combine
n.— «The NBA is pretty straight compared to what goes on prior to the National Football League draft, where more than 300 players are annually invited to what is known as the “meat market.” Sports talk radio and the Internet offer numerous accounts of NFL wannabes who are required to walk into a room full of scouting and management types, strip down to their underwear and let everyone look at them while they are weighed and measured. The whole thing is videotaped—so coaches can “study” it later—and players are even required to turn around so everybody can get a look at the full package as the young stud works the runway. The men who run the NFL call it “the combine.”» —“Brokedraft Mountain” by Geoff Griffin Salt Lake City Weekly (Utah) June 22, 2006. (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)
Further reading
A listener in Park City, Utah, says she and her fellow ski enthusiasts are having heated debates about the word nonplussed. It originally meant “at a loss,” from Latin non plus, meaning “no more,” suggesting a situation in...
How are lakes named? Does the proper name of a lake come first, as in Candlewood Lake, or does the word Lake precede the proper name, as in Lake Erie. It’s a question that’s long puzzled limnologists, the people who study lakes. The...