︎reef
v.— «Son of Briartic started cranking his head sideways during the stretch run. “All those people were there.…But I was reefing on him. He responded well.”» —“It was all hollering and hoots for Souter” by Beverley Smith Globe and Mail (Toronto, Canada) June 28, 1982. (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)
Further reading
Old. Elderly. Senior. Why are we so uncomfortable when we talk about reaching a certain point in life? An 82-year-old seeks a more positive term to describe how she feels about her age. And: a linguist helps solve a famous kidnapping case, using the...
An anadrome is a word that forms a whole new word when you spell it backwards. For example, the word “stressed” spelled backwards is “desserts.” Some people’s first names are anadromes. There’s the girl named Noel...