cat face
n.— «Brown strawberries, almost-black strawberries, lumpy, warty cat-faced strawberries: They darken the fields of A.G. Kawamura, outnumbering the ripe, red berries by two to one in some places.…Temperatures dipped to about 30 degrees Fahrenheit the last week of December, not quite low enough to kill entire plants, they said. Winds at times were strong enough to dent, or “cat-face” fruit.» —“Irvine farmers examine effects of chill on strawberries” by Melissa Balmain Weiner Orange County Register Jan. 14, 1988. (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)
Further reading
Asthenosphere, a geologist’s term for the molten layer beneath the earth’s crust, sparks a journey that stretches all the way from ancient Greece to the author of Uncle Tom’s Cabin. Plus: What the heck is a dogberg? It’s when...
Chris in Omaha, Nebraska, asks about the use of the adjective husky to describe the boys’ clothing section in a department store. This coded term refers to clothes made for heavier fellows. Husky was originally a positive term connoting the...