helitack
n.— «The helitack was advised by the regional control centre about the fire being bombed by the Canso. The initial attack crew squeezed into the helicopter and were off within three minutes.» —“Fighting modern-day forest fires like a ‘war without the casualties’” by Victor Malarek in Dryden Globe and Mail (Toronto, Can.) July 24, 1979. (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)
Further reading
What if, instead of being an inanimate object, a dictionary were alive? That’s the idea behind a lavishly illustrated new children’s book called The Dictionary Story (Bookshop|Amazon) by Oliver Jeffers and Sam Winston. This is part of a...
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...