pull leather
v. phr.— «But Molinas was assassinated in Los Angeles in 1975, three months after I had lunch with him at the Playboy Club. As they say in Texas, Molinas “pulled leather on the mob” in Vegas by refusing to pay his gambling debts.» —“Gambling scandal, you say? Not again” by Bill Tosheff ProBasketballNews.com July 26, 2007. (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)
Further reading
Aaron in Los Angeles, California, notes while using public transit in Britain he and other passengers were instructed to alight from the front, meaning “exit the car from the front.” Alight comes from an Old English word alihtan, literally, to...
The words tough, through, and dough all end in O-U-G-H. So why don’t they rhyme? A lively new book addresses the many quirks of English by explaining the history of words and phrases. And: have you ever been in a situation where a group makes...