rice bowl
n.— «But some also comes from an institutional, bureaucratic drive to have more airplanes and a bigger share of Navy and Defense Department budgets. “The air-systems people saw that whole program as a gigantic rice bowl they could put their hands into,” a critic in the Pentagon said.» —“How Hornet Was Stripped Of Values It Began With” by Richard Halloran in Washington, D.C. New York Times Nov. 23, 1982. (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)
Further reading
Cat hair may be something you brush off, but cat hair is also a slang term that means “money.” In the same way, cat beer isn’t alcoholic — some people use cat beer as a joking term for “milk.” And imagine walking on a...
Have you ever googled your own name and found someone else who goes by the very same moniker? There’s a word for that: googleganger. Plus, the language of hobbyists and enthusiasts: If you’re a beekeeper, perhaps you call yourself a...