Jonas, a high-school English teacher from Chatham, Virginia, is curious about the word jabroni (also spelled jabroney, jabronie, and jabrony), meaning a “chump” or “palooka.” It may come from a Milanese dialect word, jamboni...
Professional wrestling may be staged, but its insider vocabulary is vivid and precise. The PW Torch newsletter’s online glossary records phrases such as red means green, the old ringside saying that a wrestler who bleeds during a bout earns a...
Who you calling a jabronie? And what exactly is a jabronie? (Or a jaboney, jadroney, jambone, jiboney, gibroni, gibroney, gabroney, jobroni, jobrone, etc.) This playful insult, meaning a “rube” or “loser,” traces to the 1920s, when Italian...
Here’s a variant of a phrase that’s familiar to many African-Americans, but virtually unknown to most others: “I’m so broke I couldn’t buy a louse a wrestling jacket.” What’s its meaning and origin...
shit the bed v. phr.— Note: Used in professional wrestling to mean “have stage fright” or “to be unable to go through with a plan.” «A: It is the total package, yes. It is the charisma. It the ability to take the...
worked adj.— «At this point it is unsure if this is real or “worked” (a professional wrestling term meaning “scripted”) but all early indicators point to this event being a real life situation.» —“Wrestling...