boots on the ground
n.pl.— «Many American strategists now argue that even light, token US land forces—”getting US combat boots on the ground,” as General Warner puts it—would signal to an enemy that the US is physically guarding the area and can only be dislodged at the risk of war.» —“US rapid strike force: How to get there first with the most” by John K. Coole Christian Science Monitor (Boston, Mass.) Apr. 11, 1980. (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)
Further reading
What if, instead of being an inanimate object, a dictionary were alive? That’s the idea behind a lavishly illustrated new children’s book called The Dictionary Story (Bookshop|Amazon) by Oliver Jeffers and Sam Winston. This is part of a...
Aubrey in Waco, Texas, says her mother used to warn the kids against contracting honkus of the bonkus, a fanciful name for a contagious disease. This colloquial term probably comes from the words bonk and konk, meaning “to hit” or...