Related:

• PROBOSCIS, n. The rudimentary organ of an elephant which serves him in place of the knife-and-fork that Evolution has as yet denied him.
  For purposes of humor it is popularly called a trunk....
• SLANG, n. The grunt of the human hog (_Pignoramus intolerabilis_) with an audible memory.
  The speech of one who utters with his tongue what he thinks with his ear, and feels the pride of a creator in accomplishing the feat of a parrot....
• SEINE, n. A kind of net for effecting an involuntary change of environment.
  For fish it is made strong and coarse, but women are more easily taken with a singularly delicate fabric weighted with small, cut stones....
• ICONOCLAST, n. A breaker of idols, the worshipers whereof are imperfectly gratified by the performance
  and most strenuously protest that he unbuildeth but doth not reedify, that he pulleth down but pileth not up....
• ARENA, n. In politics, an imaginary rat-pit in which the statesman wrestles with his record.
  -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary...
• FINANCE, n. The art or science of managing revenues and resources for the best advantage of the manager.
  The pronunciation of this word with the i long and the accent on the first syllable is one of America's most precious discoveries and possessions....
• LYRE, n. An ancient instrument of torture. The word is now used in a figurative sense to denote the poetic faculty, as in the following fiery lines of our great poet, Ella Wheeler Wilcox
  I sit astride Parnassus with my lyre, And pick with care the disobedient wire....
• MUMMY, n. An ancient Egyptian, formerly in universal use among modern civilized nations as medicine, and now engaged in supplying art with an excellent pigment.
  He is handy, too, in museums in gratifying the vulgar curiosity that serves to distinguish man from the lower animals....
• OVATION, n. n ancient Rome, a definite, formal pageant in honor of one who had been disserviceable to the enemies of the nation.
  A lesser "triumph." In modern English the word is improperly used to signify any loose and spontaneous expression of popular homage to the hero of the hour and place....