tent pole
n.— «Megan McTavish, the show’s head writer, said she was most astonished that fans elevated Bianca into one of the serial’s “tent poles”—soap parlance for characters who hold enormous sway with viewers.» —“After Coming Out, a Soap Opera Heroine Moves On” by Patrick D. Healy New York Times Feb. 24, 2005. (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...
In 1968, students at Cheyenne High School in Cheyenne, Wyoming, compiled a collection of their own slang, including the word Clyde, used to refer to one’s head, as in Use your Clyde! This is part of a complete episode.
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