mowing the lawn
n.— «Maritime patrol planes fly a grid pattern over the search area, guided by GPS. They fly in parallel swaths over the ocean, in a process that pilots refer to as “mowing the lawn.” Flying at an altitude of 600 metres or less, pilots and crew watch for surface debris and fuel slicks.» —“How the hunt for the missing airliner will unfold” by Peter Cheney Globe and Mail (Canada) June 3, 2009. (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)
Further reading
One of the most powerful words you’ll ever hear — and one of the most poignant — isn’t in dictionaries yet. But it probably will be one day. The word is endling, and it means “the last surviving member of a species.” The...
Quiz Guy John Chaneski was inspired by a version of film in which a filmmaker went to the trouble to take a clip of every word used in the movie The Wizard of Oz, arranging them in alphabetical order, all the way to the Tin Man’s saying zipper...