Nuts and Bolts: kennings.

Kennings are poetic descriptions originally used, and characteristic of, Old Norse, Old English, and Icelandic poetry.

They usually consist of two words, often hyphenated. You might get something like wave-plough to mean a ship, or crow-feeder to mean a fighter (that is, someone who kills people and leaves them to be eaten by the crows), or earth-hall to describe a burial mound.

Sometimes kennings can get jolly complicated and baffling: a treasure-harmer might be a chieftain (that is, one who gives away his treasure to his followers); Ymir's skull doesn't give much clue that it means the sky unless you know the story of the ancient giant Ymir. Sif's hair is gold (Sif's hair in that story is a wig made literally of gold).

Modern English still has echoes of the old kennings. Stout-hearted started off as one, and so did dwelling place, but they've diminished into cliches through time and over-use.

Still, there's no reason why we shouldn't let more speech-sparklers through our tomb-shields,* is there?

And both in ink-spill and in lip-streams, too.

Thing To Use Today: a kenning. This word was borrowed in the 1800s from Snorri Sturluson's treatise on poetry, written around 1220 AD. The Old Norse kenna means to know, recognise, perceive, show or teach.

*Line of teeth!