Kristin, a college professor in Dubuque, Iowa, teaches a class in the U.S. history of sexuality. She’s intrigued by the way her students increasingly use the word loyalty as a synonym for monogamy. Perhaps the word monogamy sounds more...
A Nevada high-schooler wonders about the slang terms cap meaning “to lie” and no cap, meaning I’m not lying. Many people associate it with the Future & Young Thug song “No Cap.” However, the expression goes back to...
In Lancashire, England, the dialectal term sprunny is a synonym for “sweetheart.” This is part of a complete episode.
If you need a synonym for stench, there’s always hogo, from French haut-gout, literally “high flavor.” This is part of a complete episode.
The title of the 1918 novel Cabin Fever, by B.M. Bower, references the term then widely used in the American West to denote the restless feeling of being cooped up too long in a cabin all winter. A synonym for cabin fever is shanty fever. On the...
Felines have inspired some picturesque terms. In parts of the Midwestern United States, the term cat beer can mean “milk.” The term cat hair is sometimes used as a synonym for “money,” and cat ice is “thin ice.”...