Related:

• WHITE, adj. and n. Black. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary
• OPTIMIST, n. A proponent of the doctrine that black is white.
  A pessimist applied to God for relief. "Ah, you wish me to restore your hope and cheerfulness," said God....
• 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....
• OTHERWISE, adv. No better. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary
• MIRACLE, n. An act or event out of the order of nature and unaccountable, as beating a normal hand of four kings and an ace with four aces and a king.
  -- 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....
• RAREBIT, n. A Welsh rabbit, in the speech of the humorless, who point out that it is not a rabbit.
  To whom it may be solemnly explained that the comestible known as toad-in-a-hole is really not a toad, and that _riz-de-veau a la financiere_ is not the smile of a calf prepared after the recipe of a she banker....
• GNOME, n. In North-European mythology, a dwarfish imp inhabiting the interior parts of the earth and having special custody of mineral treasures.
  Bjorsen, who died in 1765, says gnomes were common enough in the southern parts of Sweden in his boyhood, and he frequently saw them scampering on the hills in the evening twilight....
• INFIDEL, n. In New York, one who does not believe in the Christian religio
  in Constantinople, one who does. (See GIAOUR.) A kind of scoundrel imperfectly reverent of, and niggardly contributory to, divines, ecclesiastics, popes, parsons, canons, monks, mollahs, voodoos, presbyters, hierophants, prelates, obeah-men, abbes, nuns, missionaries, exhorters, deacons, friars, hadjis, high-priests, muezzins, brahmins, medicine-men, confessors, eminences, elders, primates, prebendaries, pilgrims, prophets, imaums, beneficiaries, clerks, vicars-choral, archbishops, bishops, abbots, priors, preachers, padres, abbotesses, caloyers, palmers, curates, patriarchs, bonezs, santons, beadsmen, canonesses, residentiaries, diocesans, deans, subdeans, rural deans, abdals, charm-sellers, archdeacons, hierarchs, class-leaders, incumbents, capitulars, sheiks, talapoins, postulants, scribes, gooroos, precentors, beadles, fakeers, sextons, reverences, revivalists, cenobites, perpetual curates, chaplains, mudjoes, readers, novices, vicars, pastors, rabbis, ulemas, lamas, sacristans, vergers, dervises, lectors, church wardens, cardinals, prioresses, suffragans, acolytes, rectors, cures, sophis, mutifs and pumpums....