Related:

• PLEONASM, n. An army of words escorting a corporal of thought.
  -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary...
• HOVEL, n. The fruit of a flower called the Palace.
  Twaddle had a hovel, Twiddle had a palace...
• GORGON, n. The Gorgon was a maiden bold Who turned to stone the Greeks of old That looked upon her awful brow.
  We dig them out of ruins now, And swear that workmanship so bad Proves all the ancient sculptors mad....
• AUCTIONEER, n. The man who proclaims with a hammer that he has picked a pocket with his tongue.
  -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary...
• 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....
• NOTORIETY, n. The fame of one's competitor for public honors.
  The kind of renown most accessible and acceptable to mediocrity....
• PRIMATE, n. The head of a church, especially a State church supported by involuntary contributions.
  The Primate of England is the Archbishop of Canterbury, an amiable old gentleman, who occupies Lambeth Palace when living and Westminster Abbey when dead....
• CLERGYMAN, n. A man who undertakes the management of our spiritual affairs as a method of better his temporal ones.
  -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary...
• CONVENT, n. A place of retirement for woman who wish for leisure to meditate upon the vice of idleness.
  -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary...