jumping bean

jumping bean

noun
the seed of any of certain Mexican plants of the genera Sebastiania and Sapium, of the spurge family: the movements of a moth larva inside the seed cause it to move about or jump.


Origin:
1885–90, Americanism
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2012.
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Jumping bean is always a great word to know.
So is interrobang. Does it mean:
a stew of meat, vegetables, potatoes, etc.
a printed punctuation mark (‽), available only in some typefaces, designed to combine the question mark (?) and the exclamation point (!), indicating a mixture of query and interjection, as after a rhetorical question.
Collins
World English Dictionary
jumping bean
 
n
a seed of any of several Mexican euphorbiaceous plants, esp species of Sebastiania, that contains a moth caterpillar whose movements cause it to jerk about

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 10th Edition
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