water buffalo
n.— «Other times foundations fracture and wells crack, the water draining away. “Water buffalo”—the local term for replacement water tanks wrapped in white insulation—graze in backyards and side lots.» —“In The Black” by Jane M. Von Bergen in Waynesburg Philadelphia Inquirer (Pennsylvania) May 11, 2008. (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)
You must log in to post a comment.
How do you transform ancient Chinese script for use in the modern age? English uses a keyboard with just 26 letters, but the first Chinese typewriter...
Writer Ian Bogost has a clever proposal for a drinking establishment that every copy editor will love: “A bar called The Copy Desk where they...
Madison in Wilmington, North Carolina, says that whenever her family was about to leave the house, her grandfather would tell them to take...
If you’re ever near a sundial, step closer and look for a message. Many sundials bear haunting, poetic inscriptions about the brevity of life...
A middle-schooler in Waukesha, Wisconsin, wonders why the word island contains the letter S, and why is it pronounced with a long I and no S sound...
Samantha, a Latin teacher in Cincinnati, Ohio, is curious about why some people say bread and butter after two people walking together pass by on...
I don’t know if your American readers are aware of it, but there’s an actual, literal water buffalo, defined by Merriam-Webster as “an often domesticated Asian buffalo.” The Philippine carabao (kalabaw in Tagalog and karabaw in Visayan, another Philippine language) is a water buffalo.
water buffalo (n)
1. a small two wheel trailer used by US Army and Air Force to transport potable water to troops in the field
2. Colorado has arcane water laws with the chief tenet being ‘first user has first right.’ A long-time expert lawyer in this field of law is nick-named a ‘water buffalo’.
Who coined the term and when.
This water trailer is far from the looks of a buffalo. I think it looks more like a pig.