Related:

• Rabble: In a republic, those who hold supreme power tempered by fraudulent elections.
  -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary...
• ROSTRUM, n. In Latin, the beak of a bird or the prow of a ship.
  In America, a place from which a candidate for office energetically expounds the wisdom, virtue and power of the rabble....
• PIETY, n. Reverence for the Supreme Being, based upon His supposed resemblance to man.
  The pig is taught by sermons and epistles To think the God of Swine has snout and bristles....
• AUCTIONEER, n. The man who proclaims with a hammer that he has picked a pocket with his tongue.
  -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary...
• MISCREANT, n. A person of the highest degree of unworth.
  Etymologically, the word means unbeliever, and its present signification may be regarded as theology's noblest contribution to the development of our language....
• ELECTOR, n. One who enjoys the sacred privilege of voting for the man of another man's choice.
  -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary...
• ORATORY, n. A conspiracy between speech and action to cheat the understanding.
  A tyranny tempered by stenography. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary...
• JOSS-STICKS, n. Small sticks burned by the Chinese in their pagan tomfoolery, in imitation of certain sacred rites of our holy religion.
  -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary...
• OBSOLETE, adj. No longer used by the timid. Said chiefly of words.
  A word which some lexicographer has marked obsolete is ever thereafter an object of dread and loathing to the fool writer, but if it is a good word and has no exact modern equivalent equally good, it is good enough for the good writer....