witness post
n.— «Sara Yurman, 33, is a geographer with the Gwinnett County planning department who specializes in mapmaking. She found a “witness post” in the Modoc community, a rare thing, so she said, that showed that Modoc sits 5 feet above sea level.» —“Cyclists head home to BRAG again with growing event” by Jim Galloway Atlanta Journal Constitution (Georgia) June 20, 1988. (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)
Further reading
To joner means to “bring bad luck to” or “jinx.” This term is a corruption of the name Jonah, the biblical figure who initially resisted a divine command. His presence on board a ship supposedly caused a great storm at sea...
Books were rare treasures in the Middle Ages, painstakingly copied out by hand. So how to protect them from theft? Scribes sometimes added a curse to the first page of those books that was supposed to keep thieves away — and some were as vicious as...