freedom lawn n.— «Sherri Evans…recommends planting “prairie patches and woodland niches” in addition to perennialground covers to create a “freedom lawn”—a new landscape notion that is more environmentally...
su doku n.— «“You won’t find Su Doku in a Japanese dictionary,” said puzzle creator Wayne Gould in The Times of London. “It’s a coined word, made up by a Japanese publisher.…As I understand it ‘Su’ stands for number...
bang v. in baseball, to call off a game because of inclement weather. Editorial Note: This verb is usually transitive: bang a game. Etymological Note: Perhaps from the notion of a judge banging a gavel, an act of finality comparable to a referee...
pitching n.— «April, a 16-year-old Latina from the Bronx, scoffed at the notion that poor mothers were buying $500 shoes. The only people she knew with such pricey sneakers were those “on the block pitching [dealing drugs]...
curbstoning n. the conducting of (streetside) business without a license, especially automobile sales and formerly real estate; among census-takers, falsifying information about a household. Etymological Note: Both senses of the curbstoning come...
GUBU adj.— «My youth was spent in an English hospital, receiving treatment for scoliosis, which also caused spinal curvature. So we were both, as far as Haughey hard-liners were concerned, twisted. But to suggest this was a voluntary...