Related:

• NIRVANA, n. In the Buddhist religion, a state of pleasurable annihilation awarded to the wise, particularly to those wise enough to understand it.
  -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary...
• MALTHUSIAN, adj. Pertaining to Malthus and his doctrines.
  Malthus believed in artificially limiting population, but found that it could not be done by talking....
• LORE, n. Learning -- particularly that sort which is not derived from a regular course of instruction but comes of the reading of occult books, or by nature.
  This latter is commonly designated as folk-lore and embraces popularly myths and superstitions....
• BLANK-VERSE, n. Unrhymed iambic pentameters -- the most difficult kind of English verse to write acceptably
  a kind, therefore, much affected by those who cannot acceptably write any kind....
• GOOSE, n. A bird that supplies quills for writing.
  These, by some occult process of nature, are penetrated and suffused with various degrees of the bird's intellectual energies and emotional character, so that when inked and drawn mechanically across paper by a person called an "author," there results a very fair and accurate transcript of the fowl's thought and feeling....
• ACADEME: An ancient school where morality and philosophy were taught.
  Academy: A modern school where football is taught. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary...
• DIVINATION, n. The art of nosing out the occult. Divination is of as many kinds as there are fruit-bearing varieties of the flowering dunce and the early fool.
  -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary...
• DANCE, v.i. To leap about to the sound of tittering music, preferably with arms about your neighbor's wife or daughter.
  There are many kinds of dances, but all those requiring the participation of the two sexes have two characteristics in commo...
• RATIONAL, adj. Devoid of all delusions save those of observation, experience and reflection.
  -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary...