Related:

• LITIGANT, n. A person about to give up his skin for the hope of retaining his bones.
  -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary...
• NOMINEE, n. A modest gentleman shrinking from the distinction of private life and diligently seeking the honorable obscurity of public office.
  -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary...
• PESSIMISM, n. A philosophy forced upon the convictions of the observer by the disheartening prevalence of the optimist with his scarecrow hope and his unsightly smile.
  -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary...
• SAINT, n. A dead sinner revised and edited. The Duchess of Orleans relates that the irreverent old calumniator, Marshal Villeroi, who in his youth had known St.
  Francis de Sales, said, on hearing him called sai...
• PHILANTHROPIST, n. A rich (and usually bald) old gentleman who has trained himself to grin while his conscience is picking his pocket.
  -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary...
• VITUPERATION, n. Saite, as understood by dunces and all such as suffer from an impediment in their wit.
  -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary...
• REACH, n. The radius of action of the human hand. The area within which it is possible (and customary) to gratify directly the propensity to provide.
  This is a truth, as old as the hills, That life and experience teach...
• HERS, pron. His. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary
• EPAULET, n. An ornamented badge, serving to distinguish a military officer from the enemy -- that is to say, from the officer of lower rank to whom his death would give promotion.
  -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary...