Granny Smith n.— «When funeral director Roger Barker missed his appointment at a crematorium to collect a client’s remains, he dipped into an urn of “spare ashes” kept in the funeral parlour for just such emergencies. But the...
huck v. to throw, to toss, to short-arm; in disc-based sports, to throw for distance; in cycling, kayaking, snowboarding, and similar sports, to ride over a drop-off. Editorial Note: This term is probably related to chuck ‘to throw with a short arm...
hokey Dinah other. an exclamation of surprise or marvel. Etymological Note: Perhaps a form of the slightly more common holy Dinah, though the Oxford English Dictionary has an entry for hokey, hoaky, defined as “a petty oath, or asservation...
chones n.pl. underwear, especially undershorts or panties. Also chonies, choners. Editorial Note: Despite its proximity to a mention of lingerie, chonies in the 1928 citation is probably a typographical error for chorines. Etymological Note:...
chippy adj. irritable, tempermental, or fractious. Editorial Note: Oxford English Dictionary cites this meaning as early as 1885 as a colloquial form of ‘given to chipping, ready to chip.’ In recent decades in North America it has become most...
Toyotarisation n.— «Andrew Goudie, professor of geography at Oxford University, blames the process of Toyotarisation—a coinage reflecting the near-ubiquitous desert use of Toyota Land Cruisers—for destroying a thin crust of lichen and...