holy war

The conflict is beginning to look like a holy war between Sunnis and Shias.

A war which is primarily caused or justified by differences in religion and beliefs.

(computing, Usenet) A long-running and acrimonious debate or flame war over personal preferences in technical matters, such as the choice between little-endian and big-endian representation.

luftë e shenjtë

a type of war — see also war of religion

(Utah) The rivalry between the sports teams of Brigham Young University and the University of Utah.


uprising

WikiLeaks did not cause these uprisings but it certainly informed them. The dispatches revealed details of corruption and kleptocracy that many Tunisians suspected, but could not prove, and would cite as they took to the streets. They also exposed the blatant discrepancy between the west's professed values and actual foreign policies.

2013 June 7, Gary Younge, “Hypocrisy lies at heart of Manning prosecution”, in The Guardian Weekly, volume 188, number 26, page 18:

But in Charlottesville, Virginia, in August 2017, a large audience of Americans finally saw the real beta uprising in the violent Nazi rally that shut the city down, terrorized the population, and culminated in the vehicular homicide of a local leftist woman

2018, Corey Pein, Live Work Work Work Die, →ISBN:

A popular revolt that attempts to overthrow a government or its policies; an insurgency or insurrection.


UDC

‘My cousin gave me Their Eyes Were Watching God. She had it in a class. She goes to UDC. I liked that book.’

2001, Percival Everett, Erasure, Faber & Faber Limited (2021), page 26:

w:University of the District of Columbia

Initialism of University of the District of Columbia.


inferno

From Italian inferno (“hell”), from Latin infernus (“of the lower regions”), inferna (“the lower regions”); see infernal.
The meaning "big fire" came as a figurative use from the traditional idea of hellfire.

At each sudden explosion in the inferno below they sprang back from the brink [of the volcanic crater].

1899, D. C. Worcester, The Philippine Islands and Their People:

When Jurgis had first inspected the packing plants with Szedvilas, he […] found that each one of these lesser industries was a separate little inferno, in its way as horrible as the killing beds, the source and fountain of them all[, and t]he workers in each of them had their own peculiar diseases.


battle royal

en-noun

battle royal (plural battles royal or battle royals)

battles royal (plural)
battle royals (plural)

/ˌbætl̩ ɹɔɪˈæl/

Preserves the French pattern of adjective after noun. Royal here means “grand in scale”.

I was told that since I was to be there anyway I might as well take part in the battle royal to be fought by some of my schoolmates as part of the entertainment.

1952, Ralph Ellison, Invisible Man, Penguin Books (2014), page 17:

A fight involving three or more individuals, teams, or factions; fought until one person, team, or faction is left standing.


guerrilla warfare

Combat using groups of irregular, light, mobile troops within areas occupied by an enemy force, usually through hit-and-run tactics.

遊擊戰爭

fighting using groups of irregular troops


fighting

fighting (countable and uncountable, plural fightings)

desctree

→ Korean: 화이팅 (hwaiting)
→ Chinese: fighting
→ Japanese: ファイティン (faitin)

From Middle English fightyng, fightynge, fiȝtinge, feȝtyng, from Old English fihtung (“fighting”), equivalent to fight + -ing.

The act or process of contending; violence or conflict.

صِرَاع

the act or process of contending; violence or conflict


insertion

en-noun

insertion (countable and uncountable, plural insertions)

(atomic weapons) The process of going from subcritical to prompt critical.


FDR

Coordinate term: GDR

Federal Democratic Republic
Federal Democratic Republic#English

Initialism of Federal Democratic Republic.

Abbreviation of West Germany. (German Federal Democratic Republic)


fustigation

fustigation (countable and uncountable, plural fustigations)

Slighter palm of martyrdom, however, shall not be denied: martyrdom not of massacre, yet of fustigation.

1837, Thomas Carlyle, The French Revolution: A History […], volume (please specify |volume=I to III), London: Chapman and Hall, →OCLC, (please specify the book or page number):


murder one

Murder in the first degree
murder in the first degree#English

(US, colloquial) Murder in the first degree.


late unpleasantness

late unpleasantness (plural late unpleasantnesses)

It is unlikely that anyone with significant knowledge of the Army or the late unpleasantness in Southeast Asia, upon reading these two sentences, would respond other than with a scatological barnyard expletive or some more genteel utterance representing the same level of acceptance.

2003, Zane E. Finkelstein (referring to the Vietnam War), (Please provide the book title or journal name), archived from the original on 2005-08-28:

(euphemistic) A recent war, especially (historical) the American Civil War.


Guadalcanal

From Spanish. The Pacific island was named in 1568 by Álvaro de Mendaña, after his hometown of Guadalcanal, Spain. From Arabic وَادِي الْخَانَات (wādī l-ḵānāt, “Valley of the Stalls”).

der

وَادِي الْخَانَات

A volcanic island in the Pacific, part of the Solomon Islands.

A battle in World War II in which American forces recaptured it from the Japanese.


fission

en-verb

fission (third-person singular simple present fissions, present participle fissioning, simple past and past participle fissioned)

fissions (present singular third-person)
fissioning (participle present)
fissioned (participle past)
fissioned (past)

Borrowed from Latin fissiōnem, accusative singular of fissiō (“the act of breaking up”), from findō (“split, divide”).

(transitive) To cause to undergo fission.


containment

en-noun

containment (countable and uncountable, plural containments)

Mr. Putin has reinvigorated an alliance that spent years confused about its purpose once it lost the adversary it was formed to contain, the Soviet Union. Now, containment is back.

2022 February 18, David E. Sanger, “The United States’ Message to Russia: Prove Us Wrong”, in The New York Times, →ISSN:

(uncountable, countable) A policy of checking the expansion of a hostile foreign power by creating alliances with other states; especially the foreign policy strategy of the United States in the early years of the Cold War.


hibakusha

hibakusha (plural hibakushas or hibakusha)

/ˈhɪbəˌkuːʃə/

/hɪˈbɑːkʊʃə/

Attested in the mid-20th century, borrowed from Japanese 被爆者 (hibakusha, literally “bomb-affected person”).

bor

The Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons took effect in January after years of civil effort joined by atomic bombing survivors, or hibakusha.

2021 August 6, Mari Yamaguchi, “Hiroshima marks 76th anniversary of US atomic bombing”, in AP News:

A survivor of the 1945 atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

হিবাকুশা

survivor of the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki


fire-eater

Frustrated in their attempts to change the law, fire-eaters turned their efforts to breaking it.

1988, James McPherson, Battle Cry for Freedom, Oxford, published 2003, page 103:

(US, historical) An extreme partisan for the South before the US Civil War.


murderous

en-adj

murderous (comparative more murderous, superlative most murderous)

more murderous (comparative)
most murderous (superlative)

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

From murder + -ous (suffix forming adjectives from nouns denoting possession or presence of a quality).

suffix

murderous behaviour

She gave me a murderous look.

Is any man loth to leave his priſon? or to remove his dwelling from cruel enemies? or to ſcape the hands of murderous robbers? Do we take the world indeed for our priſon? our cruel, ſpoyling, murderous foe? and yet we are loth to leave it?

1659, Richard Baxter, “Reproving Our Unwillingness to Die”, in The Saints Everlasting Rest: Or, A Treatise of the Blessed State of the Saints in Their Enjoyment of God in Glory. […], 8th edition, London: […] Thomas Underhill and Francis Tyton, […], →OCLC, part IV, section V, page 603:

De Salez her Husband ſtriving and ſtrugling for life againſt the pangs of death; fear and haſt (contrary to her intent and mind) had ſo made his murtherous wifes hand ſhake and tremble, as ſhe did not ſo fully cut his throat-bole, but he could yet both cry and groan, which he did very mournfully, and which indeed was ſoon over-heard by a man and a maid-ſervant of his, […]

1662, John Reynolds, “History XI”, in The Triumphs of Gods Revenge against the Crying and Execrable Sin of Murther. […] Book III, London: […] A. M. for William Lee, […], →OCLC, page 152:

Adam alſo was the High Prieſt, and received Authority from God, to teach the ſucceeding Generations of Men how to worſhip God, and what Sacrifices were to be offered by Cain and Abel, and all Poſterity. By which Sacrifices were brought into all Nations, to apply the Blood of the Lamb, ſlain from the foundation of the World, in the unalterable Purpoſes of God, to the Conſciences of all Men for the Remiſſion of their Sins, and to Excommunicate murderous Cain from the preſence of the Lord, […]

1711, Obedience to Civil Government Clearly Stated: […], London: […] George Strahan, […], →OCLC, page 34:

Of a person: intending or likely to commit murder; bloodthirsty, homicidal.

قَتُول

likely to commit murder — see also homicidal


VP Day

From initialism of victory (in the) Pacific + day. Australian from 1945.

(Australia) Victory in the Pacific Day, being the anniversary of 15 August 1945, the day after Japanese forces surrendered in World War II.

Australian War Memorial
Victory over Japan Day


VJ Day

From initialism of victory (over) Japan + day.

Victory over Japan Day, being the anniversary of 15 August 1945, the day after Japanese forces surrendered in World War II; in the US celebrated on 14 August.


beating

en-noun

beating (countable and uncountable, plural beatings)

the beating of a drum

secret beatings of prisoners

[…] to support or agree with the persecutions, beatings, dehumanizings, insults, murders, genocides, and oppressions of a perpetrator's target […]

2008, M. W. Sphero, Religion: The Defamer of God, page 210:

The fight is not all one-sided. Lion is taking a savage beating as the two flagships trade body blows almost independent of the furious carronade going on behind them.

2018 October 17, Drachinifel, 14:13 from the start, in Last Ride of the High Seas Fleet - Battle of Texel 1918, archived from the original on 2022-08-04:

The action by which someone or something is beaten.


strangle

From Middle English stranglen, from Old French estrangler, from Latin strangulō, strangulāre, from Ancient Greek στραγγαλόομαι (strangalóomai, “to strangle”), from στραγγάλη (strangálē, “a halter”); compare στραγγός (strangós, “twisted”) and string. Displaced Middle English wirien, awurien (“to strangle”) (> English worry).

der

στραγγαλόομαι

(finance) A trading strategy using options, constructed through taking equal positions in a put and a call with different strike prices, such that there is a payoff if the underlying asset's value moves beyond the range of the two strike prices.


nuclear winter

Coined by Richard P. Turco et al. in a 1983 paper.

Coordinate term: volcanic winter

Scientists from the United States, the Soviet Union and other countries will meet in the Vatican Monday to discuss “nuclear winter,” the chilling climatic effect a nuclear war could have on the earth.

1984 January 23, “Parley on ‘Nuclear Winter’”, in The New York Times, →ISSN:

The global temperature declines predicted in the original (1983) nuclear winter scientific paper were 15-20°C; current estimates are 10-15°C. The two values are in good agreement considering the irreducible uncertainties in the calculations. Both temperature declines are much greater than the difference between current global temperatures and those of the last Ice Age. The long-term consequences of global thermonuclear war have been estimated by an international team of 200 scientists, who concluded that through nuclear winter the global civilization and most of the people on Earth— including those far from the northern mid-latitude target zone—would be at risk, mainly from starvation.

1995, Carl Sagan, “When Scientists Know Sin”, in The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark, 1st edition, New York: Random House, →ISBN, →LCCN, →OCLC, page 286:

When the salarians discovered them, the krogan were a brutal, primitive species struggling to survive a self-inflicted nuclear winter. The salarians culturally uplifted them, teaching them to use and build modern technology so they could serve as soldiers in the Rachni War.

2008, BioWare, Mass Effect (Science Fiction), Redwood City: Electronic Arts, →ISBN, →OCLC, PC, scene: Krogan Codex entry:

A predicted drop in global temperature following a nuclear war due to dust in the upper atmosphere reducing sunlight reaching the ground.


nuclear war

en-noun

nuclear war (countable and uncountable, plural nuclear wars)

IF JULY 1, 1968, figures in the history books of the future, it will be because of what happened that morning in the East Room of the White House. A few minutes after 11:30 A.M., in that gold-draped room, before hundreds of witnesses and in the glare of television floodlights, representatives of the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, the United States, and more than fifty other nations signed the Treaty on the Nonproliferation of Nuclear Weapons. Under that treaty, nations without nuclear weapons promised not to make them or receive them from others; the treaty assured those nations that they would have access to the full benefits of the peaceful uses of nuclear power. Nations with nuclear weapons pledged to work toward effective arms control and disarmament.
This was the most significant step we had yet taken to reduce the possibility of nuclear war. In my remarks following the signing ceremony, I called the treaty "the most important international agreement since the beginning of the nuclear age."

1971, Lyndon Johnson, “Thawing the Cold War”, in The Vantage Point, Holt, Reinhart & Winston, →ISBN, →LCCN, →OCLC, page 462:

Vladimir Putin has told Nato countries that they risk provoking a nuclear war if they send troops to fight in Ukraine, in an annual state of the nation speech ramping up his threats against Europe and the US.

2024 February 29, Pjotr Sauer, “Sending troops to Ukraine would risk provoking nuclear war, Putin tells Nato”, in The Guardian, →ISSN:

A war fought using nuclear (fission and/or fusion) weapons.


chastity belt

Coordinate term: chastity cage

He can inspect the Historical Cabinet, which includes a segment of Napoleon’s intestine—now believed to be perfectly genuine—a chastity belt, the mummy of the first Mrs. Van Butchell, and pieces of the skin of England's foes once nailed to the doors of parish churches.

1910 December 3, “Review of The Illustrated Guide to the Museum of the Royal College of Surgeons, England”, in The British Medical Journal, number 2605, →ISSN, →JSTOR, page 1778:

[…] the custom [of female infibulation], I think, does not appear in Greek or Roman life, and the virgin girdles of antiquity have nothing in common with the chastity belts, although certain of the customs clustering around the use of these sashes suggest ideas allied to the notion of a forcible closure of the private parts.

1931, Eric John Dingwall, The Girdle of Chastity: A Medico-historical Study, London: George Routledge & Sons, retrieved 2021-01-07, page 10:

There can be little doubt that the imposition of chastity belts upon women in order to allay masculine jealousy, and the operation of infibulation upon male slaves by their mistresses for the sake of lust, are two of the most remarkable customs ever devised by mankind in its efforts to control the intricacies of the erotic life.

1931, Eric John Dingwall, The Girdle of Chastity: A Medico-historical Study, London: George Routledge & Sons, retrieved 2021-01-07, page 164:

A belt-like garment, designed to be worn over the genitals and locked to prevent sexual intercourse, typically for long periods of time, to maintain chastity, prevent masturbation, or to enforce BDSM submission.


greenback

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


belabour

en-verb

belabour (third-person singular simple present belabours, present participle belabouring, simple past and past participle belaboured)

belabours (present singular third-person)
belabouring (participle present)
belaboured (participle past)
belaboured (past)

From be- (“about, around”) + labour. Compare bework, betoil, beswink.

1856: Gustave Flaubert, Madame Bovary, Part III Chapter X, translated by Eleanor Marx-Aveling
He saw the village; he was seen coming bending forward upon his horse, belabouring it with great blows, the girths dripping with blood.

[F]ew country people there are who do not love to see two sturdy fellows thwack and belabour each other with quarter-staff, single-stick, or fists.

1881, Walter Besant, James Rice, “How Kitty First Saw the Doctor”, in The Chaplain of the Fleet […], volume I, London: Chatto and Windus, […], →OCLC, part I (Within the Rules), page 82:

(transitive) To beat or thump (someone) soundly.

(transitive) To attack (someone) verbally.

1961, John Fitzgerald Kennedy, inaugural speech
Let both sides explore what problems unite us instead of belabouring those problems which divide us.

And so, to belabour the school metaphor, diehard fans of both those fallen leaders resent this pair for snitching in class.

2023 August 8, Janan Ganesh, “The oneness of Ron DeSantis and Rishi Sunak”, in Financial Times:

(transitive) To discuss or explain (something) excessively or repeatedly; to harp on or overelaborate.


bellicist

From Latin bellicus (“of or pertaining to war; warlike”), + -ist; possibly adapted from the French neologism belliciste (about Bismarck, 1871; in Émile Faguet, 1908).

der

The bellicist was sure to advocate an end to the policy of appeasement.

Or, if you deem that that word connotes non-resistance, though to the immense bulk of Pacifists it does not, you would be an anti-Bellicist, to use a dreadful word coined by M. Emile Faguet in the discussion of this matter. [Refers to the book: Émile Faguet, Le Pacifisme (French), 1908.]

1912, Norman Angell, Peace Theories and the Balkan War, page 19:

As for what are called ‘war books,’ whether written from the pacifist or bellicist point of view, more or less brilliant reporting with emphatic or cynical anecdotes, surely there has been enough of them in the United States as well as in France and in England.

1919, The Living Age, vol. 303, Oct-Dec 1919, page 173:

It may be that this standard definition errs, in representing every state structure as essentially based on conflict: it involves, as the writer pointed out in an address delivered long ago in 1915, a “bellicist theory of state structure.” […] It may be well, therefore, to discard the “bellicist” idea of a state essentially based on conflict and involving a superior body which forcibly imposes its will on the mass. [Refers to the paper: Dr. Thomas Baty, "The Bellicist Theory of State Structure", 1915.]

1942, Contemporary Japan: A Review of Far Eastern Affairs, vol. 11, No. 1, Jan 1942, page 220-221:

British historian Michael Howard introduced the term bellicist to refer to cultures “almost universal in the past, far from extinct in our own day, in which the setting of contentious issues by armed conflict is regarded as natural, inevitable and right.”

2008, David P. Barash, Charles P. Webel, Peace and Conflict Studies, page 31:

An adherent of bellicism; one who advocates war.


bellicist

en-adj

bellicist (comparative more bellicist, superlative most bellicist)

more bellicist (comparative)
most bellicist (superlative)

Of or relating to bellicism, a bellicist, bellicists, advocating war, who is war-centered or war-oriented.


fallout

en-noun

fallout (countable and uncountable, plural fallouts)

Psychological fallout in the shadow of terrorism (title of an article by Dr. Abraham Twerski, M.D.)http://www.jewishworldreview.com

A negative side effect; an undesirable or unexpected consequence.


rumble

en-verb

rumble (third-person singular simple present rumbles, present participle rumbling, simple past and past participle rumbled)

rumbles (present singular third-person)
rumbling (participle present)
rumbled (participle past)
rumbled (past)

From Middle English rumblen, romblen, rummelyn, frequentative form of romen (“to roar”), equivalent to rome + -le. Cognate with Dutch rommelen (“to rumble”), Low German rummeln (“to rumble”), German rumpeln (“to be noisy”), Danish rumle (“to rumble”), all of imitative origin.

The police is going to rumble your hideout.

(transitive) To discover deceitful or underhanded behaviour.

ratsata

to discover deceitful or underhanded behaviour


blood sport

en-noun

blood sport (countable and uncountable, plural blood sports)


thumping

thumping (countable and uncountable, plural thumpings)

He received a thumping from the school bully.

And in our times, in Philadelphia, there have been specimens of violent shruggings of the shoulders, and brachial twitches, and prodigious wry faces, and thumpings on the pews.

1824, William Craig Brownlee, A careful and free inquiry into the true nature and tendency of the religious principles of the Society of Friends, commonly called Quakers:


beat up

en-verb

beat up (third-person singular simple present beats up, present participle beating up, simple past beat up, past participle beaten up or (US colloquial) beat up)

beats up (present singular third-person)
beating up (participle present)
beat up (past)
beaten up (participle past)
beat up (US colloquial participle past)

He [= a paraglider pilot] flew into a hill and beat himself up pretty badly.

2008 October 29, on Real Rescues (a British TV program)

To cause, by some other means, injuries comparable to the result of being beaten up.

teloa

to cause injuries comparable to the result of being beaten up


beat up

en-adj

beat up (comparative more beat up, superlative most beat up)

more beat up (comparative)
most beat up (superlative)

(slang) Battered by time and usage; beaten up.


beat up

Well, two beat ups (the bullied kids) would split that cash fifty-fifty.

2009, Thomas Cody Mullenaux, Numbskull, page 257:

A person who, or thing that, has been beaten up.

These hit-and-run LRDG attacks — “beat-ups,” the patrols were beginning to call them — continued, and added to the enemy's mounting difficulties.

1987, John W. Gordon, The Other Desert War: British Special Forces in North Africa, 1940-1943, page 86:

An act of beating up:
(UK, military slang) A raid.

We gave him wedgies and did mock beat-ups. We never hurt him or intended to hurt him, but he went along with our tough guy sort of image, and took it tongue in cheek and got it.

2008, Josh Frank, Charlie Buckholtz, In Heaven Everything Is Fine: The Unsolved Life of Peter Ivers and the Lost History of New Wave Theatre, page 243:

Frequently on guest nights beat ups were held by the Third Term, and cadets of the First Term (and, sometimes, the Second Term) were singled out individually.

An act of beating up:
A beating; a hazing.


throw down

en-verb

throw down (third-person singular simple present throws down, present participle throwing down, simple past threw down, past participle thrown down)

throws down (present singular third-person)
throwing down (participle present)
threw down (past)
thrown down (participle past)

US, popularized 1970s in street culture, from idiom throw down the gauntlet (“to issue a challenge”), used in sense “to fight, to incite a fight, to make a stand” or otherwise get about partying with abandon (first used by Jay Johnson in Detroit in 1978 - taken nationally by Cecil Franklin, manager/brother of Aretha Franklin).
Sense of “accomplish something respectable” evolved from sense “to make a stand, to exhibit, to demonstrate (in a challenging way)” inherent in the fighting sense.
Sense of “to make a contribution” likely influenced by sense “to make a stand”, as in “are you in?”, “will you stand up and contribute?”

The soldiers threw down their weapons and surrendered.

(transitive) To cause something one is holding to drop, often forcefully.


clobber

British slang from 19th century of unknown origin, perhaps from Yiddish.

W'y, they call a man a robber if 'e stuffs 'is marchin' clobber / With the— / (Chorus) Loo! loo! Lulu! lulu! Loo! loo! Loot! loot! loot!

1892, Rudyard Kipling, “Loot”, in Barrack-Room Ballads and Other Verses, 3rd edition, London: Methuen & Co. […], →OCLC, page 31:

Now to get rid of this respectable clobber and feel like a man again.

1900, [George] Bernard Shaw, “Captain Brassbound’s Conversion”, in Three Plays for Puritans: The Devil’s Disciple, Cæsar and Cleopatra, & Captain Brassbound’s Conversion, London: Grant Richards, […], published 1901, →OCLC, Act III, page 292:

I was thinkin' of the widow while I gets me clobber on— / Like a feller will start thinkin' of the times that's past an' gone.

1919, C. J. Dennis, Red Robin, in Jim of The Hills, Gutenberg Australia eBook #0500931

I went to one in Woolwich, south-east London, which is one of the first stores to welcome the Pep&Co range, to road test the new uber-cheap clobber for myself.

2017 March 30, Gemma Mullin, “We road test new uber-cheap clobber as Poundland rolls-out its own clothing range – but there’s a twist”, in The Sun:

(Australia, British, slang) Clothing; clothes.


torture stake

An upright stake on which people were nailed to be executed, especially that used to execute Jesus Christ according to the beliefs of Jehovah's Witnesses.


adult content

Content, such as pornography or violence, that is not generally thought to be appropriate for viewing by children.


kiloton

That's a 300-kiloton nuclear warhead.

Halifax in Canada was devastated by a ship exploding in 1917. SS Mont Blanc, a French vessel loaded with 2.9 kilotons of explosives, collided with the Imo.

2022 August 24, Bruce Healey, “Wartime tunnel crash: a miraculous escape”, in RAIL, number 964, page 53:

A measure of the strength of an explosion or a bomb based on how many thousand tons of TNT would be needed to produce the same energy.


megaton

The sins of all our fathers, being dumped on us — the sons
The only choice we're given is: How many megatons?
And I eschew you!
And I say: Screw you!
And I hope you're blue, too.

1986, Kirk Thatcher, 44:05 from the start, in Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home, Paramount Pictures, →OCLC:

Integrating data from all continents and major biomes, we conservatively estimate 20 × 1015 (20 quadrillion) ants on Earth, with a total biomass of 12 megatons of dry carbon.

2022 September 19, Schultheiss et al., “The abundance, biomass, and distribution of ants on Earth”, in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, page 1, column 2:

A measure of the strength of an explosion or a bomb based on how many million tons of TNT would be needed to produce the same energy.


strangler

/ˈstɹæŋɡ(ə)lə/

An epiphyte whose aerial roots eventually strangle the tree on which it grows.


Falklands War

South Sandwich Islands
South Sandwich Islands

A conflict between Argentina and the United Kingdom over sovereignty of the Falkland Islands and South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands (South Georgia and South Sandwich Islands), waged between March and June of 1982.

Falklandi sõda

a conflict between Argentina and the United Kingdom


stomp

stomp (third-person singular simple present stomps, present participle stomping, simple past and past participle stomped)

stomps (present singular third-person)
stomping (participle present)
stomped (participle past)
stomped (past)

1803, variant of stamp. Compare German stampfen (“to stomp”). More at stamp.

(transitive, slang) To severely beat someone physically or figuratively.


conscientious objector

en-noun

conscientious objector (plural conscientious objectors)

Someone who refuses to perform military service (for example to fight in an armed conflict, or be compulsorily drafted in a time of peace) because of religious or moral principles.

адмо́ўнік

someone refusing to fight in an armed conflict because of religious or moral principles

良心的兵役拒否者

りょうしんてきへいえききょひしゃ

otkázyvajuščijsja ot prizýva v ármiju po ubeždéniju

отка́зывающийся от призы́ва в а́рмию по убежде́нию


nipple clamp

Either of a pair of metal clamps, usually joined by a chain, meant to be worn on the nipples to cause pain, usually in BDSM.


trekker

(UK, historical, World War II) A person who spent the night in a rural area, rather than his home, during bombing raids.


Lusitania

(historical) The RMS Lusitania, a British ship that was sunk in 1915 during World War I


killing spree

A number of murders in a short span of time; a rampage.


Stalin

Borrowed from Russian Ста́лин (Stálin), from сталь (stalʹ, “steel”) + -ин (-in, possessive suffix), from German Stahl (“steel”), ultimately from Proto-Germanic *stahlą (“steel”).

suf

A surname from Russian; usually referring to the Russian [empire, republic] revolutionary and Soviet Secretary of the Central Committee of the CPSU(b) Joseph Stalin.


concussion

en-noun

concussion (countable and uncountable, plural concussions)

Then Concussion, Rapine, Pillories, / Their Catalogue of Accusations fill.

1595, Samuel Daniel, “(please specify the folio number)”, in The First Fowre Bookes of the Ciuile Wars between the Two Houses of Lancaster and Yorke, London: […] P[eter] Short for Simon Waterson, →OCLC:

(obsolete, law) The unlawful forcing of another by threats of violence to yield up something of value.


snuff

snuff (countable and uncountable, plural snuffs)

From Middle English snoffe, snuffe, of uncertain origin. Compare Middle Dutch snuf, snof (“snuff”), Dutch sneuvelen (“to die in battle”).

The cops are chasing their own asses on the St Christopher case, so how about a “Are You St Christopher's Next Slaying?” piece? Profiles of all the snuffs to date and reconstructions of the victims' last minutes.

2004, David Mitchell, Cloud Atlas, London: Hodder and Stoughton, →ISBN:


sandbag

A sturdy sack filled with sand, generally used in large numbers to make defensive walls against flooding, bullets, or shrapnel.

A small bag filled with sand and used as a cudgel.


sandbag

en-verb

sandbag (third-person singular simple present sandbags, present participle sandbagging, simple past and past participle sandbagged)

sandbags (present singular third-person)
sandbagging (participle present)
sandbagged (participle past)
sandbagged (past)

We sandbagged the basement windows against the floodwaters.

The height “49 feet” became a mantra, as volunteers worked for weeks sandbagging and building to match that height.

2007, Sheri O'Meara, Storms 2: Tales of Extreme Weather Events in Minnesota, D Media, →ISBN, page 69:

(transitive, intransitive) To construct a barrier of sandbags (around).

muurata hiekkasäkeillä

To construct a barrier of sandbags around

under the table
drink someone under the table

To pretend to drink early on so that, as the night draws on, one can drink everybody else "under the table".


war criminal

A person guilty of one or more war crimes.


cutthroat

en-noun

cutthroat (countable and uncountable, plural cutthroats)

Children go through a phase of compound acquisition in which they invent cutthroats spontaneously before dropping the habit again.

2015 May 22, Stan Carey, “The Kick-butt World of Cutthroat Compounds”, in Slate Lexicon Valley:

cutthroat compound
cutthroat compound#English

(linguistics) Short for cutthroat compound (“an agentive-instrumental verb-noun compound word”).


take to the streets

en-verb

take to the streets (third-person singular simple present takes to the streets, present participle taking to the streets, simple past took to the streets, past participle taken to the streets)

takes to the streets (present singular third-person)
taking to the streets (participle present)
took to the streets (past)
taken to the streets (participle past)


Strategic Defense Initiative

the Strategic Defense Initiative (canonical)

(historical) A system proposed by U.S. President Ronald Reagan on March 23, 1983, to use ground-based and space-based systems to protect the United States from attack by strategic nuclear ballistic missiles.


polemology

en-noun

polemology (countable and uncountable, plural polemologies)

/ˌpɒləˈmɒləd͡ʒi/

/ˌpɑləˈmɑləd͡ʒi/

From Ancient Greek πόλεμος (pólemos, “war; battle”) + -logy (suffix indicating the study of a particular subject). The word is cognate with French polémologie.

suffix

POLEMOLOGY. The Principles of War exhibited in the Practice of the Camp, and as developed in a Series of General Orders of the Duke of Wellington; with parallel Orders of George II. Duke of Marlborough, &c. &c. 8vo.

1815 July, “List of New Publications”, in The Critical Review: Or, Annals of Literature (Series the Fifth), volume II, number I, London: Printed for R. Baldwin, […], →OCLC, page 111, column 1:

[I]f all the sciences were similarly subdivided, all use in classification would be lost by the multiplicity of the sciences; […] The Destructive, as well as the Industrial, instinct in Man would claim a separate science; and we should have a Polemology or Polemonomy, and about 10,000 other sciences.

1870 July 1, Frederic Harrison, “Professor [John Elliott] Cairnes on M. [Auguste] Comte and Political Economy”, in John Morley, editor, The Fortnightly Review, volume VIII (New Series; volume XIV overall), number XLIII, London: Chapman and Hall, […], →OCLC, page 43:

In the language of international economic relations the use of the terms employed in the field of polemology occurs more and more frequently. People speak of warm and cold economic wars, guerrillas, financial and commercial aggression, economic security, economic peace-keeping, and so on.

1982, Antonio Papisca, “Destructive Effects of International Economic Competition”, in Frans A. M. Alting von Geusau, Jacques Pelkmans, editors, National Economic Security: Perceptions, Threats and Policies, Tilburg, Netherlands: John F. Kennedy Institute, →ISBN, page 183:

Strategy as calculus on the one hand, and strategy as manipulation/manoeuvre on the other: these are two types presupposing two kinds of polemology. The two conceptions of strategy are in fact derived from two ways of thinking about war.

1993, Herman Parret, “Strategic Rationality”, in Stuart Rennie, transl., The Aesthetics of Communication: Pragmatics and Beyond (Library of Rhetorics; 2), Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers, →ISBN; softcover edition, Dordrecht: Springer Science+Business Media, 2012, →DOI, →ISBN, section 3 (The Art of War or Kriegskunst), page 31:

If we desire a resolution of the paradoxes which liberal modernity throws at us, and which are the crux of this contemporary global civil war over the political constitution of life, we may want to establish other ways of construing the life of human being, ones which compromise its seemingly endless polemologies and messianic yearnings for Terror.

2006, Julian Reid, “Epilogue”, in The Biopolitics of the War on Terror: Life Struggles, Liberal Modernity and the Defence of Logistical Societies (Reappraising the Political), Manchester, New York, N.Y.: Manchester University Press, →ISBN, page 129:

Against such polemologies, we find the [Michel] Foucault of Society Must be Defended posing the problem of war and its relation to modern political power in starkly different terms of a problematisation.

2008, Stephen Morton, Stephen Bygrave, editors, Foucault in an Age of Terror: Essays on Biopolitics and the Defence of Society, Basingstoke, Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan, →ISBN, page 30:

Polemology locates popular culture in a long (even archaic and nonhuman) tradition of warfare. The "ageless art" of tricks and ruses permeates the texts and practices comprising everyday life, a cat-and-mouse game with power that also produces innovation, creativity, invention. […] Polemology allows us to bring together media convergence with the history of communications warfare, especially as they involve the very social media often cited as features of convergence politics.

2012, Jack Z. Bratich, “Sovereign Networks, Pre-emptive Transgression, Communications Warfare: Case Studies in Social Movement Media”, in Ted Gournelos, David J. Gunkel, editors, Transgression 2.0: Media, Culture, and the Politics of a Digital Age, New York, N.Y., London: Continuum International Publishing Group, →ISBN, part IV (Law, Social Disturbance, and Political Unrest), page 226:


(physics) The radioactive isotope of strontium, ⁹⁰₃₈Sr, that is present in the fallout from nuclear explosions and, being chemically similar to calcium, accumulates in the bones

стронций-90

стронций-девяносто


headshot

A one-page, double-sided resume of an actor, consisting of the actor's photograph (usually of the head and shoulders) on one side and their curriculum vitae on the other.


no man's land

Originally from Middle English Nomanneslond, which first appears c. 1350. Revived with new senses in a dispatch printed in the Times newspaper by Colonel Ernest Dunlop Swinton writing as "Eyewitness".

(politics, geography) Territory that is often disputed, and that cannot be inhabited because of fear of conflict, especially:

The stretch of land between the border posts of two contiguous sovereign states, sometimes separated by great distance.


rainout

en-noun

rainout (countable and uncountable, plural rainouts)

(uncountable) Nuclear fallout deposited by means of rain.


tumbril

From Old French tumberel (modern French tombereau, in Anglo-Latin tumberellus), from tomber, tumber (“to fall”).

(historical) A kind of medieval torture device, later associated with a ducking stool.


Lancaster

From Middle English Lancaster, Loncastre, the name of the Roman fort on the River Lune, from Lune + the Old English suffix ceaster (“town”), found in many placenames.

Several places in the United States:
A locality in Yavapai County, Arizona.

Los Angeles County
Los Angeles County#English

A charter city in Los Angeles County, California.

A tiny city in Kittson County, Minnesota.

(aircraft) A type of four-engined British bomber aircraft built by Avro during World War 2.


bloodshed

bloodshed (usually uncountable, plural bloodsheds)

From attested early forms of such phrases as "there was much blood shed"; equivalent to blood + shed, past participle of shed.

A slaughter; destruction of life, notably on a large scale.


nuclear age

The age in which nuclear energy and nuclear weapons were developed.

ydinaikakausi

age when nuclear technology was developed


nuclear airburst

nuclear airburst (plural nuclear airbursts)

the explosion of a nuclear weapon at such an altitude that the fireball remains above the ground


Atomic Age

→ Dutch: atoomtijdperk (calque)

/əˈtɒmɪk ˌeɪd͡ʒ/

/əˈtɑːmɪk ˌeɪd͡ʒ/

The era, starting in the mid-1940s, during which nuclear energy was developed, and in which it was thought that all energy would be provided by such sources.

عصر الذرة

era during which nuclear energy was developed


nuclear artillery

A limited-yield nuclear weapon delivered using an artillery shell.


poliorcetics

/ˌpəʊlɪɔːˈsɛtɪks/

Partly:
* borrowed from Late Latin poliorcetica (“siege engines”) + English -s (suffix forming pluralia tantum) (poliorcetica is derived from Koine Greek πολιορκητικά (poliorkētiká, “things related to sieges”), the neuter plural of πολιορκητικός (poliorkētikós, “relating to poliorcetics, poliorcetic”), from Ancient Greek πολῐορκέω (poliorkéō, “to besiege, blockade”) (from πόλις (pólis, “city”) + ἕρκος (hérkos, “enclosure; fence”)) + -τῐκός (-tikós, suffix forming adjectives meaning ‘of or relating to’)); and
* from poliorcetic (“relating to poliorcetics”) + -s (suffix forming pluralia tantum).

der

πολιορκητικά

suffix

The grand battles of the Archaic and early Classical periods were replaced by the new art of poliorcetics.

1992, Lars Karlsson, Fortification Towers and Masonry Techniques in the Hegemony of Syracuse, 405–211 B.C. (Skrifter Utgivna av Svenska Institutet i Rom [Publications of the Swedish Institute in Rome]; 49), Stockholm: Svenska Institutet i Rom [Swedish Institute in Rome], →ISBN, →ISSN, page 11, column 1:

(military) The art of siege warfare, namely, that of conducting or resisting a siege; siegecraft.


kicking

The bullies pushed the boy over and gave him a kicking.

A violent assault involving repeated kicks.

It’s always fun when something massive comes along and sweeps the board, giving everything else a thoroughly good kicking – think Titanic, The Silence of the Lambs, or Lord of the Rings. There’s a sort of deranged, gluttonous feeling, a perverse glee in seeing so many dreams trampled on by a massive cultural juggernaut.

2015 February 23, “Oscars 2015: 10 things we learned”, in The Guardian (London):

(slang) A great loss or defeat; licking.

(performance art) A performance art that is a mix of dance footwork, acrobatic maneuver, and martial arts kicks, drawn from a variety of disciplines. Used in stage dance choreography and staged fight choreography.


fire and brimstone

Calque of Biblical Hebrew גׇּפְרִ֣ית וָאֵ֑שׁ (gofrit va’esh) and Ancient Greek πυρὸς καὶ θείου (puròs kaì theíou), appearing in both the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament.

calque

גׇּפְרִ֣ית וָאֵ֑שׁ

πυρὸς καὶ θείου

And the third Angel followed them, ſaying with a lowd voice, If any man worship the beaſt and his image, and receiue his marke in his forehead, or in his hand, / The ſame ſhall drinke of the wine of the wrath of God, which is powred out without mixture into the cup of his indignation, and hee ſhall be tormented with fire and brimſtone, in the preſence of the holy Angels, and in the preſence of the Lambe:

1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Revelation 14:9–10:


Fuzzy Wuzzy Angel

en-noun

Fuzzy Wuzzy Angel (plural Fuzzy Wuzzy Angels)

First attested in Sapper Bert Beros′s 1942 poem Fuzzy Wuzzy Angels, and popularised by the Australian wartime press.

Yet the statue is drawn from one of the most famous of all Australian images: the photograph from World War II of a blind, wounded soldier being guided down a jungle track by a Papuan carrier, a ‘fuzzy wuzzy angel’.

2002, Don Watson, Recollections of a Bleeding Heart: A Portrait of Paul Keating PM, page 251:

I want to commend the motion passed this week because it calls for the immediate determination of a new award and medal to be presented to the fuzzy wuzzy angels, who carried stretchers, stores and wounded diggers directly on their shoulders over some of the toughest terrain in the world.

2008, Australian House of Representatives, Parliamentary Debates Australia: House of Representatives, volume 135, page 6150:

2012, Peter Williams, Kokoda for Dummies, Australian Edition, page 245,
Chances are the person to whom you′re speaking is the descendant of an indigenous veteran or Fuzzy Wuzzy Angel.

(Australia, informal) One of the native people of Papua New Guinea who, during the Second World War, helped escort or stretcher wounded Australian soldiers to field hospitals.


hydrogen warhead

hydrogen warhead (plural hydrogen warheads)

a small thermonuclear device in the warhead of a missile


hellfire

hellfire (countable and uncountable, plural hellfires)

/ˈhɛlˌfaɪəɹ/

From Middle English helle fire, helever, from Old English hellefȳr, equivalent to hell + fire. Cognate with West Frisian helfjoer (“hellfire”), Dutch hellevuur (“hellfire”), German Höllenfeuer (“hellfire”).


get it on

en-verb

get it on (third-person singular simple present gets it on, present participle getting it on, simple past got it on, past participle (UK) got it on or (US) gotten it on)

gets it on (present singular third-person)
getting it on (participle present)
got it on (past)
got it on (UK participle past)
gotten it on (US participle past)

I can see the sparks between us. Let's get it on, baby!

The unfortunate thing about calling the season seven finale “The Dragon And The Wolf” is you can’t even reference it by name without picturing Daenerys Targaryen’s long-awaited hook-up with Jon Snow, her strapping hunk of an ally and also her nephew. It’s a hell of an episode, the dining car on this bullet train, not least because the dragon and the wolf got it on.

2017 August 27, Brandon Nowalk, “Game Of Thrones slows down for the longest, and best, episode of the season (newbies)”, in The Onion AV Club:


Confederacy

Christmas of 1862 had been a happy one for Atlanta, for the whole South. The Confederacy had scored a smashing victory at Fredericksburg and the Yankee dead and wounded were counted in the thousands.

1936 June 30, Margaret Mitchell, Gone with the Wind, New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company, →OCLC; republished New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company, 1944, →OCLC, part II, page 252:

Confederate States of America
Confederate States of America

(historical) The Confederate States of America, the collection of American states that seceded from the United States in 1860–61, and fought against the Union in the American Civil War.


buzz bomb

The Second World War was reaching fever pitch, with the entire Allied effort in top gear for the imminent invasion of Europe, while later that month buzz bombs would start falling on London.

2022 January 12, Benedict le Vay, “The heroes of Soham...”, in RAIL, number 948, page 42:

(historical) The V-1 flying bomb; the doodlebug.


omnicide

How extraordinary that Curtis LeMay believed for the rest of his life that the United States “lost” the Cuban missile crisis and the Cold War. If John Kennedy had followed LeMay's advice [to bomb Cuba and take out the missile sites], history would have forgotten the Nazis and their terrible Holocaust. Ours would have been the historic omnicide.

1995, Richard Rhodes, chapter 27, in Dark Sun: The Making of the Hydrogen Bomb:

The total extinction of the human species as a result of human action. Most commonly it refers to human extinction through nuclear warfare, but it can also refer to such extinction through other means such as global anthropogenic ecological catastrophe.


Confederate

Yes. Jeff Sessions, Trump’s Attorney General and the unfortunate result of Dobby the house elf’s one-night stand with the Confederate flag, got in trouble this-, (enjoy!) got in trouble this week for undisclosed meetings with Russia’s ambassadors, something which, in itself, is not against the law.

2017 March 5, Tim Carvell, Josh Gondelman, Dan Gurewitch, Jeff Maurer, Ben Silva, Will Tracy, Jill Twiss, Seena Vali, Julie Weiner, “Dalai Lama”, in Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, season 4, episode 4, John Oliver (actor), Warner Bros. Television, via HBO:

(historical) Of or relating to the Confederate States of America.


Confederate

James Longstreet
John Bell Hood
Joseph E. Johnston
P. G. T. Beauregard
Robert E. Lee
Stonewall Jackson

In fact, I heard everything in the world except that the Confederates lost the war. When I was ten years old, it was a violent shock to learn that General Lee had been defeated.

2012 March 12 [1936], Margaret Mitchell, quotee, “Interview with Margaret Mitchell from 1936”, in PBS American Masters:

(historical) A citizen of the Confederate States of America.

(historical) A supporter of Irish Catholic self-rule during the Wars of the Three Kingdoms.


slaying

en-noun

slaying (countable and uncountable, plural slayings)

The slaying of the civil rights activist brought a storm of protest.

Slay not your children, fearing a fall to poverty, We shall provide for them and for you. Lo! the slaying of them is great sin.

1930, Marmaduke Pickthall, transl., The Meaning of the Glorious Koran, surah 17, verse 31:

Killing, especially the murder of a human.

घात

killing, especially the murder of a human


gridiron

From Middle English gridirne, gredirne, gredyron, gredeyron, grydern, grydyryne, girdirin, girderen, variants of Middle English gredire, gredyre, itself an alteration of Middle English gridel (“griddle”). The ending was assimilated to iron, as if from grid + iron, whence grid was later derived.

I know, there have been found seely boores, who have rather endure to have their feet broiled upon a Greedyron, their fingers ends crusht and wrung with the lock of a Pistoll, their eyes all bloody to be thrust out of their heads with wringing and wresting of a cord about their foreheads, before they would so much as be ransomed.

1603, Michel de Montaigne, chapter 32, in John Florio, transl., The Essayes […], book II, London: […] Val[entine] Simmes for Edward Blount […], →OCLC:

An instrument of torture on which people were secured before being burned by fire.


down under

Refers to the fact that the Australian continent lies south of, colloquially thought of as 'below' or 'under', the equator.


Dixieland

(US, informal) The southern states of the US; Dixie.

(US, informal) The southwestern corner of Utah; Dixie.


Dixieland

My sis is tying the knot. I want you to play for the reception. She likes Dixieland. Two of my boys say you play good Dixieland.

(music) A type of jazz that originated in New Orleans.


iron maiden

(historical) A falsely or neo-medieval torture device invented in the 18th century consisting of a chamber lined with spikes which closes upon and impales the victim inside.


lithium deuteride

thermonuclear weapon
thermonuclear weapon

(inorganic chemistry) a form of lithium hydride in which the normal hydrogen is replaced with deuterium; used in thermonuclear weapons


fissionable

Capable of undergoing nuclear fission; fissile.

spaltbar

capable of undergoing nuclear fission; fissile


weapons-grade

For 75 years, it has fulfilled a wide range of roles: producing weapons-grade plutonium for early atomic weapons in the aftermath of the Second World War; the world's first commercial nuclear power station supplying electricity to the National Grid; reprocessing and storage of nuclear fuel; and the processing of lower grades of radioactive waste for off-site storage.

2023 December 27, Ben Jones, “Inside Sellafield... by rail”, in RAIL, number 999, page 20:

(of a radioactive or other substance) Of a purity suitable for the manufacture of weapons.


asymmetric warfare

Warfare between belligerents who have different strengths and weaknesses.


doodlebug

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

(historical, "doodlebug tractor") An automobile converted into a cheap tractor for a small farm during the Second World War.


German Vergeltungswaffe zwei (“retaliation weapon two”).

uder

Alternative form: V2

(historical) An early long-range liquid-fuel ballistic missile used by Germany during the Second World War.


From German Vergeltungswaffe eins (“retaliation weapon one”).

(military, historical) An early cruise missile, powered by a pulsejet, used by Germany in the Second World War.


hot war

Coordinate term: cyberwar

A conflict in which physically violent fighting takes place between the belligerent parties.


Petersburg

From Peter + -s- or Peters (surname) + -burg. Doublet of Peterborough.


radioactive fallout

en-noun

radioactive fallout (countable and uncountable, plural radioactive fallouts)


dogfight

The two bi-planes swirled around each other like angry wasps in a violent dogfight.

(aviation, military) A twisting turning battle between two or more military aircraft, especially between fighters.

A fight between dogs, especially as part of the blood sport of dogfighting.


dogfight

en-verb

dogfight (third-person singular simple present dogfights, present participle dogfighting, simple past and past participle dogfought)

dogfights (present singular third-person)
dogfighting (participle present)
dogfought (participle past)
dogfought (past)

Missiles exhausted, the pilot was forced to close and dogfight with his opponent.

To engage in a battle between fighter planes.


babooning

From baboon + -ing: in the sense of caning, because of the bright red buttocks (like those of a baboon) that result.

(vulgar, sex) An obscene sexual act by which the rectum of a person prolapses due to excessive anal sex.


mommick

mommick (third-person singular simple present mommicks, present participle mommicking, simple past and past participle mommicked)

mommicks (present singular third-person)
mommicking (participle present)
mommicked (participle past)
mommicked (past)

Evelith Strange writes to Mrs. Makely from Altruria: Do you still keep on murdering and divorcing, and drowning and burning, and mommicking, and maiming people by sea and land? Has there been any war since I left?

1968, William Dean Howells, The Altrurian romances, volume 20, page 430

"Mommick him up good, because you've got to go to jail anyhow."

1998, Cruelty to Animals and Interpersonal Violence: Readings, page 24:

"He was too mean for Hell, having people mommicked and gaumed up the way he did.”

2014, Richard Chase, American Folk Tales and Songs, →ISBN, page 21:

I heard him hollar as he sank out of sight, "My Lord Honey, haint I been momicked this night."

about 1980, Connie McElroy, 'Twas a Night Afore Chistmas, Son: or A Harkers Island Christmas:

(dialectal, transitive) To beat up or rough up (someone).

"I don't fault her for effort," said one man, the oldest at the table, "but she's wanting to do it all by herself, then she mommicks thing up."

1994, Gail Godwin, A Mother and Two Daughters, →ISBN, page 420:

And anyway, his presence seemed to mommick up electricity. So he stuck to walking.

2009, Peter F. Hamilton, The Neutronium Alchemist, →ISBN:

(dialectal, Appalachia, Southern US, chiefly North Carolina) To mess up; to bungle or ruin by bungling.


mommick

As soon as she walks up the porch steps and opens the screen door, she knows that Henry is already home. Amid the noisy mommick, she can sense his humming presence.

2010, Julianna Baggott, The Madam: A Novel, →ISBN, page 21:

"It's all such an awful mommick..." Anne shrugged. "Trapped on a sinking ship..."

2012, Christine Blevins, The Turning of Anne Merrick, →ISBN:

(dialectal, Appalachia, Southern US, chiefly North Carolina) A mess, a disorderly state or thing.


rough up

rough up (third-person singular simple present roughs up, present participle roughing up, simple past and past participle roughed up)

roughs up (present singular third-person)
roughing up (participle present)
roughed up (participle past)
roughed up (past)

The gangsters roughed him up a little.


First World War

1920, Charles à Court Repington, title of book The First World War.


screen test

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

One of the reasons for the charges was knowledge of a tradition among some police of what they called in Baltimore "a rough ride" (Fernandez, 2015). The practice is to place a handcuffed prisoner face-down in the back of a police van without securing him to the seat, and then intentionally driving in a reckless manner to throw the suspect around without any way of protecting himself from injury. When David was in police work, officers used to talk about the old-fashioned "screen test" which used a similar technique. The officer would put the prisoner in the back seat of a patrol car in handcuffs, but not in a seat belt. Then the officer would slam on the brakes of the patrol car so that the prisoner would lunge forward, face first into the screen separating the prisoner from the police officer in the front seat.

2018 April 10, David E. Barlow, Melissa Hickman Barlow, Police in a Multicultural Society: An American Story, Second Edition, Waveland Press, →ISBN, page 287:


free state

From free + state, probably a calque of German Freistaat.

(US, historical) Before the American Civil War, any of the states in which the owning of slaves was not legal.


Montgomery

From a Norman surname, from a place in Normandy (Old French for "Gomeric's hill"). Gumaric was a Germanic personal name composed of *gumô (“man”) and *rīks (“ruler”) (whence the modern French surnames Gomery, Gommery and Gumery or the Galician placename Gomariz).

A number of places in the United States:

An unincorporated community in Trigg County, Kentucky.

A town in Hampden County, Massachusetts, named after Richard Montgomery.

A borough in Lycoming County, Pennsylvania.


East Germany

German Democratic Republic
German Democratic Republic

(historical, 1949–1990) A former Communist country of Central Europe between 1949 and 1990, officially called the German Democratic Republic (GDR), capital East Berlin.


pounding

en-adj

pounding (comparative more pounding, superlative most pounding)

more pounding (comparative)
most pounding (superlative)

pounding rain

I have a pounding headache.


wartime

en-noun

wartime (countable and uncountable, plural wartimes)

Significant rail projects have been mothballed before in the face of changed circumstances - in particular, the LNER Woodhead project which was postponed due to wartime conditions and not revived until 1948, as money became available after nationalisation.

2020 December 2, Industry Insider, “The costs on cutting carbon”, in Rail, page 76:

(often attributive) A period during which a war is in progress in a particular place.


Ypres

Any of several battles fought near this city during the First World War.


flogging

flogging (countable and uncountable, plural floggings)

What lawbreakers like that need is a good flogging. Do that and watch the crime rate plummet.

Infliction of punishment by dealing blows or whipping.

fshikullim

infliction of punishment by dealing blows or whipping


Pearl Harbor

/ˌpɝ˞l ˈhɑɹbɚ/

/ˌpɜːl ˈhɑːbə/

Calque of Hawaiian Wai Momi (“pearl water”). The extended senses allude to the surprise attack executed by the Imperial Japanese Navy on the harbor on December 7, 1941.

cal

en:Pearl Harbor
en:Pearl Harbor (disambiguation)

A deep water harbor in Oahu, Hawaii, United States, in the Pacific

Bluto: What? Over? Did you say "over"? Nothing is over until we decide it is! Was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor? Hell no!
Otter: [to Boon] Germans?
Boon: Forget it, he's rolling.

1978, Harold Ramis, Douglas Kenney, Chris Miller, Animal House (motion picture), spoken by Bluto (John Belushi), Universal Pictures:

(military) A naval base in Pearl Harbor, Oahu, Hawaii, United States: a US Navy base


West Germany

From informal use describing the British-, French-, and American-occupied zones of Germany following World War II, under influence from existing German Westdeutschland and Westdeutscher used to describe those areas of German-speaking Europe since the 17th and 18th centuries.

Federal Republic of Germany
Federal Republic of Germany

(historical, 1949–1990) The Federal Republic of Germany, distinguished from the German Democratic Republic ("East Germany").

(since 1990) The former areas of the Republic during that time, distinguished from the former East German areas.

(historical, uncommon, 1945–1949) Collectively, the British-, French-, and American-occupied zones of Germany, distinguished from the Soviet-occupied zone.


criticality

en-noun

criticality (countable and uncountable, plural criticalities)


West Berlin

(historical, Germany) The American, British and French sectors of Berlin between 1949 and 1990.


bitch slap

en-verb

bitch slap (third-person singular simple present bitch slaps, present participle bitch slapping, simple past and past participle bitch slapped)

bitch slaps (present singular third-person)
bitch slapping (participle present)
bitch slapped (participle past)
bitch slapped (past)

“Maybe next time we just open the door and start out with some bitch slapping.” ¶ I gave Lula a horrified stare. ¶ “Just a suggestion,” Lula said.

1997, Janet Evanovich, Three to Get Deadly, Scribner, page 16

Van had to resist the urge to bitch slap him, and said instead, “I know you are, but what about me?”

2002, Richard D. Ward, Metamorphosis in Blue, Trafford Publishing, page 50

Things are a little better when Doris ends up spending her “honeymoon” night in the tub with the sprinklers going off, and there is a genuinely amusing catfight between Ethel and Marcia in which Doris actually—there’s no other phrase for it—bitch slaps Marcia; it’s funny because Marcia is a loser, a whiny, imperious daddy’s girl, and worth neither Ethel’s time nor Winthrop’s attention.

2007, Tom Santopietro, Considering Doris Day, St. Martin's Press, page 72


Great War

Then came the Great War, the Irish troubles, and the diversion of most of the American traffic to Southampton; the new construction was promptly dropped, and only grass-grown earthworks and cuttings now remain.

1939 September, T. R. Perkins, “The G.W.R. in West Wales”, in Railway Magazine, page 200:


Somme

(history, with The) A major battle of the First World War in 1916 in this area.


open fire

open fire (third-person singular simple present opens fire, present participle opening fire, simple past and past participle opened fire)

opens fire (present singular third-person)
opening fire (participle present)
opened fire (participle past)
opened fire (past)

In warfare, whoever opens fire first has a greater chance of victory.

The Atlanta was swinging through her own turn to avoid a collision with the van when the searchlight, probably from the destroyer Akatsuki, lit upon her from abaft the port beam. Captain Jenkins reacted as commanders had been trained in peacetime: "Counter-illuminate!" he shouted. His gunnery officer, Lieutenant Commander William R. D. Nickelson, Jr., preferred to respond with other hardware. At once he shouted into his headset mike: "Fuck that! Open fire!" His assistant, Lloyd Mustin, was recording accurate ranges from the narrowcasting fire-control radar and didn't need help from other wavelengths. "Action port. Illuminating ship is target," he instructed his gun captains. Mustin, controlling the after trio of five-inch mounts, and Nickelson slewed their directors onto the lights and opened fire immediately.

2011, James D. Hornfischer, “28: Into the Light”, in Neptune's Inferno: The U.S. Navy at Guadalcanal, New York: Bantam Books, →ISBN, retrieved 2022-11-21, pages 273–274:

(idiomatic) To begin firing (weapons) at something or someone.


stoning

The stonings came as something of a surprise, in that Iranian officials had said they had suspended that method of execution.

2009 January 14, Nazila Fathi, “Iran Says U.S. Helped Finance Overthrow Plot”, in New York Times:

lapidation: punishment by throwing stones, usually resulting in death


harrowing of hell

en-noun

harrowing of hell (plural harrowings of hell)

Not the direct vision of the harrowings of hell as reported, for example, by many Christian visionaries, but accounts given by the departed souls themselves are more frequent and typical features of Jewish moralist writing.

1977, Raphael Werblowsky, Joseph Karo: lawyer and mystic, 2nd edition, page 44:

Of the four harrowings of hell that are cornerstones of Western literature […], we can eliminate the oldest.

2003, Robert J. Andreach, Drawing upon the Past: Classical Theatre in the Contemporary American Theatre, page 36:

[…] the Hero Twins go on to defeat Xibalba and its ghastly denizens, a true Harrowing of Hell.

2007, Sophie & Michael Coe, The True History of Chocolate, page 39:

(mythology, theology) A raid into the underworld by a heroic figure.


netherworld

From nether- (“beneath, lower”) + world.

The missionary was motivated by a sincere desire to rescue souls from eternal torment in the netherworld.

Specifically, a location of punishment in the afterlife; a hell.


thrusters

Both the thrusters and the cautionaries thought the war would end with a massive naval battle involving the battleships of both fleets.

2002, Jean Heffer, The United States and the Pacific: History of a Frontier:

(US, historical, World War II) Those who are for military engagement.


initiator

(chemistry) A substance that initiates a chain reaction or polymerization.

käynnistäjä

chemistry: substance that initiates a chain reaction or polymerization

‘This, er, initiator of polonium and lithium, would it be used in an anti-personnel bomb?’ he asked. ‘Oh yes, you could say so, boyo,’ replied the Welshman. ‘An initiator, you see, is what sets off a nuke.’

1984, Frederick Forsyth, The Fourth Protocol, London: Hutchinson, →ISBN, page 301:

(military) A component of a nuclear weapon that produces a burst of neutrons to trigger a fission chain reaction.

(computing) A task (in a mainframe computer) that initiates multiple jobs.


war-torn

en-adj

war-torn (comparative more war-torn, superlative most war-torn)

more war-torn (comparative)
most war-torn (superlative)

The new government also had big plans for rejuvenating Britain's war-torn economy.

2021 August 11, Richard Foster, “A century of railway politics”, in RAIL, number 937, page 42:

A traditional Chinese medicine clinic in Changhua County has raised NT$555,000 in a two-day campaign drive to buy medical supplies, humanitarian aid materials and an ambulance for war-torn Ukraine.

2023 January 30, Mei-chu Huang, Jonathan Chin, “Clinic raises money for Ukraine”, in Taipei Times, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 2023-01-30, Taiwan News, page 3:


buskin

Apparently from Old French bousequin, variant of brousequin (compare modern French brodequin), probably from Middle Dutch broseken, of unknown origin.

An instrument of torture for the foot; bootikin.


Dixie

1859. Unknown, but may come from the Mason-Dixon line, the boundary between the northern states and the southern states, or from the slang term dixie for a Louisiana $10 bill that had the French word dix printed on it.

(informal, US) The southern United States, especially the former Confederate States; the South.


postbellum

From Latin post bellum (literally “after the war”).

bor

Midway through Donald McCaig’s unexpectedly diverting novel, “Rhett Butler’s People,” a black man about to be lynched in the post-bellum South asks Rhett to please shoot him dead before the mob breaks into the jail and does worse.

2007 November 4, Stephen L. Carter, “Almost a Gentleman”, in The New York Times, →ISSN:

(US) Of the period following the American Civil War, especially used in reference to the South.


the other place

According to Christianity, when someone dies, they go to either Heaven or the other place.


Empty Quiver

(US, euphemistic, military) The seizure, theft, or loss of a nuclear weapon.


Woodbine

(British soldier): From the British troops being issued with Woodbine cigarettes.

(Australia, slang, World War I) A British soldier.


child abuse

Coordinate term: elder abuse

(criminology) Physical, sexual or emotional mistreatment of a child that causes long-term or permanent damage.


pimp slap

en-verb

pimp slap (third-person singular simple present pimp slaps, present participle pimp slapping, simple past and past participle pimp slapped)

pimp slaps (present singular third-person)
pimp slapping (participle present)
pimp slapped (participle past)
pimp slapped (past)

[…] That’s what really got me pissed. I admit it. I pimp slapped her a couple times. […]

2001, Johnnie L. Mitchell, 88 Ways to Die, iUniverse, page 27

“Hey, Indian.” Mr. Marcus, my next-door neighbor, smiled, with the gold caps in the front of his mouth shining. I felt like pimp slapping the shit out of him. How many times do I have to tell him my damn name is not Indian? I hope he’s not coming to borrow any sugar, because I’ma tell him no.

2005, Tu-Shonda L. Whitaker, "Whatever It Takes", in Kiss the Year Goodbye, Pocket Books, page 21

[…] just when I am feeling my most smug, the hand of God reaches down and pimp slaps me into reality.

2006, Brandelyn N. Castine, Spoken Silence: Life in 4 Parts, self-published, page 169

(slang, vulgar, transitive) Alternative spelling of pimp-slap


fight to the death

en-noun

fight to the death (plural fights to the death)

A fight in which there is only one winner, the survivor.


Khrushchev

From Russian Хрущёв (Xruščóv), usually written Хрущев (Xruščev) (see note about Russian letter ё (jo)).

A built-in remedy for Khrushchev and Kennedy.

1974, Freddie Mercury, “Killer Queen”, in Sheer Heart Attack:

Хрущёв Хрущёв#Russian

English transliteration of the Russian surname Хрущёв (Xruščóv); usually refers to the Russian revolutionary and Soviet Secretary of the Central Committee of the CPSU(b) Nikita Khrushchev.


cockfight

A contest, in a cockpit, between gamecocks fitted with cockspurs

鶏合

とりあわせ, toriawase; にわとりあわせ, niwatoriawase


Bismarck

A major German battleship during World War II (named after the statesman).


nuclear deterrent

nuclear deterrent (plural nuclear deterrents)

The arsenal of nuclear weapons of a nation viewed as a deterrent to an enemy from attacking.

核威懾

Nuclear weapons viewed as a deterrent to an enemy from attacking


mutual assured destruction

mutual assured destruction (uncountable)

(politics, public policy, military) The threat of massive retaliation using nuclear weapons should a potential enemy use them first, both sides being annihilated in the event of war.


Roosevelt

From Dutch roos (“rose”) + veld (“field”).

census-designated place
census-designated place

A number of places in the United States:

A census-designated place in Gila County, Arizona, probably named after Theodore Roosevelt Lake.

Crow Wing County
Crow Wing County#English

Two townships, in Beltrami County and Crow Wing County, Minnesota, both named after Theodore Roosevelt.

A borough in Monmouth County, New Jersey, formerly named Jersey Homesteads and renamed in honour of Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1945.

An unincorporated community in Lubbock County, Texas.

A city in Duchesne County, Utah, named after Theodore Roosevelt.


antinuclear

en-adj

antinuclear (comparative more antinuclear, superlative most antinuclear)

more antinuclear (comparative)
most antinuclear (superlative)

1995, "As antinuclear sentiment became popular, politicians such as Govs. Hugh L. Carey and Mario M. Cuomo jumped on the bandwagon and helped delay and defeat the opening. All the while the interest costs grew at astronomical rates." --New York Times, Oct 15, 1995, Antinuclear Role in High Electric Costs:

Opposed to the production or use of nuclear weapons, or opposed to the generation of electricity from nuclear power.

antiatòmic

opposed to the use of nuclear weapons or nuclear energy


tan someone's hide

en-verb

tan someone's hide (third-person singular simple present tans someone's hide, present participle tanning someone's hide, simple past and past participle tanned someone's hide)

tans someone's hide (present singular third-person)
tanning someone's hide (participle present)
tanned someone's hide (participle past)
tanned someone's hide (past)

By metaphor from tannery: beating hides (to condition them), tanning them (with dyes and chemicals), and so on.

"You lying little snipe," he roared. ". . . I've a mind to tan your hide good."

1908, Stewart Edward White, chapter 12, in The Adventures of Bobby Orde:

(idiomatic, figurative) To beat or spank someone.


Churchill

/ˈt͡ʃɜːt͡ʃɪl/

/ˈt͡ʃɜːɹt͡ʃɪl/

The British ruling class are fighting against Hitler, whom they have always regarded and whom some of them still regard as their protector against Bolshevism. That does not mean that they will deliberately sell out; but it does mean that at every decisive moment they are likely to falter, pull their punches, do the wrong thing. Until the Churchill Government called some sort of halt to the process, they have done the wrong thing with an unerring instinct ever since 1931.

1941, George Orwell, The Lion and the Unicorn, Pt. II:

Winston Churchill (English statesman, soldier and author, who served as the British prime minister during World War II; particularly as a proponent of the British Empire, powerful orator, or symbol of dogged and successful perseverance).


booting

en-noun

booting (countable and uncountable, plural bootings)

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

Coordinate term: chinging

C4 run man through the alley
Get a man down with the swammy
Get a man down with the whammy
Boot couple niggas on the road
No face no case with the bally (booting)

2015 November 1, “Dem Man Know”, C4 (814) (lyrics):

Just got bail, three shootings
I ain’t gotta call up Pacman
To go up to country to do some bootings (bu-bu)
Tryna aim for your head
Pronounce man dead, pull up and suit him

2019 May 16, “P4DP”, in Digga D (lyrics), Double Tap Diaries EP:

(MLE, criminal slang) Homicide by gunfire.


destalinization

The process, begun by Nikita Khrushchev, of discrediting and then reforming the policies of Joseph Stalin.

destalinizasiya

process of discrediting and the reforming the policies of Joseph Stalin


supercritical

en-adj

supercritical (comparative more supercritical, superlative most supercritical)

more supercritical (comparative)
most supercritical (superlative)

(physics) Of a substance or system above a critical threshold or range

(physics, of a fissile material) Having a mass sufficient to sustain an accelerating fission chain reaction.


cage fighting

The practise of participating in hand-to-hand combat inside of a usually steel cage.


swordplay

en-noun

swordplay (usually uncountable, plural swordplays)

His expertise at swordplay made his acting in the part of Hamlet very believable.


American Revolutionary War

the American Revolutionary War (canonical)

The American Revolution (1775–1783) of the contiguous southern 13 colonies of the British Empire on the east coast of the North American mainland


death march

the Bataan Death March

A forced movement of people, on foot, in such circumstances that many die during the journey.

死亡行軍

forced movement of people in such circumstances that many die during the journey

(management) A project that requires a stretch of unsustainable overwork, or whose participants feel it is destined to fail.

デスマーチ

project requiring stretch of unsustainable overwork

Jacob Scheele was led to the gallows as a band played a death march.

2015, Daniel Allen Hearn, Legal Executions in New England, page 282:

Synonym of dead march (“mournful music for a funeral etc.”)


atom bomb

Everywhere the atom bombs are dropping / It's the end of all humanity / No more time for last-minute shopping / It's time to face your final destiny

1986, "Weird Al" Yankovic (lyrics and music), “Christmas at Ground Zero”, in Polka Party!:


blow away

en-verb

blow away (third-person singular simple present blows away, present participle blowing away, simple past blew away, past participle blown away)

blows away (present singular third-person)
blowing away (participle present)
blew away (past)
blown away (participle past)

(transitive, computing, informal) To delete (data, files, etc.).


stovepipe

From stove + pipe. The firearms sense is due to the trapped cartridge case resembling a stovepipe of the stove sense.

(military slang, World War I– World War II) A trench mortar such as the Stokes mortar.


snuff film

Their whole case that porn is violent rests on classifying s/m porn as violent, and lumping it in with the snuff film.

1981 August 15, Nancy Wechsler, Gayle Rubin, Pat Califia, “Sadomasochism: Fears, Facts, Fantasies”, in Gay Community News, volume 9, number 5, page 7:

(film) A film that shows, or purports to show, the actual deliberate killing of one of the performers.


thermonuclear weapon

en-noun

thermonuclear weapon (plural thermonuclear weapons)

A weapon whose power is derived from nuclear fusion at high temperature


nuclear power

nuclear power (countable and uncountable, plural nuclear powers)

(countable) A nation that possesses nuclear weapons.


atomic weapon

For 75 years, it has fulfilled a wide range of roles: producing weapons-grade plutonium for early atomic weapons in the aftermath of the Second World War; the world's first commercial nuclear power station supplying electricity to the National Grid; reprocessing and storage of nuclear fuel; and the processing of lower grades of radioactive waste for off-site storage.

2023 December 27, Ben Jones, “Inside Sellafield... by rail”, in RAIL, number 999, page 20:


radiological

Of or pertaining to radiation, radioactivity or nuclear weapons.


Korean War

Democratic People's Republic of Korea
Democratic People's Republic of Korea

(historical) A war fought in the Korean Peninsula from 1950–1953 between the Soviet Union-backed Democratic People's Republic of Korea and the United Nations-backed Republic of Korea.

(pedantic) A situation of formal war that is de jure in progress since the 1950s on the Korean Peninsula, that has not had a formal resolution and peace treaty, but only has a longstanding armistice in place.


beat someone's brains out

en-verb

beat<,,beat,beaten> someone's brains out

beat someone's brains out (third-person singular simple present beats someone's brains out, present participle beating someone's brains out, simple past beat someone's brains out, past participle beaten someone's brains out or beat someone's brains out)

beats someone's brains out (present singular third-person)
beating someone's brains out (participle present)
beat someone's brains out (past)
beaten someone's brains out (participle past)
beat someone's brains out (participle past)

(idiomatic) To beat someone very severely.


gunfight

gunfight (third-person singular simple present gunfights, present participle gunfighting, simple past and past participle gunfought)

gunfights (present singular third-person)
gunfighting (participle present)
gunfought (participle past)
gunfought (past)


death squad

An armed group that carries out clandestine, extrajudicial killings.


EIT

Initialism of Enhanced Interrogation Technique.


crime against humanity

en-noun

crime against humanity (plural crimes against humanity)

Be faithful to your friend that doth entrust you; remembring that perfidiousness or falseness to a friend, is a crime against humanity, and all society.

1629, Richard Baxter, Christian Directory, IV.25:

Courage remained a virtue. And that exploitation of courage, if I may be allowed to say a thing so obvious, was the essential tragedy of the War, which, as everyone now agrees, was a crime against humanity.

1929, Siegfried Sassoon, Memoirs of a Fox-Hunting Man:

A Spanish judge has charged five suspected former leaders of the armed Basque separatist movement ETA with crimes against humanity for attacks carried out by the group after 2004 which killed 12 people.

(now chiefly law) A very destructive and immoral act; later specifically, something causing widespread human misery or loss of life; an atrocity.

جَرِيمَة ضِدَّ الْإِنْسَانِيَّةَ

a large-scale persecution of, or atrocity against, a body of people


milch cow

From Middle English melche cow, mylche cowe.

(military, slang) A German WWII submarine designed to carry large cargoes of supplies and transfer them to other submarines.


The Few

From a speech by UK Prime Minister Winston Churchill: "Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few".

(historical) The British and Allied fighter pilots during the Battle of Britain in World War II.


fall-out shelter

fall-out shelter (plural fall-out shelters)


fallout shelter

fallout shelter (plural fallout shelters)

A thick-walled building, usually under the ground, built so that people can keep away from dust after a nuclear explosion.


trench warfare

(uncountable) Warfare in which opposing sides occupy trenches and repeatedly fire at one another; usually involving high casualty rates over a long period of time.

skyttegravskrig

warfare in which opposing sides occupy trenches


murther

en-verb

murther (third-person singular simple present murthers, present participle murthering, simple past and past participle murthered)

murthers (present singular third-person)
murthering (participle present)
murthered (participle past)
murthered (past)

/ˈmɜː(ɹ)ðə(ɹ)/

In the meane time it chaunced, that Marcus Papyrius ſtroke one of the Galles on the heade with his ſtaffe, because he preſumed to ſtroke his bearde: with whiche iniurie the Gaulle beeing prouoked, ſlue Papyrius (as he ſate) with hys ſworde, and therewith the ſlaughter being begun with one, all the reſidue of thoſe auncient fatherly men as they ſat in theyr Chayres were ſlaine and cruelly murthered.

1577, Raphaell Holinshed, “The Historie of Englande”, in The Firste Volume of the Chronicles of England, Scotlande, and Irelande […], volume I, London: […] [Henry Bynneman] for Iohn Harrison, →OCLC, page 26, columns 1–2:

What wilt thou do? Thou wilt not murther me?

c. 1599–1602 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmarke”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act III, scene iv]:


burn in hell

burn in hell (third-person singular simple present burns in hell, present participle burning in hell, simple past and past participle burned in hell or burnt in hell)

burns in hell (present singular third-person)
burning in hell (participle present)
burned in hell (participle past)
burned in hell (past)
burnt in hell (participle past)
burnt in hell (past)

Ted could die and burn in hell as far as I was concerned.

2011, Joyce Turner, Pain Through A Child's Eyes, →ISBN, page 136:

For some people, salvation is little more than fire insurance— they don't care about this life, they just don't want to burn in hell.

2011, Max Lucado, 3:16 Participant's Guide: The Numbers of Hope, →ISBN:

I was only about eight years old but the message was loud and clear, “If you die without knowing Jesus as your savior, you will burn in hell for eternity!”

2012, Bill Petite, A Rose in the Desert, →ISBN:

(literally) To spend the afterlife suffering in hell.


mutually assured destruction

en-noun

mutually assured destruction (uncountable)

mutual assured destruction
mutual assured destruction#English

Alternative form of mutual assured destruction


hatchet man

The crime lord dispatched his favorite hatchet man to make sure the witness would not testify.


Phoney War

(historical) During World War Two, the period of limited military activity from the outbreak of hostilities on September 3rd, 1939 until Germany's attack on the Low Countries on May 10th, 1940.


waterboarding

waterboarding (usually uncountable, plural waterboardings)

A torture technique in which the victim is immobilized, has towels or rags wrapped over their face, and has water poured onto them, causing them to experience the sensation of drowning.


proxy war

With the enhanced insurgent firepower and with Russia steadily raising the number of airstrikes against the government’s opponents, the Syrian conflict is edging closer to an all-out proxy war between the United States and Russia.

2015 October 12, Anne Barnard, Karam Shoumali, “U.S. Weaponry Is Turning Syria Into Proxy War With Russia”, in The New York Times, →ISSN:

A war where two powers use third parties as a supplement to, or a substitute for, fighting each other directly.


doughface

(derogatory) A person, especially a politician, who is perceived to be pliable or moldable.

In particular, in the antebellum United States, a Northerner who espoused sympathies with the Southern Slave Power, especially a Northern Democrat who was more allied with the ideology of Southern Democrats than that of the majority of Northerners.


King Cotton

/ˌkɪŋˈkɒtn̩/

(obsolete) A personification of the cotton production of the southern United States.


Nixon

From Nick + -son, an alteration of Nickson, originally a patronymic meaning "son of Nicholas".

An English surname transferred from the given name.

Richard Nixon, 37th President of the United States of America

A township in DeWitt County, Illinois, United States, named after early settlers George, William and Morris Nixon.

A census-designated place in Washoe County, Nevada, United States, named in honor of George S. Nixon, Nevada senator.


sucker punch

American English, from sucker (“dupe”) + punch.

A disabling punch targeting a place which is not normally acceptable in a "fair fight", such as on the back of the head.


bitch fight

(vulgar, slang) a fight between women, gay men, and/or other effeminate people.

Zickenkrieg

(vulgar) a fight between women — see also catfight


Spitfire

(historical) A single-seat fighter used by the RAF and allies during World War II, especially during the Battle of Britain.


From uranium + 235 (“the atomic mass of the isotope”).

af

The Zaporizhzhia plant provided about a fifth of Ukraine’s electricity before Russia’s invasion, and has been forced to operate on backup generators a number of times. It has six Soviet-designed water-cooled and water-moderated reactors containing uranium-235.

2022 November 21, Lorenzo Tondo, Peter Beaumont, “Ukraine to start evacuations in Kherson and Mykolaiv regions as winter sets in”, in The Guardian:

(physics) A fissile isotope of uranium, used for energy generation and in atomic weapons, containing one hundred and forty-three neutrons. It has a half-life of 7·038×10⁸ years; it decays into thorium-231 and ultimately lead.


beatdown

en-noun

beatdown (countable and uncountable, plural beatdowns)

Deverbal from beat down; influenced by earlier throwdown.

professional wrestling
professional wrestling

(professional wrestling, slang) A prescribed situation, usually to advance an angle or establish character, where two or more wrestlers severely beat up another wrestler or performer.

(music) A subgenre of hardcore punk influenced by heavy metal.


DEFCON

activation and readiness level of the United States armed forces, as "DEFCON 4".


boogaloo

boogaloo (countable and uncountable, plural boogaloos)

/ˈbuːɡəˌluː/

/ˌbuːɡəˈluː/

Attested as a style of dance since at least January 1966 (and found in the titles of many songs around that time), perhaps from boogie (for the ending, compare crackaloo, hullabaloo). (Compare Spanish bugalú, the Spanish name for the style of music and dance.) Kent Harris used the stage name "Boogaloo" in the 1950s. The sense "sequel or repetition" refers to the title of Breakin' 2: Electric Boogaloo (1984), a sequel which was considered to be so bad it became a cult classic. Compare the sense "black person" to boogalee, a term for a Cajun, attested since 1960 or earlier.

Today, boogaloo has seeped out of the gaming community and found fertile ground in militant fringe movements. That includes anarchists and others on the far left. But it's especially popular among right-wing militias and self-described patriot groups.

2020 January 10, Hannah Allam, “'Boogaloo' Is The New Far-Right Slang For Civil War”, in NPR:

This month, the party involved itself once again with the boogaloo movement, when Cohen spoke at a gun rights rally co-hosted by a self-described “boogaloo boy” in Richmond, Virginia. Cohen used his speech to argue relaxing gun laws could end police violence.

2020 August 23, Adam Gabbatt, “The Libertarian party was up and coming in 2016. What happened?”, in The Guardian:

(Internet slang, US politics) A hypothetical second American Civil War, in which far-right or antigovernment activists rise up against the government.


bullwhip

A whip made from plaited leather, often with a knotted end, for use with livestock.


gladiatorial

en-adj

gladiatorial (comparative more gladiatorial, superlative most gladiatorial)

more gladiatorial (comparative)
most gladiatorial (superlative)

Gladiatorial entertainment was common in ancient Rome.


torturous

torturous (comparative more torturous, superlative most torturous)

more torturous (comparative)
most torturous (superlative)

/ˈtɔɹt͡ʃəɹəs/

/ˈtɔːt͡ʃəɹəs/

From Middle English torterous, from Anglo-Norman torturous, from Old French tortureus, from Latin tortūra.


Bluebeard

Calque of French Barbe-Bleue (literally “blue beard”).

calque

A famous fairy tale written by Charles Perrault in 1697 about a violent nobleman who has the habit of murdering his wives and the attempts of his current wife to avoid the same fate.


ethnocide

The deliberate and systematic destruction of an ethnic group, accomplished either by destroying the members of the group (genocide) or by destroying its cultural identity (culturicide).


clean someone's clock

en-verb

clean someone's clock (third-person singular simple present cleans someone's clock, present participle cleaning someone's clock, simple past and past participle cleaned someone's clock)

cleans someone's clock (present singular third-person)
cleaning someone's clock (participle present)
cleaned someone's clock (participle past)
cleaned someone's clock (past)

Originally military slang; perhaps from clock face.

"When big business goes head to head with unions, the unions clean their clock," said one Republican aide in Congress.

1997 November 12, Richard W. Stevenson, “Executives Say Trade Bill Defeat Will Hurt Economy”, in New York Times, retrieved 2008-10-07:

Barack Obama cleaned her clock in the debates.

2007 April 28, Carla Marinucci, “Hillary on a roll”, in San Francisco Chronicle, retrieved 2008-10-07:

The heavily-tattooed Perez never recovered, getting nailed with flush head shots before a clean-up left hook cleaned his clock.

2008 September 27, Jake Donovan, “Vicente Escobedo Rallies, Stops Dominic Salcido In Six”, in BoxingScene.com, retrieved 2008-10-07:

(idiomatic, informal) To defeat someone decisively, in a physical fight or other competition or negotiation.


knock the living daylights out of

knock the living daylights out of (third-person singular simple present knocks the living daylights out of, present participle knocking the living daylights out of, simple past and past participle knocked the living daylights out of)

knocks the living daylights out of (present singular third-person)
knocking the living daylights out of (participle present)
knocked the living daylights out of (participle past)
knocked the living daylights out of (past)

En-au-knock the living daylights out of.ogg

He won the English championship from the six-foot-three-inch, seventeen-stone Sam Hurst, the Staleybridge Infant, knocking the living daylights out of this champion

1954, Denzil Batchelor, Big Fight: The Story of World Championship Boxing, →OCLC, page 65:

(idiomatic) To thoroughly and decisively defeat someone in a physical fight, especially by knocking out that person.


sanguineous

en-adj

sanguineous (comparative more sanguineous, superlative most sanguineous)

more sanguineous (comparative)
most sanguineous (superlative)

Borrowed from Latin sanguineus. Doublet of sanguine.

Eager for bloody violence; bloodthirsty.


Tito

Josip Broz Tito, a Yugoslav revolutionary and politician.


War on Terrorism

(US) An ongoing campaign by the United States (and some of its allies) the stated aim of which is to counter international terrorism, but especially to counter al-Qaeda and other militant Muslim groups.

反恐戰爭

ongoing campaign by the US and its allies

The common term for the military, political, legal and ideological conflict against Islamic terrorism, and specifically used in reference to operations by the United States, in response to the September 11, 2001 attacks.

反恐戰爭

common term for conflict against Islamic terrorism


contract killer

en-noun

contract killer (plural contract killers)

A person who contracts to kill a specified person for an agreed sum of money.


Russian roulette

From roulette, a game of chance involving a revolving wheel. The first description is apparently in "The Fatalist," an 1840 short story by Russian writer Mikhail Lermontov.

(idiomatic, games) A deadly game in which a person loads a single bullet in the cylinder of a revolver, spins the cylinder so that the bullet's location is unknown, points the muzzle at his/her head, and pulls the trigger. In its most lethal form, played by multiple participants each of whom takes a turn until the weapon discharges.

رُولِيت رُوسِيّ

deadly game with revolver and random spinning


exsanguinate

en-verb

exsanguinate (third-person singular simple present exsanguinates, present participle exsanguinating, simple past and past participle exsanguinated)

exsanguinates (present singular third-person)
exsanguinating (participle present)
exsanguinated (participle past)
exsanguinated (past)

/ɪkˈsæŋɡwəˌneɪt/

PIE word
 *h₁ésh₂r̥
From Latin exsanguinātus (“depleted of blood, exsanguinated; lacking blood, bloodless”) + -ate.

af

la:exsanguinātus<t:depleted of blood, exsanguinated; lacking blood, bloodless>

абяскро́ўліваць

to drain (a living or dead body, or a body part) of blood

And I do have to admit that once the episode revealed that the girls killed their dads because of a chromosomal predisposition, I made a note to have my daughter tested for that "exsanguinate your father" gene!

1997, Phil Farrand, “First Season [Eve]”, in The Nitpicker’s Guide for X-philes, New York, N.Y.: Dell Publishing, →ISBN:

To kill (a person or animal) by means of blood loss.

vuodattaa kuiviin

to kill (a person or animal) by means of blood loss


coventrate

en-verb

coventrate (third-person singular simple present coventrates, present participle coventrating, simple past and past participle coventrated)

coventrates (present singular third-person)
coventrating (participle present)
coventrated (participle past)
coventrated (past)

From Coventry + -ate (verb-forming suffix), following German coventrieren. Coventry, England, was devastated by German firebombing in November 1940, during World War II.

(transitive) To devastate by heavy bombing.


necktie party

"I expect I'll have an invite to a necktie-party some day. . . . I'm always afraid the wrong necktie will be mine. Were you ever lynched?"

1904, B. M. Bower, “The Lamb”, in The Lonesome Trail and Other Stories:

I made my jail break just in time to keep from being invited as chief guest to a necktie party.

1910, William MacLeod Raine, chapter 3, in A Texas Ranger:

One peasant threw a grass rope over a hook high on the pole. Said Shupe: "It sure looked like a necktie party was being organized. I had no doubt they were going to hang me."

1958 July 21, “Foreign Relations: Back from Russia”, in Time:

Last week, my 17-year-old son and I went to see the movie True Grit. . . . A triple hanging kicks the thing off with a snap as three corpses jerk violently from the gallows. The necktie party is followed by shootings, stabbings and a smorgasbord of violence.

2011 January 17, Paul Andersen, “Cultural necrophilia”, in Aspen Times, USA, retrieved 2011-06-30:

(US, idiomatic, dated) An execution by hanging, especially a lynching.


Reichstag

Borrowed from German Reichstag (“imperial parliament”).


gunplay

en-noun

gunplay (usually uncountable, plural gunplays)

In the aftermath of the Iraq War, the streets of Baghdad were sometimes filled with gunplay.

The one consoling thought was that there might be gunplay before the night was over—Dish had never been in a gun battle but he reasoned that if bullets flew thick and fast Jake might stop one of them, which could change the whole situation.

1985, Larry McMurty, The Lonesome Dove, Simon & Schuster, published 2010, →ISBN, page 114:

Cop action films revelled in scenes of action and violence with the male body at the center engaging in fistfights, kickboxing, car chases, and gunplay.

2006, Philippa Gates, Detecting Men: Masculinity and the Hollywood Detective Film, State University of New York Press, published 2006, →ISBN, page 140:

The agents were outnumbered, outgunned, and way off the beaten track, but Becky quickly understood that nobody had planned on any gunplay.

2010, Terrence E. Poppa, Drug Lord: A True Story: The Life and Death of a Mexican Kingpin, Cinco Puntos Press, published 2010, →ISBN, page 156:

The discharge of firearms, usually with violent intent and in confrontations.


tune up

en-verb

tune up (third-person singular simple present tunes up, present participle tuning up, simple past and past participle tuned up)

tunes up (present singular third-person)
tuning up (participle present)
tuned up (participle past)
tuned up (past)

“We finally stopped roustin' him and decided to tune him up instead, every chance we got.”
“Tune him up?”
“Yeah, that's an expression for beatin' the living dog shit outta somebody.”

2007, Michael Berish, Reflections from the Pit, →ISBN:

“I mean, I had to tune her up a bit. She bitched a lot and never did any work. Sometimes, you know, you just gotta get their attention, whack 'em a little."

2015, Joe Peters, Bill Fleming, Code Black, →ISBN, page 264:

[T]hey couldn't tune him up because the murder had to look like he died in his sleep.

2017, Jeff Gulvin, The Contract: A John Q Thriller, →ISBN:

(chiefly US, transitive, idiomatic) To beat up (someone).


Nazi Germany

(historical) Germany under the regime of Adolf Hitler's Nazi Party (from 1933 to 1945).


clean out

clean out (third-person singular simple present cleans out, present participle cleaning out, simple past and past participle cleaned out)

cleans out (present singular third-person)
cleaning out (participle present)
cleaned out (participle past)
cleaned out (past)

could have cleaned him out with an uppercut to the side of his head.

(transitive, dated, slang) To hit or strike (someone); to beat up.


do up

do up (third-person singular simple present does up, present participle doing up, simple past did up, past participle done up)

does up (present singular third-person)
doing up (participle present)
did up (past)
done up (participle past)

(slang) To beat up; to physically assault.


comfort woman

Calque from Japanese 慰(い)安(あん)婦(ふ) (ianfu).

She carefully watches the efforts of Koreans who are suing Japan to get reparations for the comfort women. It was only in 1993 that Japan formally recognized its involvement in the forced prostitution.

1995 September 10, Jane H. Lii, “The Memories of a Comfort Woman”, in The New York Times, →ISSN:

(idiomatic, historical, euphemistic) A woman forced, or supposedly recruited, into brothels by the Japanese occupation forces before or during World War II.


lash out

lash out (third-person singular simple present lashes out, present participle lashing out, simple past and past participle lashed out)

lashes out (present singular third-person)
lashing out (participle present)
lashed out (participle past)
lashed out (past)

For the verb's chief current sense (to attack suddenly), surface analysis suggests reaching out with the lash (either literally or figuratively); however, the verb is entered in various early-19th-century dictionaries with various senses, only some of which have to do with attacking, kicking, or similar. One of them corresponds to today's splash out (that is, to break out into spending), while another corresponds to breaking out into expressing oneself verbally.

(intransitive) To splash out (spend a lot of money)