tartan noir n.— «Scottish detective fiction, or Tartan Noir as it’s called, with its brooding sensibility, brutal humor and fixation on the nature of guilt and punishment, has more in common with the Russian novel than it does with...
flutz n.— «Lipinski made a slight error on the front portion of the combination, for an automatic .2 point deduction. She did what, in the business, is referred to a “flutz.”» —“Unlocking the combination: American and...
balagan n.— «Balagan is a slangy Hebrew word, derived from Russian, used by the Israel Defense Forces to describe what is happening with Sharon’s Gaza disengagement strategy: “chaos; a screw up!”» —“Gaza Disengagement:...
fanjinshi n.— «The central festival topic is named by a peculiar coinage-Fanjinshi, a portmanteau word made of the English “fanzine” and “dojinshi,” Japanese analogue of “Samizdat,” Russian word for an...
talik n.— «The technical term for thawed permafrost is talik, from a Russian word meaning “not frozen.”» —“The Climate Of Man” by Elizabeth Kolbert New Yorker Apr. 18, 2005. (source: Double-Tongued...
mahoff n.— «The man known as “the big mahoff” of Philadelphia gambling told the Kefauver senate crime committee today that he…denied cash payoffs to Richardson for protection.…Rosen and Weisberg, both Russian...