trailing spouse
n.— «The trend also means more companies hiring new executives offer some job-finding services to the spouse. In a growing number of cases, the so-called “trailing spouse” in human resources parlance, is the man.» —“Married couples increasingly relocate for wife’s career” by Janell Ross Shreveport Times (Lousiana) Dec. 19, 2006. (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)
Further reading
Loretta in Shreveport, Louisiana, wants to know what lexical and dialectal clues linguists look for when guessing where someone is from. She also wonders: Do people with long careers in the military or who grew up in a military family have a...
The sideways figure-eight shape used as the infinity symbol is a lemniscate (lem-NIS-kit or lem-NIS-kayt). The word comes from a Greek word meaning “ribbon” or “bow,” a nod to the shape’s resemblance to a tied ribbon. It also turns up in...