Milquetoast (after Caspar Milquetoast)
"Milk toast" has been cited in print since at least 1831. It is toasted bread in warm milk, often with butter and other ingredients added to the toast. "Caspar Milquetoast" is a…
Restaurants/Bars/Coffeehouses/Food Stores
MiMA (Middle of Manhattan)
MiMA (450 West 42nd Street in Manhattan) is a residential building from The Related Companies, trademarked from November 3, 2010. "MiMA" means "middle of Manhattan" and has been…
Minerality
"Minerality" is defined by the Wikipedia ("Wine tasting descriptors") as "A sense of mineral-ness in the wine, flavors of slate, schist, silex, etc." The Oxford…
Mini-Apple or Minneapple (Minneapolis nickname)
"Minneapolis" actually means the "city of lakes" or "city of waters." However, it sounds like it means "mini-apples." After "the Big Apple" became…
Mini-Apple or Minneapple (Minneapolis, Minnesota)
"Minneapolis" actually means the "city of lakes" or "city of waters." However, it sounds like it means "mini-apples." After "the Big Apple" became…
Mini-camp (Minicamp)
Professional football teams hold a "mini-camp" (or "minicamp") during the offseason. Most mini-camps are regularly scheduled for rookies and last a weekend (three days). The…
Mini-Madoff (Mini-Me + Bernard Madoff)
Bernard Madoff was arrested on December 11, 2008 and charged with running what some have called the largest Ponzi scheme in history (totaling $65 billion by some estimates). "Mini-Me" was…
Minilivestock
"Livestock" means farm animals that are domesticated; "minilivestock" (or "mini-livestock") has developed to mean domesticated bugs for edible consumption.…
Mink Brigade
The "mink brigade" is the name for the wealthy women (the type of women who could afford to wear minks) who supported the strikers at the New York shirtwaist strike of 1909. American…
Minnesota Strip (Eighth Avenue, near Port Authority Bus Terminal)
In the 1960s and 1970s, the area of Eighth Avenue between the Port Authority Bus Terminal (42nd Street) and 59th Street became overrun with teenage prostitutes from the Midwest and was dubbed the…
Minnesota: “Land of the ski and home of the crazed”
"O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave?" is the famous last line of the first stanza of "The Star Spangled Banner," the national anthem of the United States.…
Minnesota: “Land of Two Seasons: Winter Is Coming and Winter Is Here”
"Land of 2 seasons: Winter is coming, Winter is here" was cited with other "Minnesota slogans" in the newsgroup rec.humor in January 1990. The "Land of Two Seasons: Winter…
Minnesota: “Where the elite meet the sleet”
"Where the elite meet to eat" was the slogan of Duffy's Tavern, an American radio situation comedy, airing from 1941 to 1951. "Where the elite meet (the) sleet" is a…
Minnesota: Bread and Butter State (nickname)
Minnesota has been called the "Bread and Butter State" because of its wheat and dairy production. For the Pan-American Exposition at Buffalo, New York, in 1901, the state of Minnesota…
Minnesota: Land of 10,000 Lakes (nickname)
The country of Finland has long been known for its many lakes -- estimated to number over 187,000 lakes, and there is also a Finnish lake district. "Land of the thousand lakes" was a…
Minnesota: Minny (abbreviation)
"Minny" is an abbreviation of 'Minnesota." The term has been most frequently used in sports, especially in newspaper headlines. "'SHI' AND 'MINNY'…
Minnesota: New England of the West (nickname)
"New England of the West" is an old nickname for Minnesota. In the first half of the 19th century, many new areas of the west wanted to be compared to the success of New England. The…
Minnesota: North Star State (nickname)
Minnesota, a state along the northern border of the United States with Canada, is called the "North Star State." Polaris, called the "Pole Star" or the "North Star,"…
Minsky Moment (Minsky Crisis)
The terms "Minsky moment" and "Minsky crisis" refer to the economist Hyman Philip Minsky (1919-1996), who studied financial crises. Minsky argued against large amounts of…
MINT (Mexico + Indonesia + Nigeria + Turkey)
The term "BRIC" nations (Brazil, Russia, India, China) was coined in 2001 by economist Jim O'Neill. The Japanese company Panasonic came up with a new grouping of nations in 2010…