Related:

• GEOGRAPHER, n. A chap who can tell you offhand the difference between the outside of the world and the inside.
  Habeam, geographer of wide reknown, Native of Abu-Keber's ancient town, In passing thence along the river Zam To the adjacent village of Xelam, Bewildered by the multitude of roads, Got lost, lived long on migratory toads, Then from exposure miserably died, And grateful travelers bewailed their guide....
• BERENICE'S HAIR, n. A constellation (_Coma Berenices_) named in honor of one who sacrificed her hair to save her husband.
  Her locks an ancient lady gave Her loving husband's life to save...
• CREDITOR, n. One of a tribe of savages dwelling beyond the Financial Straits and dreaded for their desolating incursions.
  -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary...
• 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....
• REPLICA, n. A reproduction of a work of art, by the artist that made the original.
  It is so called to distinguish it from a "copy," which is made by another artist....
• PRESBYTERIAN, n. One who holds the conviction that the government authorities of the Church should be called presbyters.
  -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary...
• PHOENIX, n. The classical prototype of the modern "small hot bird.
  -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary...
• TEDIUM, n. Ennui, the state or condition of one that is bored.
  Many fanciful derivations of the word have been affirmed, but so high an authority as Father Jape says that it comes from a very obvious source -- the first words of the ancient Latin hymn _Te Deum Laudamus_....
• ALLIGATOR, n. The crocodile of America, superior in every detail to the crocodile of the effete monarchies of the Old World.
  Herodotus says the Indus is, with one exception, the only river that produces crocodiles, but they appear to have gone West and grown up with the other rivers....