metal battleworks deflecting the arrows of prayer that are sent to soar as pleas for some castle-master's help for forgiveness: My prayer must meet a brazen heaven And fail and scatter all away.

1996, David Anthony Downes, Hopkins' achieved self, page 156:

"I know what's inside the battleworks," she said. "The biggest, harshest weapons in existence, I know. ..."

2014, Robert Reed, The Memory of Sky, →ISBN:

Protective infrastructure erected to protect weapons and soldiers during battle.


mulleygrubs

" […] the disease is either extinct, or exists in such a mild form that a short course of aperient medicine carries it off. It is sometimes called the Blue-devils now or the Mulleygrubs. Queer names, ain't they?"

1890, William Morris, News from Nowhere, in the journal The Commonweal. (First published in book form 1890.)

Alternative form of mulligrubs (“low spirits, mild depression, the blues”)


Mulleygrubs

1890, William Morris, News from Nowhere, in the journal The Commonweal. (First published in book form 1890.)

(obsolete) Alternative letter-case form of mulleygrubs


sastracundies

(obsolete) A kind of cotton cloth from India.


cherconnaes

From Hindi [Term?] (literally “chequered”).


addaties

In Harial dessy copass was used for fine and middling cossaes, fine and superfine hummums and fine middling addaties.

1956, Narendra Krishna Sinha, The Economic History of Bengal: From Plassey to the permanent settlement, page 106:


carridaries

(obsolete) A kind of silk and cotton fabric from India.


ankle grazers

A type of ladies' jeans that are slightly shorter than normal (but longer than capri pants).


laccowries

(obsolete) A kind of plain white cotton cloth from India.


tan balls

The muddy sediment of tanpits, dried and used for fuel.


Four Noble Truths

the Four Noble Truths (canonical plural)

Calque of Sanskrit चत्वारि आर्यसत्यानि (catvāri āryasatyāni).

calque

चत्वारि आर्यसत्यानि

noble eightfold path
noble eightfold path

(Buddhism) Four central Buddhist teachings: (i) that suffering is an innate characteristic of existence with each rebirth; (ii) that it is caused by cravings or desires; (iii) that it can be ended by eliminating the cravings or desires; and (iv) that the noble eightfold path is the way to achieve this.


five aggregates

(Buddhism) five skandhas (aggregates) of being


three fires

(Buddhism) Three Poisons; three primary causes of unskillful action that lead to the creation of "negative" karma


Eight Precepts

Calque of Pali aṭṭha-sīla, aṭṭhaṅga-sīla or Calque of Sanskrit अष्टा-सील (aṣṭā-sīla), अष्टाण्ग-शील (aṣṭāṇga-śīla).

(Buddhism) Eight rules that are observed by lay Buddhists on observance days and festivals: to abstain from (i) taking life, (ii) taking what is not given, (iii) unchastity, (iv) false speech, (v) intoxicants which cause a careless frame of mind, (vi) taking food at the wrong time, (vii) dancing, music, visiting shows, flowers, make-up, the wearing of ornaments and decorations, and (viii) a tall, high sleeping place.


hijinxs

A nonstandard respelling; considering fairly recent citations, possibly reinforced by "Jungle Hijinxs", the name of the first level of the popular 1994 video game Donkey Kong Country.

Peter Clifford needs to take down Mike Brunley and his carnival of carnal hijinxs to make Upton's exposure truly sensational. If this is accomplished then Peter Clifford will see the door to greater opportunity open for him and, as we well know, […]

2001, Leo F. White, Dirty Pictures, BookBaby, →ISBN:

[S]ocial hijinxs was kept pretty much to a minimum. We had a lot of fun, but we pretty much knew when not to cross the line. We never hurt anyone or did harm to any property.

2005, Susan Cramer, Confessions of a Special Ed Teacher, Trafford Publishing, →ISBN, page 63:

“For hijinxs and crazy shenanigans that'll leave you chuckling to the bewilderment of those around you, I highly suggest this book.” — Love Romance Passion

2009, Sara Angelini, Trials of the Honorable F. Darcy, Sourcebooks, Inc., →ISBN, page 346:

Iowa just continued its streak of picking the notnominee. In addition his voting "violation" flier, and now these caucus hijinxs lend credence to what his other scumbag politician jerks have said about him being a bigger jerk.

2016, Kimberly Bratton, Donald Trump: An American Love-fest, Lulu Press, Inc, →ISBN:

You know those movies where the goofy housemate reads a book of spells on Halloween and hijinxs ensue?

2018, L. J. McLeod, “The Perils of Having a Roommate Obsessed with the Occult on Hallows’ Eve”, in T. C. Phillips, editor, Behold the Nightmare: Special Halloween Issue (Specul8: Central Queensland Journal of Speculative Fiction), Rockhampton, Qld.: Specul8 Publishing, →ISBN, page 73:

(nonstandard, uncommon) Alternative spelling of hijinks


wyngz

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

Respelling of wings. Compare cheeze (“vegan cheese”).

Perhaps the most unusual “chicken wings” are offered with DiGiorno's frozen three-meat pizza. They are honey-glazed, buffalo-style “Boneless Wyngz,” which contain no bones and no wing meat, either.

2012, Andrew F. Smith, Fast Food and Junk Food: An Encyclopedia of What We Love to Eat:

3 pieces Tyson Buffalo Style Boneless Chicken Wyngz

2015, Liz Vaccariello, Stop & Drop Diet: Lose Up to 5 Lbs in 5 Days, page 98:

Products without standard of identity (e.g. Wyngz- white chicken fritters)

2017, FSIS Compliance Guidance for Label Approval - August 2017:

(US) A chicken food product resembling chicken wings.


water ribbons

The whole marsh was densely clothed with reeds (Juncus spp.), water-ribbons, (Triglochin procera) and blown grass (Agrostis avenacea), the bed was sticky clay, and the burrows of freshwater crayfish gave each step interesting possibilities.

We wade through the delicate water, the moon spilling on our colourless bodies. Brolgas ruffling their wings against water ribbons, making the muddy bath flinch in coiling waves.

2006, Tara June Winch, Swallow the Air, in Heiss & Minter, Macquarie PEN Anthology of Aboriginal Literature, Allen & Unwin 2008, p. 241

(Australia) An aquatic plant, Triglochin procera, of southeastern Australia.


trackie daks

[W]hy was this happening at night, why was the gender chick in trackie daks and no make-up instead of jacket and heels for the cameras?

2015, Charlotte Wood, The Natural Way of Things, Allen & Unwin, published 2018, page 91:

(Australia) Tracksuit bottoms; tracksuit trousers/pants.


big bikkies

Rob has been doing brilliant things for me on a sub-development case. Very big bikkies. Very big bruisers.

1986, Thomas W. Shapcott, Hotel Bellevue, page 88:

It was the hint of big bickies to be had from big mining that did that.

2006, Alexis Wright, Carpentaria, Giramondo, published 2012, page 52:

(Australia, New Zealand) A lot of money.


Karenni

en-adj

Karenni (comparative more Karenni, superlative most Karenni)

more Karenni (comparative)
most Karenni (superlative)

Anglicized form of Burmese ကရင်နီ (ka.rangni, “red Karen”)


harmans

uncertain

Element of uncertain origin

(obsolete, thieves' cant, plural only) The stocks (instrument of punishment)


jungle drums

Drumming performed, or as performed, in the rituals of traditional pre-industrial societies.


speaking terms

A slight acquaintance, allowing for the exchange of salutations and general remarks.


Panthay

An ethnic group of Chinese Muslims in Myanmar.


Mossi

The largest ethnic group of Burkina Faso.


scarpines

(historical) An instrument of torture resembling the boot.


magoos

2018 Sam Landsberger, Barometer: every club’s injury list and expert selection analysis Herald Sun, 6 August 2018. Accessed 11 May 2019.
Will Walker bobbed up late with an important goal and could not have done much more in just his second game of footy but with Shaun Higgins in the mix and with a shot at the finals still alive the youngster looks set to return to the magoos.

(Australia, rhyming slang, sports) A reserves team.


Anlo

A subgroup of the Ewe people of approximately 6 million people, inhabiting southern Togo, southern Benin, southwest Nigeria, and south-eastern parts of the Volta Region of Ghana.


muck and bullets

Conversely, the United States cannot expect to be excused from "muck and bullets" assignments — such as peacekeeping in the Balkans.

1999, Mind the gap: Promoting a transatlantic revolution in military affairs:

I narrated the first series and it went really well, so they commissioned me to get in among the muck and bullets and actually go on patrol around the world.

2013, Vinnie Jones, It's Been Emotional, page 215:

(informal) Gruelling, unglamorous and potentially dangerous military assignments.


pegtops

A kind of trousers, wide at the top and narrow at the ankles; peg-top trousers.


total digestible nutrients

en-noun

total digestible nutrients pl (plural only)

(agriculture) The total fiber, protein, lipid, and carbohydrate in a feed which can be converted into energy for an animal.


small capitals

Small capitals in an example identify the word receiving the nuclear accent of the clause, or (in most cases) an extra heavy contrastive accent.
[“Bill was the one who wrote this note.” — “No.] Pete wrote it.”

2006, Renaat Declerck, Susan Reed, Bert Cappelle, “The Grammar of the English Verb Phrase”, in The Grammar of the English Tense System, volume 1, →ISBN, page 6:


Yagara

The Pama-Nyungan language spoken by the Yagara and Turrbal peoples.


evolutionaries

(science fiction) A group of more evolved sentient beings.


hewers of wood and drawers of water

hewers of wood and drawers of water pl (plural only)

A biblical term, first mentioned in Joshua 9:21.

And the Princes ſaid vnto them, Let them liue, (but let them bee hewers of wood, and drawers of water, vnto all the Congregation,) as the Princes had promiſed them.

1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Joshua 9:21, column 1:

Now therefore ye are curſed, and there ſhall none of you bee freed from being bondmen, and hewers of wood, and drawers of water, for the houſe of my God.

1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Joshua 9:23, column 1:

And Ioſhua made them that day, hewers of wood, and drawers of water for the Congregation, and for the Altar of the Lord, euen vnto this day, in the place which he ſhould chooſe.

1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Joshua 9:27, column 1:

All these groups are among the hewers of wood and drawers of water whom Marx assured that they would have nothing but their chains to lose if they rose against their oppressors.

1991, Martin Ohaeri Ijere, Women in Nigerian Economy, page 41:

Those who drudge, or are made to work hard; those who do menial or servile work at the behest of others; physical labourers.


tank controls

So called because it necessitates horizontal movement like that of an older tank (military vehicle).

(gaming, first-person games) A control scheme where the player character can move forward (relative to the character's angle), backward and turn, but that does not allow for direct sideways movement (strafing) or necessarily for the player to move while turning.


Kirati

An ethnic group of the Himalayan region of the Indian subcontinent, extending eastward from Nepal to India.


airs and graces

/ˌɛəz‿n̩ ˈɡɹeɪsɪz/

/ˌɛɚz‿n̩ ˈɡɹeɪsɪz/

He made a thouſand uggly Faces, / VVhich (as ſometimes in Ladies caſes) / VVere all deſign'd for Airs and Graces.

1697, [John Vanbrugh], “[Part I]”, in Æsop. A Comedy. […], 3rd edition, London: […] Richard Wellington, […], published 1702, →OCLC, Act II, page 18:

Nature has laid out all her airt in beautifying the face; […] giving it airs and graces that cannot be described, and surrounded it with such a flowing shade of hair as sets all its beauties in the most agreeable light.

1711 July 3 (Gregorian calendar), [Joseph Addison], “FRIDAY, June 22, 1711”, in The Spectator, number 98; republished in Alexander Chalmers, editor, The Spectator; a New Edition, […], volume II, New York, N.Y.: D[aniel] Appleton & Company, 1853, →OCLC, page 43:

Indeed, she rehearsed that exalted part in life with great satisfaction to herself, and to the amusement of old Sir Pitt, who chuckled at her airs and graces, and would laugh by the hour together at her assumptions of dignity and imitations of genteel life.

1847 January – 1848 July, William Makepeace Thackeray, “A Cynical Chapter”, in Vanity Fair […], London: Bradbury and Evans […], published 1848, →OCLC, page 357:

The station (1840) was originally Cheltenham but the more grandiose Cheltenham Spa since 1925, which feels a bit pretentious as the town has never allowed itself to assume such airs and graces.

2023 January 11, Stephen Roberts, “Bradshaw's Britain: castles and cathedrals”, in RAIL, number 974, page 56:

(derogatory) Behaviour adopted to demonstrate (originally) one's good upbringing; or (now) one's superiority; pretentious or snobbish behaviour.

hienostelu

behaviour adopted (originally) to demonstrate one’s good upbringing; or (now) one’s superiority


Pyrénées-Orientales

Borrowed from French Pyrénées-Orientales (literally “Eastern Pyrenees”).

bor

A department of the region of Occitania, France. Capital: Perpignan.


long-togs

They laugh at long-togs so, Flask; but seems to me, a Long tailed coat ought always to be worn in all storms afloat. The tails tapering down that way, serve to carry off the water, d'ye see. Same with cocked hats; the cocks form gable-end eave-troughs, Flask.

1851 November 14, Herman Melville, Moby-Dick; or, The Whale, 1st American edition, New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers; London: Richard Bentley, →OCLC:

(nautical, obsolete) Clothes to be worn when going ashore.


holy orders

(Christianity) The sacrament of ordination to the rank of minister or (in Catholicism and Orthodoxy) deacon, priest, or bishop.


knobbies

(colloquial) Knobby tyres for motorbikes or bicycles off-road use.


straitened circumstances

en-noun

straitened circumstances pl (plural only)

They had been living in straitened circumstances after John was made redundant.

The throne speech’s relative timidity is a reflection of the government’s straitened financial circumstances.

1982 December 11, Frances Russell, “Economic performance buoys Pawley’s position”, in The Vancouver Sun (The Weekend Sun), Vancouver, BC, page A6:

Reduced (financial) circumstances; poverty, austerity.


cimelia

From Medieval Latin cimelia, cimilia, from Ancient Greek κειμήλῐᾰ (keimḗlia), plural of κειμήλῐον (keimḗlion, “something stored or saved up; treasure; heirloom”), from κεῖμαι (keîmai, “to lie; to be laid up”).

My sincere thanks are due […] to dott.essa Laura Desideri of the Gabinetto Scientifico Vieusseux/Florence (cf. note on Henry Crabb Robinson in the "Gazetteer of Travellers") for opening up to me the riches of this library, including the cimelia of the Fondo "Fiametta Olschki"; […]

1996, “Introduction: Thanks and Acknowledgements”, in Manfred Pfister, editor, The Fatal Gift of Beauty: The Italies of British Travellers: An Annotated Anthology, Amsterdam: Rodopi, →ISBN, page 20:

(rare) Treasures; things considered valuable.


SOCE

(6) The Commission shall ensure the security of the test site for the SOCE by prohibiting applicants from signing in to the ...

(US, Florida) Initialism of State Officer Certification Exam.


allaballies

(obsolete) Alternative form of alliballies


wiggins

Alteration of wiggings, from wig (“to be nervous or fearful”). First recorded use in 1997, in the first episode of the American television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Compare also wigging out.

We could meet someplace quieter. Louder. Uh, that place just kind of gives me the wiggins.

1997 March 10, “Welcome to the Hellmouth”, in Buffy the Vampire Slayer, season 1, episode 1, spoken by Buffy Summers (Sarah Michelle Gellar):

Living in Rush's world never failed to give me the wiggins, but this time I barely noticed.

2014, Ian Thomas Healy, Scott Bachmann, Frank Byrns, The Good Fight:

(slang) The creeps; a feeling of fear or anxiety.


Wolfring's glands

Named after Polish ophthalmologist Emilj von Wolfring (1832-1906).

Small tubular accessory lacrimal glands found in the lacrimal caruncle of the eyelid, which produce tears to be secreted onto the surface of the conjunctiva.


new legs

Along with the growing crisis in the Middle East, this troubling thought seemed to give new legs to realism in American foreign policy, that is, the view that we should be less concerned about the internal social and political makeup of a nation than we should its external behavior.

2008, Thomas F. Farr, World of Faith and Freedom: Why International Religious Liberty Is Vital to American National Security, →ISBN:

To be honest, after me growing Boost to where it was at this stage, the business needed new legs to continue the journey.

2013, Janine Allis, The Secrets of My Success: The Story of Boost Juice, Juicy Bits and All, →ISBN:

What's happened is, she's just given the whole story new legs.

2014, Dominic Utton, Martin Harbottle's Appreciation of Time, →ISBN, page 231:

Energy or momentum for continuing provided by a change.

Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see new, leg.


Krause's glands

Named after German anatomist Karl Friedrich Theodor Krause (1797–1868).

Small mucous accessory lacrimal glands found underneath the eyelid where the upper and lower conjunctivae meet.


three per cents

(finance, historical) Bonds or other securities paying 3% interest, especially a portion of the consolidated debt of Great Britain.