Related:

• RITE, n. A religious or semi-religious ceremony fixed by law, precept or custom, with the essential oil of sincerity carefully squeezed out of it.
  -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary...
• OVATION, n. n ancient Rome, a definite, formal pageant in honor of one who had been disserviceable to the enemies of the nation.
  A lesser "triumph." In modern English the word is improperly used to signify any loose and spontaneous expression of popular homage to the hero of the hour and place....
• 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....
• ADVICE, n. The smallest current coin. "The man was in such deep distress," Said Tom, "that I could do no less Than give him good advice.
  Said Jim: "If less could have been done for him I know you well enough, my son, To know that's what you would have done....
• HADES, n. The lower world; the residence of departed spiri
  he place where the dead live. Among the ancients the idea of Hades was not synonymous with our Hell, many of the most respectable men of antiquity residing there in a very comfortable kind of way....
• Interpreter, n.: One who enables two persons of different languages to understand each other by repeating to each what it would have been to the interpreter's advantage for the other to have said.
  -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary...
• DAY, n. A period of twenty-four hours, mostly misspent.
  This period is divided into two parts, the day proper and the night, or day improper -- the former devoted to sins of business, the latter consecrated to the other sort....