ethnicon n.— «Dirty Sanchez is just one of many sex acts named after a locale or ethnicity, in a subgenre of slurs linguists call “ethnicons.” These are insults meant to comment on an ethnic group’s supposed depravity that become...
arancini n.pl.— «The name literally translates as “little orange,” which is what they resemble when cooked, but there is nothing fruity about them. Arancini are widely served street food in Italy, and every nonna there has her...
color revolution n.— «Georgia’s 2003 Rose Revolution, Ukraine’s 2004 Orange Revolution and Kyrgyzstan’s 2005 Tulip Revolution resulted in new leaders who advocated democracy rising to power in all three of these post-Soviet states. The...
sack dance n.— «What prompts this verbal sack dance over the sodden, prostrate corpus of Seattle is the release last week of the new “Places Rated Almanac.”…Naturally, Orange County rated No. 1. And The Soggy City, a...
puggle n.— «But it’s the puggle—a pug crossed with a beagle—that is the “it dog” of the moment.» —“Don’t call me mutt” by Katherine Nguyen Orange County Register (California) Oct. 17, 2005...
dance of the lemons n.— «The dance of the lemons. It refers to an annual ballet in which bad tenured teachers are shuffled around within school districts because they can’t be fired.» —“Dancing lemons and a restless...