tent pole
n.— «As the only major industry in town, it is the tent pole of Stratford’s economy.» —“As Stratford’s World Turns” by Gina Mallet Globe and Mail (Toronto, Can.) Mar. 27, 1986. (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)
Further reading
It was a dark and stormy night. So begins the long and increasingly convoluted prose of Edwards Bulwer-Lytton’s best-known novel. Today the annual Bulwer-Lytton Contest asks contestants for fanciful first sentences that are similarly...
We use the term Milky Way for that glowing arc across the sky. But how people picture it varies from culture to culture. In Sweden, that starry band goes by a name that means “Winter Street,” and in Hawaii, a term for the Milky Way...