puffer machine
n.— «Some passengers flying out of Baltimore-Washington International Airport will feel puffs of air scanning them for explosives as part of a test program that started yesterday. A trace portal system, referred to as a “puffer machine,” was set up at the security checkpoint for BWI’s Concourse D.» —“Airports try new bomb-detection device” by Marguerite Higgins Washington Times Feb. 9, 2005. (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...
What if, instead of being an inanimate object, a dictionary were alive? That’s the idea behind a lavishly illustrated new children’s book called The Dictionary Story (Bookshop|Amazon) by Oliver Jeffers and Sam Winston. This is part of a...