Related:

• MARRIAGE, n. The state or condition of a community consisting of a master, a mistress and two slaves, making in all, two.
  -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary...
• EXTINCTION, n. The raw material out of which theology created the future state.
  -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary...
• MAYONNAISE, n. One of the sauces which serve the French in place of a state religion.
  -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary...
• ALIEN, n. An American sovereign in his probationary state.
  -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary...
• OBLIVION, n. The state or condition in which the wicked cease from struggling and the dreary are at rest.
  Fame's eternal dumping ground. Cold storage for high hopes....
• HOUSE, n. A hollow edifice erected for the habitation of man, rat, mouse, beelte, cockroach, fly, mosquito, flea, bacillus and microbe.
  _House of Correction_, a place of reward for political and personal service, and for the detention of offenders and appropriations....
• ALLEGIANCE, n. This thing Allegiance, as I suppose, Is a ring fitted in the subject's nose, Whereby that organ is kept rightly pointed To smell the sweetness of the Lord's anointed.
  G....
• ARENA, n. In politics, an imaginary rat-pit in which the statesman wrestles with his record.
  -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary...
• WIT, n. The salt with which the American humorist spoils his intellectual cookery by leaving it out.
  -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary...