wet beef
n.— «Wet beef. Stolen cattle, out of Mexico, or cattle brought in from Mexico without paying duty.» —“Cow Punchers’ Slang and Jargon” in Utah, Texas, Ore., S.D., Colo., Ariz., Mont. Lexicon of Trade Jargon , 1938-39. (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...
Aubrey in Waco, Texas, says her mother used to warn the kids against contracting honkus of the bonkus, a fanciful name for a contagious disease. This colloquial term probably comes from the words bonk and konk, meaning “to hit” or...