muffin top n. rolls of flesh bulging over a waistband. Editorial Note: This term was nominated as one of the words of the year, voted on by the American Dialect Society January 6, 2006. It did not win. This term may have first been popularized by the Australian television show Kath & Kim. An episode of the American sitcom Seinfeld, “The Muffin Tops,” first broadcast May 8, 1997, spawned a different, short-lived usage of muffin top as a name for anything good. The 2003 citation probably does not refer to the bulging appearance of a midriff. The first 2004 citation gives a different term for the phenomenon and uses muffin top as a description of a different part of the body. (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)
Further reading
A Kentucky listener says her father often prefaced statements with the phrase I tell you what’s the truth. This regionalism appears in the Dictionary of Southern Appalachian English (Bookshop|Amazon). A shorter version is I’ll tell you...
In the 15th century, the word respair meant “to have hope again.” Although this word fell out of use, it’s among dozens collected in a new book of soothing vocabulary for troubled times. Plus, baseball slang: If a batter...