latching on n.— «Linda Parker, the instructor, shimmies to the right and then to the left, her tan, pointy cowboy boots gliding across the carpet. Her thumbs are tucked into her black belt, a practice called “latching on.” “The reason you...
center of gravity n.— «The bread basket, an area of 45 square miles in northeastern Iraq, had been one of Al Qaeda in Iraq’s few remaining “centers of gravity,” as U.S. military commanders termed it—a place the group had fled...