Related:

• PENITENT, adj. Undergoing or awaiting punishment. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary
• CAPITAL, n. The seat of misgovernment. That which provides the fire, the pot, the dinner, the table and the knife and fork for the anarchi
  he part of the repast that himself supplies is the disgrace before meat....
• HALO, n. Properly, a luminous ring encircling an astronomical body
  but not infrequently confounded with "aureola," or "nimbus," a somewhat similar phenomenon worn as a head-dress by divinities and saints....
• RENOWN, n. A degree of distinction between notoriety and fame -- a little more supportable than the one and a little more intolerable than the other.
  Sometimes it is conferred by an unfriendly and inconsiderate hand....
• UBIQUITY, n. The gift or power of being in all places at one time, but not in all places at all times, which is omnipresence, an attribute of God and the luminiferous ether only.
  This important distinction between ubiquity and omnipresence was not clear to the mediaeval Church and there was much bloodshed about it....
• EFFECT, n. The second of two phenomena which always occur together in the same order.
  The first, called a Cause, is said to generate the other -- which is no more sensible than it would be for one who has never seen a dog except in the pursuit of a rabbit to declare the rabbit the cause of a dog....
• AVERNUS, n. The lake by which the ancients entered the infernal regions.
  The fact that access to the infernal regions was obtained by a lake is believed by the learned Marcus Ansello Scrutator to have suggested the Christian rite of baptism by immersion....
• BAPTISM, n. A sacred rite of such efficacy that he who finds himself in heaven without having undergone it will be unhappy forever.
  It is performed with water in two ways -- by immersion, or plunging, and by aspersion, or sprinkling....
• BATTLE, n. A method of untying with the teeth of a political knot that would not yield to the tongue.
  -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary...