perp
n.— «I…drew up near a large man in a red shirt, who was holding an ugly looking, short ear bull pup by the collar.…Blood was on the ground, and both dogs were bleeding when I came up. “I’ll bet yer ten ounces ter two thet this perp is the boss,” said the young fellow.» —“Only An Adventure” by F.O. Van Galder Southern Immigrant (Cullman, Ala.) Oct. 3, 1878. (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)
Further reading
Is there such a thing as a “neutral” accent, and if so what does it sound like? And that quirk in the way southern Californians talk about freeways. They’ll say things like take the 405 and get on the 8. Why the definite article...
Floordrobe is the new word for an old habit: piling your clothes on the floor instead of putting them away. The Oxford English Dictionary recently added an entry for it, defining floordrobe as “an untidy heap of discarded clothing left on the floor...