chipmunk
n.— «Turns out “chipmunk” is a colloquial term for a little battery-powered yellow circular saw, explains project leader Kate Drake, who adopted the slang after hearing it while working on a Habitat house in Houston, Texas.» —“Women forge ahead on ‘habitat’” by Valerie Zehl in Endicott Press & Sun-Bulletin (Binghamton, N.Y.) Aug. 30, 2005. (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...