stroking
n.— «Tweaking the Chase format in such minor ways would be perfectly fine if NASCAR had the courage to address the real problem. The problem isn’t how many people get to be in the 10-race “playoffs,” but the system of how points are counted.…More than any of those platitudes that are nothing more than euphemisms for “points racing” or, in the term that people in the sport once used, “stroking.”» —“Winning should matter more in Nextel points system” by David Poole in Charlotte, North Carolina Mercury News (San Jose, California) Jan. 14, 2007. (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)
Further reading
When a teenager went a week without talking as part of a school project, he noticed a surprising side effect: Instead of rehearsing a response to what other people were saying to him, he was focused on listening — and feeling smarter as a result...
Melissa in Greensboro, North Carolina, has been sparring with the Gen Z members of her family over the shifting meanings of words. Her kids use aesthetic as an adjective to mean “aesthetically pleasing,” as in That’s so aesthetic. They also refer to...