Related:

• SOPHISTRY, n. The controversial method of an opponent, distinguished from one's own by superior insincerity and fooling.
  This method is that of the later Sophists, a Grecian sect of philosophers who began by teaching wisdom, prudence, science, art and, in brief, whatever men ought to know, but lost themselves in a maze of quibbles and a fog of words....
• LUMINARY, n. One who throws light upon a subject; as an editor by not writing about it.
  -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary...
• RIGHT, n. Legitimate authority to be, to do or to have
  as the right to be a king, the right to do one's neighbor, the right to have measles, and the like....
• TECHNICALITY, n. In an English court a man named Home was tried for slander in having accused his neighbor of murder.
  His exact words were: "Sir Thomas Holt hath taken a cleaver and stricken his cook upon the head, so that one side of the head fell upon one shoulder and the other side upon the other shoulder....
• EXCEPTION, n. A thing which takes the liberty to differ from other things of its class, as an honest man, a truthful woman, etc.
  The exception proves the rule" is an expression constantly upon the lips of the ignorant, who parrot it from one another with never a thought of its absurdity....
• Technicality, n. In an English court a man named Home was tried for slander in having accused a neighbor of murder.
  His exact words were: "Sir Thomas Holt hath taken a cleaver and stricken his cook upon the head, so that one side of his head fell on one shoulder and the other side upon the other shoulder....
• FORK, n. An instrument used chiefly for the purpose of putting dead animals into the mouth.
  Formerly the knife was employed for this purpose, and by many worthy persons is still thought to have many advantages over the other tool, which, however, they do not altogether reject, but use to assist in charging the knife....
• RIGHTEOUSNESS, n. A sturdy virtue that was once found among the Pantidoodles inhabiting the lower part of the peninsula of Oque.
  Some feeble attempts were made by returned missionaries to introduce it into several European countries, but it appears to have been imperfectly expounded....
• PHYSICIAN, n. One upon whom we set our hopes when ill and our dogs when well.
  -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary...