purp
n.— «Gov. Andrews related a Texan practice in training dogs with sheep. “A purp is taken from its mother before its eyes are opened and put with an ewe to suckle. After a few times the ewe becomes reconciled to the pup which follows her like a lamb.”» —“Training Dogs” Coshocton Democrat (Ohio) May 24, 1865. (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)
Further reading
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...
Aubrey in Waco, Texas, says her mother used to warn the kids against contracting honkus of the bonkus, a fanciful name for a contagious disease. This colloquial term probably comes from the words bonk and konk, meaning “to hit” or...