wampus
n.— «Wampus or cat-a-wampus. Also: Whampus—the panther. A mythical animal used as a bogie to frighten children. Ala.» —by Harry Harrison Kroll in George Peabody College for Teachers A Comparative Study of Upper and Lower Southern Folk Speech (Martin, Tennesee) Aug., 1925. (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)
Further reading
What if, instead of being an inanimate object, a dictionary were alive? That’s the idea behind a lavishly illustrated new children’s book called The Dictionary Story (Bookshop|Amazon) by Oliver Jeffers and Sam Winston. This is part of a...
Asthenosphere, a geologist’s term for the molten layer beneath the earth’s crust, sparks a journey that stretches all the way from ancient Greece to the author of Uncle Tom’s Cabin. Plus: What the heck is a dogberg? It’s when...