canteen honours
n.pl.— «Shyam Benegal’s Bose: The Forgotten Hero makes me wish I had attended some classes, instead of doing what, in Presidency College Calcutta parlance, was called “canteen honours.”» —“Bose: A great patriotic film” by Sumit Bhattacharya Rediff (Mumbai, India) May 13, 2005. (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)
Further reading
According to the Oxford English Dictionary, a word-pecker is “a person who trifles or plays with, or quibbles over, words.” This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of “Word-Peckers” I always love it when I’m looking through the dictionary and...
How do dictionaries define colors? And why are some of those definitions so confusing, like “stronger than carmine” and “bluer than fiesta”? Dictionary editor Kory Stamper explains it all in her new book. Plus, the story behind the expression more...