In an electric car, the trunk is in the front, not the back. Automotive engineers refer to this part of the vehicle as the frunk, a portmanteau of front and trunk. For a while, the Jaguar company, which is based in the UK, instead called it the...
The slang term nation pops up several times in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn as a reduced form of a mild swear word. The word damnation was euphemized as tarnation, which was later shortened to nation. Nation in this sense goes back to the mid...
Careful what you criticize! Not long ago, some words that sound perfectly normal today were considered gauche and grating on the ear. If the complainers had had their way, we couldn’t say a word like pessimism or use contact as a verb! Also...
aircrete n.— «HeidelbergCement’s sale of Thermalite was postponed after failing to attract a high enough bid for the nation’s biggest maker of aerated-concrete blocks, also known as aircrete, used to insulate buildings...
Missouri Model n.— «The brothers say they benefited from confinement in the Missouri juvenile system, which emphasizes rehabilitation in small groups, constant therapeutic interventions and minimal force. Juvenile justice experts across...
homophily n.— «Sociologists have a term for this birds-of-a-feather-flocking-together phenomenon: Homophily. Some explanations for America’s political homophily suggest that a president who is determined to be a uniter might be able to...