scribble
v.— «Gracefully folding a mixture of southern African languages and slang into her supple prose (“Scribble” is slang for “kill”; when her dad sees her growing fascination with K, he warns, “Curiosity scribbled the cat”), Fuller captures the rhythms and wounds of her subjects, cannily allowing the horror of their stories to speak for itself.» —“Once were (white) warriors” by Daneet Steffens Globe and Mail (Toronto, Can.) May 22, 2004. (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)
Further reading
In the 15th century, the word respair meant “to have hope again.” Although this word fell out of use, it’s among dozens collected in a new book of soothing vocabulary for troubled times. Plus, baseball slang: If a batter...
Asthenosphere, a geologist’s term for the molten layer beneath the earth’s crust, sparks a journey that stretches all the way from ancient Greece to the author of Uncle Tom’s Cabin. Plus: What the heck is a dogberg? It’s when...