region rat
nounEtymology
From region + rat. Within Indiana, the northwest of the state is colloquially called the Region, originally short for the Calumet Region. The ‘rat’ appellation apparently derives from millrat as a pejorative term for steelworkers.
Definitions
an inhabitant of northwest Indiana
- Gingrich also fired, for no good reason, House Historian Raymond Smock, a former “Region Rat” who first introduced me to In God We Trust: All Others Pay Cash.
- “Ask any region rat,” said Langbehn, referring to denizens of northwest Indiana. “When the wind is off the lake, you can smell it all the way down to Crown Point. It’s like a sulfur compound, clearly a steel-mill smell.”
- Paula Evans, author of The Isle of Iona, was born in Gary, Indiana, named for Elbert Gary of judiciary fame (with apologies to Meredith Willson). She has accepted her fate as a lifelong Hoosier and Region Rat.
The neighborhood
Vish — recursive loop
No curated loop yet for region rat. Loops are being traced one word at a time while the ingestion pipeline matures.
sense glosses and etymology drawn from English Wiktionary · source · CC-BY-SA