TARP
v.— «But that did not calm him down and he continued to battle officers, police officials said. That’s when he was TARPed, which is another term for being hogtied. TARPed is when a person’s wrists are tied to their ankles with a nylon rope, Davis said.» —“Ex-NBA Star Charged After Ruckus at Tavern” by Jeremy Maready in Tampa The Ledger (Lakeland, Florida) Feb. 13, 2008. (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)
Further reading
Barbara Kingsolver’s book Demon Copperhead is a retelling of Charles Dickens’ David Copperfield set in today’s Appalachia. Martha shares memories of a long-ago visit to Kingsolver’s family farm in Virginia, where they...
Mark in Scranton, Pennsylvania, calls about a phrase he heard on an old detective show: drop a dime. It means “to inform on someone” or “tip off the police,” and comes from the practice of literally dropping a dime into a...