mahoff
n.— «The man known as “the big mahoff” of Philadelphia gambling told the Kefauver senate crime committee today that he…denied cash payoffs to Richardson for protection.…Rosen and Weisberg, both Russian born, came to the hearing together.…Weisberg explained that “the big mahoff” means “the big shot,” but deined he had ever heard Rosen called that.» —“‘Big Shot’ Tells of Gifts to Cop in Philadelphia” by Willam Moore in Washington, D.C. Chicago Daily Tribune Feb. 20, 1951. (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...
Cat hair may be something you brush off, but cat hair is also a slang term that means “money.” In the same way, cat beer isn’t alcoholic — some people use cat beer as a joking term for “milk.” And imagine walking on a...