beater
n.— «“We really wanted to be in Clinton Hill,” said his wife, a writer, describing their house hunt. “Unfortunately, we were two years too late to really find a beater.”» —“Émigrés” by Kate Julian New Yorker (New York City) Jan. 2, 2006. (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)
Further reading
Patrick in New York City is curious about the term ride or die, which describes a friend, fan, or romantic partner who is devoted to the end. The expression shows up in the mid-1990s in hip hop and the work of Tupac Shakur and The Lox, and often...
If you speak a second or third language, you may remember the first time you dreamed in that new tongue. But does this milestone mean you’re actually fluent? And a couple’s dispute over the word regret: Say you wish you’d been able...