mongo n. material or goods salvaged from items intended for disposal. Also as verb. Editorial Note: New evidence from the unpublished Lexicon of Trade Jargon, compiled by the Works Progress Administration, has a form of this word from before 1938: mungo, referring to the person who salvages discarded items, rather than the things being salvaged. This term appears to be specific to New York City. (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)
Further reading
Joe from Fort Lauderdale, Florida, asks about pony, the term he and his fellow maritime academy students used to mean “a practice test” or “a copy of a previous test” to help them crib for an exam. Among 19th-century British students, the slang term...
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