| Ads (noun) | Short for "advertisements."
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| Ain't (verb) | An ungrammatical form of "isn't," sometimes used to emphasize a point although the speaker knows that "isn't" is the correct form.
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| All the Rage (descriptive phrase) | Extremely popular, but the popularity is likely to be transitory.
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| Andy Warhol (proper name) | American artist who flourished in the period 1960–1980. He was immensely popular and successful with art critics and the intelligentsia, but, above all, he gained worldwide recognition in the same way and of the same quality as movie stars and sports athletes do. His renown has continued even after his death.
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| Armada (proper noun) | Historic term for the Spanish navy. Now obsolete.
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| Automatic Pilot (noun) | To be on automatic pilot is to be acting without thinking.
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| Baby Boom (noun) | Any period when more than the statistically predicted number of babies are born. Originally referred to a specific group: those born in the years 1945–1964.
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| Baby Boomers (descriptive phrase) | Americans born in the years 1945 through 1964. An enormous and influential group of people whose large number is attributed to the "boom" in babies that occurred when military personnel, many of whom had been away from home for four or five years, were discharged from military service after the end of World War II.
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| Backfire (verb) | To injure a person or entity who intended to inflict injury.
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| Bait and Switch (compound noun; can also be two verbs) | Something that has been advertised as a quality item at a bargain price, but when you go to the store, there are none available, but there are plenty of items that are "nearly the same" except they are a much higher price.
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| Balloon (verb) | To expand enormously and suddenly.
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| Beluga Caviar (noun) | Best, most expensive, caviar.
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| Benchmark (noun) | A point of reference from which measurement of any sort may be made.
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| Better Mousetrap (noun) | Comes from the proverb, "Invent a better mousetrap and the world will beat a path to your door."
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| Bidding (or Bid) (verb sometimes used as a noun) | Has two different meanings. (1) Making an offer, or a series of offers, to compete with others who are making offers. Also the offer itself. (2) Ordering or asking a person to take a specified action.
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| Big Bucks (noun) | Really, really large sum of money.
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| Big Mac (proper noun) | Brand name of a kind of hamburger sold at McDonald's restaurants.
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| Bind (noun) | To "be in a bind" means to be in a situation where one is forced to make a difficult decision one does not want to make—where any decision seems as if it would be wrong, or at least undesirable.
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| Blow It (verb; past tense: blew it) | To do a poor job, to miss an opportunity, to perform unsatisfactorily.
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| Blow Off (verb) | To treat as inconsequential; to deal superficially with something.
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| Booming (adjective) | Being extraordinarily and quickly successful.
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| Boost (verb and noun) | To give a sudden impetus, or boost, to something or someone.
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| Botched Up (adjective) | Operated badly; spoiled.
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| Bring Home (verb) | To emphasize or convince.
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| Bronco Bull | A bull ridden in a rodeo. The rider's object is to stay on the bull until he wrestles it to the ground or is thrown off. (See also "Rodeo.")
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| Buffalo (adjective, as used in this book) | "Buffalo chicken wings" are a variety of tempting food developed in, and hence associated with, the city of Buffalo. (Not all chicken wings are Buffalo chicken wings.)
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| Bus Person (noun) | Has no relation to transportation. It's a term for the person who clears the tables in a restaurant.
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| Cachet (noun) | Prestige, distinction, high quality. This word is borrowed from French and is pronounced "ca-SHAY."
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| Call (verb) | In sports refereeing, one meaning of "to call" is for the referee to announce his or her decision on a specific point.
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| Calvin Coolidge (proper name) | President of the United States 1923–1928.
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| Carriage Maker (noun) | Person or firm that makes carriages, a type of horse-drawn conveyance almost never seen any more except in films. Members of the British royal family ride in carriages on important ceremonial occasions, such as weddings.
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| Catch (noun) | A proviso; an unexpected complication.
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| Cellophane (noun) | A transparent wrapping material. It differs from plastic wrap in that it is made of cellulose, not plastic.
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| Central Park West (proper noun) | A fashionable and expensive street in New York City.
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| CEO (noun) | Abbreviation of "chief executive officer."
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| Charade (noun) | A pretense, usually designed to convince someone that you are doing something that you are definitely not doing.
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| Chit (noun) | Type of IOU (which see) or coupon with a designated value that can be turned in toward the purchase or acquisition of some item.
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| Chump Change (noun) | Insignificant amount of money earned by or paid to a person who is not alert enough to realize that more money could rather easily be earned.
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| Clear-cut (adjective) | Precisely defined.
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| Clip Coupons (verb) | To cut coupons out of newspapers and magazines. The coupons give you a discount on the price of the item when you present the item and the coupon at the cashier's counter in a store. It can also mean collecting interest on bonds. (In earlier times, bonds had coupons attached. The holders clipped them and sent them in to the bond issuer to collect the bond's interest.)
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| Clout (noun) | Influence or power.
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| Coin Flip (noun) | The decision made by flipping, or tossing, a coin after agreeing, with others, or with oneself, to choose one of two alternatives based on which side of the coin is facing up after the flip. (Also see "flipside.")
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| Coined (verb) | Invented or originated.
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| Coldhearted (adjective) | Without any sympathy; aloof; inhuman.
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| Cookie Monster (proper noun) | Character in the television show Sesame Street. (Also see "Elmo.")
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| Co-opted (adjective) | Overwhelmed.
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| Cornrows (noun) | Hair style in which hair is braided in shallow, narrow rows over the entire head.
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| Corvette (noun) | A type of expensive sports car.
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| Costco (proper noun) | Name of a chain of big stores selling groceries and other items at a sharp discount. Usually the items are packaged in large quantities—for example, 50-pound bags of flour.
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| Couch (verb) | To construct and present an argument.
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| Crack (noun) | A strong form of cocaine.
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| Cry over Spilt Milk (verb) | To indulge in useless complaint or regret. Note that there is a departure from standard English spelling in this phrase, which uses the spelling "spilt" instead of "spilled." Either is correct, but "spilt" is seldom used. (Another such variation is the rare "spelt" for usual "spelled.")
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| Deadbeat (noun) | Lazy person who has no ambition, no money, and no prospects.
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| Deadweight (noun) | Literally, the unrelieved weight of any inert mass (think of carrying a sack of bricks); hence, any oppressive burden.
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| Decent (adjective) | One of its specialized meanings is "of high quality."
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| Doodle (noun and verb) | Idle scribbles, usually nonrepresentational and usually made while actively thinking about something else, such as during a phone conversation or sitting in a class.
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| Doritos (proper noun) | Brand name of a type of snack in chip form. The label lists its principal ingredient as corn, but it contains at least 30 other ingredients, many of them chemical.
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| Drop in the Bucket (noun) | Insignificant quantity compared to the total amount available.
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| Drug Lunch (noun) | The prescription drug company's salesman takes members of the medical staff to lunch and pays for their meals. This is one way to be sure that the medical facility prescribes that company's drug.
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| Dyed-in-the-Wool (adjective) | Irretrievably convinced of the value of a particular course of action or of the truth of an opinion. Literally, wool that is dyed after it is shorn from the sheep but before it is spun into thread.
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| Elmo (proper noun) | Character in the television show Sesame Street. (Also see "Cookie Monster.")
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| 'Em (pronoun) | Careless way of pronouncing "them." Written out, it reproduces the sound the speaker is making.
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| Establishment (noun and adjective) | Noun: the prevailing theory or practice. Adjective: something that is used by people whose views prevail over other people's views.
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| Eureka Moment (noun) | "Eureka" is Greek for "I have found it! Means having a sudden insight. Aristophanes is said to have cried out "Eureka," jumped out of his bath, and run down the street crying "Eureka!" when it struck him suddenly that the weight of water displaced by a submerged body is the same as the weight of the body being displaced.
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| Fake (verb) | To fake is to pretend or deceive; to try to make people believe that you know what you're doing or talking about when you don't know or aren't sure.
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| Fire (verb) | To discharge an employee permanently. It's different from "laying off" an employee, an action taken when a temporary situation makes the employee superfluous but the employer expects to take the employee back when the temporary situation is over.
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| Fix (verb) | To prepare, as in "fixing a meal." This is only one of the multiplicity of meanings of this verb.
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| Fleeting (adverb) | This word's usage is elegant and correct, but rare. It means transitory or short-lived.
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| Flipside (noun) | The other side of a two-sided object or of a two-sided argument or situation. Origin: In the days before tape and DVD, we used to have large disks, made of vinyl or other material, upon which music was recorded, using both sides of the disk.
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| Flop (noun) | A dismal failure.
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| Follow Suit (verb) | To do the same thing you see others do. Comes from card games where if a card of a certain suit is played, the other players must play a card of that suit, if they have one.
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| Follow the Flag (verb) | To be committed to doing business only with firms that produce in your own country or in your "colonies"—that is, territories that belong to your country.
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| Follow the Leader (noun) | Name of a children's game. Metaphorically, it means to do what others are doing, usually without giving it much thought.
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| Form Follows Function (description) | A phrase borrowed from architecture, where it means that the architect determines what a building is to be used for, and then designs the building to meet the demands of that use, or function.
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| Front (noun and verb) | Activity undertaken to divert attention from what is.
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| Funky (adjective) | Eccentric in style or manner.
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| Gadget (noun) | Generic term for any small, often novel, mechanical or electronic device or contrivance, usually designed for a specific purpose. For instance, the small wheel with serrated rim and an attached handle used to divide a pizza pie into slices is a gadget.
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| Gee (expletive) | Emphatic expression signaling surprise or enthusiasm.
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| Get Across (verb) | To convince.
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| Get You Down (descriptive phrase) | Make you depressed about something or make you dismiss something altogether. (Do not confuse with "get it down," which means to understand fully.)
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| G.I. Joe (noun) | A toy in the form of a boy (as "Barbie" is a girl). Original meaning was "government issue"—i.e., an item such as a uniform issued by the U.S. government to a member of the U.S. armed forces, and, by extension, the person to whom the item was issued.
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| Giveaways (noun) | Something, usually valuable, that you confer without receiving anything tangible in return. In this book, it refers to Congress enacting tax cuts that are insignificant to all but people who are already rich.
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| GM (noun) | The General Motors automobile company.
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| Go-between (noun) | A person or firm that carries out the contact between two people or firms who are not able, or do not wish, to communicate directly with each other.
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| Go-Cart (noun) | A small engine-powered vehicle that is used for racing and recreation.
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| Gold Mine (noun) | Metaphorically, any activity that results in making you a lot of money.
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| Good Offices (descriptive phrase) | An expression common in 18th-century England, meaning "services."
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| GOP | This acronym stands for "Grand Old Party." The GOP is the Republican political party.
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| Got It Made (descriptive phrase) | Succeeded.
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| Grind (noun) | Slang for necessary intense effort that may be painful but will likely benefit your understanding.
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| Groucho Marx (proper name) | A famous U.S. comedian (1885–1977).
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| Gung-ho (adjective) | Full of energy and eager to take action.
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| Guns and Butter (descriptive phrase) | Metaphor describing the dilemma whether to devote resources to war or to peace.
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| Guzzle, Guzzler (verb and noun) | Verb: to consume something greedily, wastefully, and rapidly. Noun: an object (or a person) that guzzles.
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| Haggling (noun) | Bargaining, usually in a petty and confrontational manner.
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| Handy (adjective) | Convenient.
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| Hangover (noun) | The queasy feeling, usually accompanied by a headache, that can afflict a person who has gotten drunk. The feeling can last for hours after the person is no longer actually drunk.
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| Hard Liquor (noun) | Alcoholic beverages with a high content of pure alcohol. Beer and wine are not "hard liquor," but most other alcoholic drinks are.
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| Hassle (noun and verb) | Noun: unreasonable obstacle. Verb: to place unreasonable obstacles or arguments in the way of someone.
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| Hawking (adjective) | Selling aggressively and widely.
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| Hefty (adjective) | Large; substantial.
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| Hero Sandwich (noun) | A type of very large sandwich.
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| Highfalutin (adjective) | American slang term meaning pretentious, self-important, supercilious.
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| Hog Bellies (noun) | Commercial term for the part of a pig that becomes bacon and pork chops. (Also called pork bellies.)
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| Holds Its Own (descriptive phrase) | Refuses to give up, even in the face of adversity or opposition.
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| Home Free (descriptive phrase) | Safe and successful.
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| Hot Dog (noun) | A type of sausage.
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| Hot Potatoes (noun) | Slang term for anything that everyone wants to avoid confronting.
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| How Come (expression) | Why? That is, "How has it come about that . . . ?"
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| "In" (preposition sometimes used as an adjective) | Placed within quotation marks to show it is used with a special meaning. Here it is used as an adjective, to indicate "fashionable or popular, usually just for a short period."
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| Incidentals (noun) | Blanket term covering the world of small items a person uses on a daily basis as the need happens to arise—that is, needed per incident occurring. Examples are aspirin, combs, and picture postcards.
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| iPod (proper name) | A compact digital music player designed by Apple Computer.
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| Iron Curtain (noun) | Imaginary but daunting line between Western Europe and adjacent communist countries. After the political abandonment of Communism in these countries, the Curtain no longer exists.
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| It'll (contraction) | "It will."
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| Jet Blue (proper name) | A new, low-cost U.S. airline, which is actively entering new markets.
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| Jolt (noun) | A sudden blow.
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| Junk Food (noun) | Food that tastes good but has little nutritional value and lots of calories. It is sometimes cheap, sometimes expensive, and it's quick and easy to buy and eat.
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| Just Say No (admonition) | Flatly refuse. This phrase became common in the 1970s after Nancy Reagan, the wife of the then-president of the United States, popularized it in a campaign against the use of addictive drugs.
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| Ketchup (noun) | Spicy, thick tomato sauce used on, among other foods, hot dogs.
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| Kick In (verb) | To activate; to start or begin. (Can also mean "to contribute to.")
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| Kickback (noun) | A firm's giving part of the price it has received for its product or service back to the firm or individual who authorized the purchase of that product or service. In effect it is a type of bribe or blackmail demanded or expected by a purchaser's agent.
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| Klutz (noun) | Awkward, incompetent person.
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| Knockoff (noun) | A cheap imitation.
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| Laetrile (noun) | Substance derived from peach pits, thought by some people to be a cure for cancer.
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| Late Victorian (adjective or noun) | Embodying some concept typical of the late period of Queen Victoria. Also, a person from that period or who acts like someone from that period. (Queen Victoria was queen of England from 1837 to 1901.)
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| Lay Off (verb) | To discharge a worker temporarily.
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| Lemon (noun) | Slang term for an object that is irreparably faulty. It's usually something for which you have paid a substantial amount of money and by whose performance you feel cheated.
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| Levi's (noun) | Popular brand of jeans.
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| Like Greek (descriptive phrase) | Incomprehensible (because in the United States, classical Greek is considered to be a language that almost no one learns).
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| Lion's Share (noun) | By far the best part of a bargain.
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| Lobby (verb and noun) | Verb: to attempt by organized effort to influence legislation. Noun: an organized group formed to influence legislation. A lobbyist is a member of a lobby.
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| Lousy (adjective) | Incompetent or distasteful.
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| Mazuma (noun) | U.S. slang term for money. It was used in the first half of the 20th century but is now rare, to say the least.
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| MBA (noun) | An academic degree: master of business administration.
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| Medicaid (proper noun) | Health insurance program for low-income people. It is administered jointly by the U.S. government and the individual states.
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| Medicare (proper noun) | U.S. government health insurance program for people who are disabled or age 65 and over. There is no means test.
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| Messed Up (adjective) | Damaged or badly managed.
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| Mind Your Own Business (admonition) | Don't meddle in other people's affairs; don't ask intrusive questions.
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| Mind Your Ps and Qs (expression) | Pay close attention to distinctions. It comes from the similarity of the small printed letters "p" and "q" where the only visual distinction is the location of the downstroke. Also, the letters are right next to each other in our alphabet.
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| Moot (adjective) | Irrelevant because the issue in question has already been decided.
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| Mother of Necessity | A witty remark that reverses the terms of a famous saying, "Necessity is the mother of invention."
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| Mousetrap (noun) | Producing a better mousetrap is part of the saying, "Make a better mousetrap and the world will beat a path to your door." Metaphorically, producing a better mousetrap stands for doing anything better than it has previously been done.
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| NA (abbreviation) | "Not available."
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| NASDAQ (also sometimes spelled "Nasdaq") (noun) | Stock market operated by the National Association of Securities Dealers. The "AQ" stands for "Automated Quotations."
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| NATO (noun) | North American Treaty Organization. Western alliance for joint economic and military cooperation. It includes the United States, Canada, and several European nations.
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| Nature of the Beast (descriptive phrase) | Character of whatever you are describing (need not have anything to do with a "beast").
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| Nerd (noun) | An insignificant and uninteresting person or a person so absorbed in a subject that he or she thinks of nothing else and is therefore boring.
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| Nickel and Dimed (adjective) | Worried over every expenditure, even of tiny sums like nickels and dimes; also having the last tiny sum of money extracted.
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| Nirvana (noun) | This word is adopted from Buddhism. Its religious meaning is complicated, but it is used colloquially to mean salvation, paradise, harmony, perfection.
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| No Way (exclamation) | Emphatic expression denoting refusal, denial, or extreme disapproval.
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| Nudge (noun and verb) | Noun: little push. Verb: to give a little push.
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| Off-the-Cuff (adjective) | A quick, unthinking answer for which the speaker has no valid authority (comes from the alleged practice of writing an abbreviated answer on the cuff of your shirt, to be glanced at during an examination).
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| Oliver Wendell Holmes (proper name) | A justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, famous for his wit, his wisdom, his literary ability, his advocacy of civil rights, and his long life (1841–1935).
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| On Their Toes (descriptive phrase) | Alert; ready for any eventuality.
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| Park Avenue (noun) | Expensive and fashionable street in New York City.
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| Part and Parcel (noun) | An integral element of a concept, action, or item.
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| Pass the Buck (descriptive phrase) | Evade responsibility by forcing someone else to make the relevant decision.
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| Peanuts (noun) | Slang for a small amount, usually money but sometimes anything with a small value.
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| Pecking Order (noun) | Hierarchy.
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| Peer Pressure (descriptive phrase) | Push to do what everyone else in your particular group is doing.
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| Penny-Pincher (noun) | Person who is unusually careful with money, sometimes to the point of being stingy.
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| Perks (noun) | Short for "perquisites."
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| Philharmonic (adjective) | A philharmonic orchestra is an orchestra that specializes in classical music. Sometimes used as a noun, as in "I heard the Philharmonic."
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| Pie (noun) | Metaphor for the total amount of a specific item that exists.
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| Piecemeal (adverb) | To do something bit by bit instead of all at once.
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| Poof! (exclamation) | Spoken emphatically to mean that something has suddenly and inexplicably disappeared.
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| Pop-Tart (noun) | Brand name of a type of junk food. It's a sweet filling enclosed in pastry that you pop into the toaster and when the pastry is hot, it pops out of the toaster.
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| Populist (noun and adjective) | Noun: a member of a political party that purports to represent the rank and file of the people. Adjective: a political party, a group, or an individual that purports to represent rank and file opinion.
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| Pound (noun) | Unit of British currency.
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| Powers That Be (expression) | People or institutions that have power such that there is nothing one can do to influence those people or institutions—or at least nothing easy.
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| Practice Makes Perfect (expression) | The grammar of this phrase is illogical but the meaning is clear.
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| Premium Tires All Round (descriptive phrase) | Premium tires are tires of superior quality. When all the tires on your vehicle are premium tires, you have them "all round."
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| Proxy (noun) | A stockholder can give a "proxy" to the firm. It is an authorization that permits the firm's officials to vote for the proposition that the stockholder directs them to vote for. By extension, proxy means a substitute.
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| Ps and Qs | See under Mind.
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| Pub (noun) | Short for "public house," a commercial establishment where alcoholic drinks are served, usually with refreshments and occasionally with light meals.
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| Quip (noun and verb) | Noun: a jocular remark. Verb: to make a jocular remark.
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| Raise Your Eyebrows (verb) | To express surprise, usually by a facial expression rather than vocally.
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| Red Flag (noun) | A red flag warns you to be very alert to a danger or perceived danger. (Ships in port that are loading fuel or ammunition raise a red flag to signal danger.)
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| Red-Handed (adjective) | Indisputably guilty. Comes from being found at a murder or injury scene with the blood of the victim on one's hands.
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| Relief (noun) | This term was an informal one, applied specifically to the financial assistance people in the United States received from the government during the Great Depression (1929 until about 1941). It arose because of a government program administered by the Works Progress Administration (WPA) formed to create jobs, and hence to employ people who otherwise would have been unemployed.
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| Right On! (exclamation) | Expression of vigorous, often revolutionary, approval and encouragement.
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| Ritzy (adjective) | Very expensive, fashionable, and ostentatious. Comes from the entrepreneur Caesar Ritz, a Swiss developer of expensive hotels, active in the first quarter of the 20th century.
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| Rock Bottom (noun) | To reach the absolute limit of one's endurance or resources.
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| Rule of Thumb (descriptive phrase) | An estimate that is quick and easy to make and is reliable enough for rough calculations. Comes from using the space from the tip of your thumb to the thumb's first joint to represent an inch.
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| Sacred Cow (noun) | An institution or practice that social and/or political forces dictate is absolutely protected from change of any kind.
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| Saks (proper name) | A midsize department store that sells expensive, fashionable items. There are very few stores in the Saks chain, and Saks stores are considered exclusive.
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| Savvy (adjective) | Slang term meaning very knowledgeable. Adaptation of the French verb savoir, meaning "to know."
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| Scab (noun) | Person who takes a job, or continues in a job, even though workers at that firm are on strike.
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| Scraps (noun) | Little pieces of leftover food. Also little pieces of anything that is left over: for example, steel that is salvaged from a wrecked car.
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| Scrooge (proper name) | Character in Charles Dickens' Christmas Carol, an English story written in the mid 1850s. He was unbelievably miserly and disagreeable (but in the story he reformed).
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| Sears Catalog (noun) | Sears, Roebuck and Co. is a large chain of stores that sells a wide variety of goods. Before shopping malls, interstate highways, and the Internet, Sears used to have a huge mailing list to which it sent enormous catalogs. A person receiving such a catalog would have information about, and access to, thousands of items, many of which the person might not have known existed before the catalog provided the prospect.
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| Set Up Shop (verb) | To go into business.
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| Shivering in Their Sandals (descriptive phrase) | Adaptation of standard English idiom shivering in their shoes, which means being afraid.
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| Shoo-in (noun) | Highly probable (as in "you are a shoo-in" to get an A).
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| Shorthand (noun) | Any of several systems of abbreviated writing or writing that substitutes symbols for words and phrases. Shorthand was widely used in business until the introduction of mechanical and electronic devices for transmitting the human voice gradually made shorthand obsolete. Today it means to summarize very briefly or to substitute a short word or phrase for a long description.
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| Show off (noun) | To be blatant and vulgar in displaying a possession or accomplishment. The person who is a showoff is displaying conspicuous consumption.
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| Shy Away (verb) | To decisively refrain from something. (Comes from the world of horses, who are said to "shy at" things that startle them.)
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| Sixpence (noun) | A British coin that is no longer in use. It represented six British pennies; its U.S. equivalent in the 2000s would be about a nickel.
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| Skin of One's Teeth (descriptive phrase) | To succeed by the skin of one's teeth means to just barely succeed. A micro measure less and one would not have succeeded.
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| Smoke Screen (noun) | Metaphorically, anything used intentionally to hide one's true intentions.
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| Smoking Gun (noun) | This term has come to stand for any indisputable evidence of guilt or misdeeds.
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| Soft Drink (noun) | Nonalcoholic beverage.
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| Sourpuss (noun) | Dour; sulky; humorless. Derives from sour, which is self-explanatory, and puss, a slang word for "face."
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| Spoils (noun) | Rewards or advantages gained through illegal or unethical activity.
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| Squash (verb) | To crush or ruin.
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| Stay on Their Toes (idiom) | To be alert.
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| Steady (noun) | A person to whom you are romantically committed and with whom you spend a lot of time, especially in social activities.
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| Stealth Gains (noun) | Gains that occur unbeknownst to you.
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| Sticky (adjective) | Resistant to change, as if glued on.
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| Strongarm (adjective) | Repressive and violent.
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| Sucker (noun) | A gullible person.
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| Super Bowl (noun) | Important football game played annually that attracts millions of viewers (most of them see the game on TV).
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| Sweetheart Contract (noun) | A contract where one party to the contract is given all, or almost all, the advantage; specifically, a contract between an employer and the workers' union where the employer gains the advantage and the contract on the workers' side has been arranged by a union official who secretly gives up advantages for the workers in return for significant advantage for the official.
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| Tables Were Turned (descriptive phrase) | The advantage of one side over the other reverses so that now the winner is the loser and the loser is the winner.
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| Tacky (adjective) | In very poor taste.
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| Take a Flier (expression) | To take a chance; to undertake a risky action in the hope that you will be lucky.
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| Take the Heat (verb) | To accept all criticism of one's action or inaction, whether or not one is actually the person who should be blamed.
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| Tidy (adjective) | Neat, advantageous, profitable. "A tidy sum" is a really nice amount of money that you may not have expected to acquire.
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| Time-and-a-Half (noun) | In labor law, 150 percent of the normal hourly wage.
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| Tombstone Ad (noun) | Newspaper advertisement announcing the completion of a stock or bond offering.
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| Ton (noun) | A ton weighs 2,000 pounds and an English ton (often spelled "tonne") weighs 2,240 pounds. In this book the term is used most frequently to mean simply "a large quantity."
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| Tough (adjective) | Very difficult.
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| Trendy (adjective) | A phenomenon that is slightly ahead of traditional ways and indicates a trend. Something trendy may turn into something traditional, or it may fade away without ever becoming mainstream.
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| Trophy Spouse (noun) | A spouse (usually the wife) who is young, beautiful, and perhaps famous and/or rich who has been married to an older—sometimes much older—very successful and rich person, usually after divorcing one or more previous spouses. The trophy spouse is just that—a trophy. (See "show off.")
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| Truck (verb) | To exchange one thing for another. This was Adam Smith's definition in 1776 and it is still one of the meanings of the verb.
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| Tune In (verb) | To become familiar with.
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| Turf (noun) | Territory, especially the figurative territory of a firm.
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| Turn of the Century (expression) | The few years at the end of an expiring century and the beginning of a new century. For example: 1998–2002.
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| Turn Up One's Nose (verb) | To reject.
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| Twinkies (noun) | Brand name of an inexpensive small cake.
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| Union Jack (noun) | Nickname for the British flag.
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| Up in Arms (adjective) | Furious and loudly protesting. Comes from the use of arms to stand for firearms.
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| Vanity License Plate (descriptive phrase) | One-of-a-kind motor vehicle license plate issued to your individual specification. It might have your name, your profession, or any individual set of letters and numbers you choose that will fit on the plate.
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| Wadget (noun) | Term used by economists to stand for any manufactured good except goods designated as widgets, which see.
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| Wal-Mart (proper name) | A very large store that sells thousands of inexpensive items. There are hundreds of Wal-Marts in the United States and the company is beginning to expand into foreign markets.
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| Wheaties (proper noun) | Name of a brand of dry breakfast cereal.
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| White Elephant (noun) | Property requiring expensive care but yielding little profit; trinket without value to most people but esteemed by a few. There are real white elephants, which are albinos. They are rare and therefore expensive and high-maintenance.
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| White Knight (noun) | A company that comes to the rescue of another company. The term comes from the game of chess—some chess sets have white pieces and black pieces— and from the children's book, Alice Through the Looking Glass, where the story is structured as a game of chess and a chess piece, the white knight, tries to rescue Alice.
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| Whiz (noun) | An expert.
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| Whopper (proper noun) | Brand name of a kind of hamburger sold at Burger King restaurants.
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| Widget (noun) | The opposite of a wadget, which see.
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| Wild About (descriptive phrase) | Extremely enthusiastic about undertaking a particular action or admiring a particular object or person.
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| Wind Up (descriptive phrase) | To discover that you have reached a particular conclusion or destination.
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| With-It (adjective) | Current in one's knowledge.
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| Wodget (noun) | A made-up term for a produced good. Variation of widget, which see.
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| World War I (proper noun) | 1914–1918. The United States did not enter until 1917.
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| World War II (proper noun) | 1938–1945. The United States did not enter until 1941.
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| Wound Up (past tense of verb wind up) | To have found oneself in a particular situation after having taken particular actions.
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| Writ Large (adjective) | Strongly emphasized; defined broadly. ("Writ" is an obsolete form of the word "written.")
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| Writing on the Wall (descriptive phrase) | To see the writing on the wall is to realize that a situation is inevitably going to end badly. It comes from the Biblical story that Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, saw a fatal prediction written on a wall.
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| You Bet! (exclamation) | Expression meaning "It certainly is!" or "Absolutely!"
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| Zune (proper name) | A compact digital music player designed by Microsoft to compete with the iPod.
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