Related:

• HURRICANE, n. An atmospheric demonstration once very common but now generally abandoned for the tornado and cyclone.
  The hurricane is still in popular use in the West Indies and is preferred by certain old-fashioned sea-captains....
• DAWN, n. The time when men of reason go to bed. Certain old men prefer to rise at about that time, taking a cold bath and a long walk with an empty stomach, and otherwise mortifying the flesh.
  They then point with pride to these practices as the cause of their sturdy health and ripe yea...
• MUMMY, n. An ancient Egyptian, formerly in universal use among modern civilized nations as medicine, and now engaged in supplying art with an excellent pigment.
  He is handy, too, in museums in gratifying the vulgar curiosity that serves to distinguish man from the lower animals....
• TIGHTS, n. An habiliment of the stage designed to reinforce the general acclamation of the press agent with a particular publicity.
  Public attention was once somewhat diverted from this garment to Miss Lillian Russell's refusal to wear it, and many were the conjectures as to her motive, the guess of Miss Pauline Hall showing a high order of ingenuity and sustained reflection....
• DUEL, n. A formal ceremony preliminary to the reconciliation of two enemies.
  Great skill is necessary to its satisfactory observance...
• EPITAPH, n. An inscription on a tomb, showing that virtues acquired by death have a retroactive effect.
  Following is a touching example: Here lie the bones of Parson Platt, Wise, pious, humble and all that, Who showed us life as all should live i...
• 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....
• PANDEMONIUM, n. Literally, the Place of All the Demons.
  Most of them have escaped into politics and finance, and the place is now used as a lecture hall by the Audible Reformer....
• BABE or BABY, n. A misshapen creature of no particular age
  ex, or condition, chiefly remarkable for the violence of the sympathies and antipathies it excites in others, itself without sentiment or emotion....