Related:

• SYLPH, n. An immaterial but visible being that inhabited the air when the air was an element and before it was fatally polluted with factory smoke, sewer gas and similar products of civilization.
  Sylphs were allied to gnomes, nymphs and salamanders, which dwelt, respectively, in earth, water and fire, all now insalubrious....
• FAIRY, n. A creature, variously fashioned and endowed, that formerly inhabited the meadows and forests.
  It was nocturnal in its habits, and somewhat addicted to dancing and the theft of children....
• INCUBUS, n. One of a race of highly improper demons who, though probably not wholly extinct, may be said to have seen their best nights.
  For a complete account of _incubi_ and _succubi_, including _incubae_ and _succubae_, see the _Liber Demonorum_ of Protassus (Paris, 1328), which contains much curious information that would be out of place in a dictionary intended as a text-book for the public schools....
• OBSESSED, p.p. Vexed by an evil spirit, like the Gadarene swine and other critics.
  Obsession was once more common than it is now. Arasthus tells of a peasant who was occupied by a different devil for every day in the week, and on Sundays by two....
• HARMONISTS, n. A sect of Protestants, now extinct, who came from Europe in the beginning of the last century and were distinguished for the bitterness of their internal controversies and dissensions.
  -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary...
• UNDERSTANDING, n. A cerebral secretion that enables one having it to know a house from a horse by the roof on the house.
  Its nature and laws have been exhaustively expounded by Locke, who rode a house, and Kant, who lived in a horse....
• GNOME, n. In North-European mythology, a dwarfish imp inhabiting the interior parts of the earth and having special custody of mineral treasures.
  Bjorsen, who died in 1765, says gnomes were common enough in the southern parts of Sweden in his boyhood, and he frequently saw them scampering on the hills in the evening twilight....
• RIGHTEOUSNESS, n. A sturdy virtue that was once found among the Pantidoodles inhabiting the lower part of the peninsula of Oque.
  Some feeble attempts were made by returned missionaries to introduce it into several European countries, but it appears to have been imperfectly expounded....
• BASILISK, n. The cockatrice. A sort of serpent hatched form the egg of a cock.
  The basilisk had a bad eye, and its glance was fatal....