big timber
n.— «As recently as 10 years ago, it was possible for a pool player to earn a living hustling, provided he was armed with the requisite chops and disposition.…Odds were good that there was at least one unsuspecting local in the joint with an inflated impression of his talent for pocketing balls, and thus a willingness to throw down “big timber” against the out-of-towner.» —“Jump the Shark” by L. Jon Wertheim New York Times Nov. 24, 2007. (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)
Further reading
Outer space, used with its modern meaning, appears as early as the 1840s in a poem by Emmeline Stuart-Wortley. Soon after, Alexander von Humboldt was using variations on it in his writings about the cosmos. By 1901, H.G. Wells was using outer space...
The exclamation shiver me timbers! has nothing to do with being cold. A different verb shiver means “to shatter into small pieces,” and timbers refers to the wooden beams that make up the structure of a ship’s hull and ribs. Sailors once used...