cat face
n.— «Atzet stopped again, to drill into the bulging bark of a cat-faced sugar pine. The cat face is a ring of bulging bark that has grown to heal a scar left by a fire. Because the healing bark is loaded with pitch, it tends to burn more intensely each time fire sweeps past, and the cat face grows.» —“Some Species Need Forest Fires to Survive Plants Sprouting in Charred Oregon Woodland” by Jeff Barnard Los Angeles Times May 15, 1988. (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)
Further reading
Cat hair may be something you brush off, but cat hair is also a slang term that means “money.” In the same way, cat beer isn’t alcoholic — some people use cat beer as a joking term for “milk.” And imagine walking on a...
How do you pronounce species? Is it “spee-SEES” or “spee-SHEES”? Both are considered standard, but the spee-SHEES pronunciation is far more common. This is part of a complete episode.
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