Related:

• AUSTRALIA, n. A country lying in the South Sea, whose industrial and commercial development has been unspeakably retarded by an unfortunate dispute among geographers as to whether it is a continent or an island.
  -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary...
• Year, n.: A period of three hundred and sixty-five disappointments.
  -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary...
• Year, n.: A period of three hundred and sixty-five disappointments.
  -- Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary...
• ELECTRICITY, n. The power that causes all natural phenomena not known to be caused by something else.
  It is the same thing as lightning, and its famous attempt to strike Dr....
• LIFE, n. A spiritual pickle preserving the body from decay.
  We live in daily apprehension of its loss; yet when lost it is not missed....
• TIGHTS, n. An habiliment of the stage designed to reinforce the general acclamation of the press agent with a particular publicity.
  Public attention was once somewhat diverted from this garment to Miss Lillian Russell's refusal to wear it, and many were the conjectures as to her motive, the guess of Miss Pauline Hall showing a high order of ingenuity and sustained reflection....
• HARMONISTS, n. A sect of Protestants, now extinct, who came from Europe in the beginning of the last century and were distinguished for the bitterness of their internal controversies and dissensions.
  -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary...
• ILLUMINATI, n. A sect of Spanish heretics of the latter part of the sixteenth century
  o called because they were light weights -- _cunctationes illuminati_....