lid
n.— «Eighteen minutes later, Samantha Tubman, the Obama staffer charged with corralling and shepherding the press pool, gave it “a lid.” That is, she conveyed the word from Mr. Obama, through his security detail, that he would not be going out any more that day, and the press was free to go.…“With no further scheduled events for the day, a lid was called until further notice. The President-elect decided to take the girls to a water park and we assembled the pool as quickly as possible.”» —“A Water Park, but No Pool” by Jackie Calmes in Honolulu, Hawaii New York Times: The Caucus Dec. 26, 2008. (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)
Further reading
Ribbon fall. Gallery forest. You won’t find terms like these in most dictionaries, but they and hundreds like them are discussed by famous writers in the book Home Ground: A Guide to the American Landscape. The book is an intriguing collection...
In White Oleander (Bookshop|Amazon), novelist Janet Fitch touts the value of memorizing poetry with these memorable lines: Always learn poems by heart. They have to become the marrow in your bones. Like fluoride in the water, they’ll make your soul...