car clout
n.— «UC Berkeley police have issued a car clout alert. Car clouters—burglars who rob cars—have been busily at work on campus over the past month, reports campus Police Chief Victoria Harrison. Between Feb. 21 and March 21, police recorded 13 car clouts on university property, most of them in the southern and eastern parts of the campus.» —“Police Blotter” by Richard Brenneman Berkeley Daily Planet (California) Mar. 24, 2006. (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)
Further reading
We tend to take the index of a book for granted, but centuries ago, these helpful lists were viewed with suspicion. Some even worried that indexes would harm reading comprehension! A witty new book tells the story. Plus, the Latin term bona fides...
Martha recently found a 1938 letter that her grandfather sent to the local police chief in Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley. It concerns a suspected thief who her grandfather thought might be persuaded to confess because, he wrote,, the young man surely...