Related:

• EDIBLE, adj. Good to eat, and wholesome to digest, as a worm to a toad, a toad to a snake, a snake to a pig, a pig to a man, and a man to a worm.
  -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary...
• HARANGUE, n. A speech by an opponent, who is known as an harrangue- outang.
  -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary...
• EFFECT, n. The second of two phenomena which always occur together in the same order.
  The first, called a Cause, is said to generate the other -- which is no more sensible than it would be for one who has never seen a dog except in the pursuit of a rabbit to declare the rabbit the cause of a dog....
• MAGNIFICENT, adj. Having a grandeur or splendor superior to that to which the spectator is accustomed, as the ears of an ass, to a rabbit, or the glory of a glowworm, to a maggot.
  -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary...
• QUEEN, n. A woman by whom the realm is ruled when there is a king, and through whom it is ruled when there is not.
  -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary...
• BENEDICTINES, n. An order of monks otherwise known as black friars.
  She thought it a crow, but it turn out to be A monk of St....
• LEGACY, n. A gift from one who is legging it out of this vale of tears.
  -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary...
• ORATORY, n. A conspiracy between speech and action to cheat the understanding.
  A tyranny tempered by stenography. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary...
• AMNESTY, n. The state's magnanimity to those offenders whom it would be too expensive to punish.
  -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary...