cheekia
n.— «Czechoslovakia, under the nascent communist regime in 1948, trained Jews and others to fight for Israeli independence in the hope that Israel would become a communist state. As that effort backfired, Czechoslo-vakia tried to help foster socialism in the Arab world and became a chief weapons exporter to Arab countries. The arms trade was greatly reduced after 1989, but Snaidau said some Arabs still refer to guns in slang as “cheekia,” derived from Czechia. » —“Making a mark in the Middle East” by Dinah A. Spritzer Prague Post (Czech Republic) July 8, 2004. (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...
Amid court-ordered busing in the 1970s, a middle-school teacher tried to distract her nervous students on the first day of class with this strange assignment: find a monarch caterpillar. The result? A memorable lesson in the miracle of metamorphosis...