chin check
n.— «I did not know, upon my arrival at the Durango Jail, that the “Woods” were part of the Aryan Brotherhood. I did, however, witness some of what can happen if jail protocol is not followed to the letter of the “law.” A minor infraction earns you what is known as a “chin check” in the bathroom, essentially someone from one of the “gangs” taking a free shot at your face.» —“Letters From the Issue of Thursday, January 25: Chain Gangs” Phoenix New Times (Arizona) Jan. 25, 2007. (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)
Further reading
It was a dark and stormy night. So begins the long and increasingly convoluted prose of Edwards Bulwer-Lytton’s best-known novel. Today the annual Bulwer-Lytton Contest asks contestants for fanciful first sentences that are similarly...
Enthusiastic book recommendations! Martha’s savoring the biography of Alexander von Humboldt, the 19th-century explorer, polymath, and naturalist who revolutionized our understanding of nature and predicted the effects of human activity on...