brownout
n.— «The San Francisco Fire Department, with the OK of Mayor Gavin Newsom, has been taking certain engines and trucks out of service on a rotating basis since last summer. The “brownouts,” as they’re called, save money on staffing costs. If there aren’t enough people to staff the rigs on regular duty, brownouts are enacted to reduce the need to call firefighters in on costly overtime.» —“Firefighters hot about brownouts” by Rachel Gordon San Francisco Chronicle Mar. 11, 2005. (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...
Astronauts returning from space say they experience what’s called the overview effect, a new understanding of the fragility of our planet and our need to reflect on what humans all share as a species. A book about the end of the universe...