Related:

• HANGMAN, n. An officer of the law charged with duties of the highest dignity and utmost gravity, and held in hereditary disesteem by a populace having a criminal ancestry.
  In some of the American States his functions are now performed by an electrician, as in New Jersey, where executions by electricity have recently been ordered -- the first instance known to this lexicographer of anybody questioning the expediency of hanging Jerseymen....
• AFRICAN, n. A nigger that votes our way. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary
• CAVILER, n. A critic of our own work. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary
• BRUTE, n. See HUSBAND. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary
• KISS, n. A word invented by the poets as a rhyme for "bliss.
  It is supposed to signify, in a general way, some kind of rite or ceremony appertaining to a good understanding...
• MAGDALENE, n. An inhabitant of Magdala. Popularly, a woman found out.
  This definition of the word has the authority of ignorance, Mary of Magdala being another person than the penitent woman mentioned by St....
• Poker, n. A game said to be played with cards for some purpose to this lexicographer unknown.
  -- Ambrose Bierce "The Devil's Dictionary...
• RAMSHACKLE, adj. Pertaining to a certain order of architecture, otherwise known as the Normal American.
  Most of the public buildings of the United States are of the Ramshackle order, though some of our earlier architects preferred the Ironic....
• QUORUM, n. A sufficient number of members of a deliberative body to have their own way and their own way of having it.
  In the United States Senate a quorum consists of the chairman of the Committee on Finance and a messenger from the White House...