browning
n.— «Over the years of visiting Jamaica, I constantly heard the men referring to their favourite choice of girls as the ‘browning’ type. I have always wondered who originally came up with this term? During the early 1970s, while I was in school, that term did not exist in the vocabulary of Jamaicans.» —“Note-worthy” Gleaner (Kingston, Jamaica) July 7, 2009. (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)
Further reading
Ribbon fall. Gallery forest. You won’t find terms like these in most dictionaries, but they and hundreds like them are discussed by famous writers in the book Home Ground: A Guide to the American Landscape. The book is an intriguing collection...
The new Downton Abbey movie is a luscious treat for fans of the public-television period piece, but how accurate is the script when it comes to the vocabulary of the early 20th century? It may be jarring to hear the word swag, but it was already at...