pay-for
n.— «I think Chairman Greenspan mentioned today that he thought that it would be a slam dunk, no-brainer if you could find a pay-for for that, if you could make it so that it was revenue neutral. But I would argue that if you were to look at the net economic effect of the president’s plan absent such a pay-for, that it would still move you to make this reform because, again, if we don’t, then we’re going to fail to address a very pressing problem.» —“United States Monetary and Economic Policy” by Committee on Financial Services U.S. House of Representatives (Washington, D.C.) Apr. 30, 2003. (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)
Further reading
Many of us struggled with the Old English poem “Beowulf” in high school. But what if you could actually hear “Beowulf” in the English of today? There’s a new translation by Maria Dahvana Headley that uses contemporary...
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...