skittle
n.— «Our guys usually dump 200 rounds of “Skittles” onto the target. I did not know what Skittles were for a long time. Back in Hawaii, I came upon two crew chiefs arguing loudly. One of them was very upset about the other guy giving away his Skittles.…AP-I’s machine gun rounds are pieces of ultra-dense tungsten, wrapped in a substance that burns/explodes upon contacting the target. They are referred to as “Skittles” because the tips are painted purple, green, red, or yellow, depending on when they were manufactured. “Skittles,” when fired at night, make beautiful showers of burning metal upon contact with the target. At night, they are a beautiful sight. They were rare, if not impossible to find in Hawaii. In Iraq, they are abundant.» —“Adjusting To Day Shift Is Purgatory” by Hunter Haskins The Ledger (Lakeland, Florida) June 24, 2007. (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)
Further reading
Kim from Council Bluffs, Iowa, notes that kırmızı, the Turkish word for “red,” sounds a lot like the English word crimson. Are they related? Yes! Both derive from a word for the insect whose scientific name is Kermes vermilio. The English words...
Why do we speak of the red, white, and blue when discussing the American flag? Why not blue, white, and red or white, red, and blue? A couple of reasons: The color order lodged in the language thanks in part to the patriotic song from the 1840s...