take ermine
v. phr.— «The BBC has a tried-and-tested mechanism for removing editors who are deemed to have failed. It promotes them into utterly meaningless positions, a practice sometimes referred to as an “involuntary lateral arabesque,” or “taking ermine.”» —“Today tries to build a new tomorrow as editor moves on” by Tim Luckhurst Guardian (U.K.) Feb. 26, 2006. (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)
Further reading
Cat hair may be something you brush off, but cat hair is also a slang term that means “money.” In the same way, cat beer isn’t alcoholic — some people use cat beer as a joking term for “milk.” And imagine walking on a...
One of the most powerful words you’ll ever hear — and one of the most poignant — isn’t in dictionaries yet. But it probably will be one day. The word is endling, and it means “the last surviving member of a species.” The...