Related:

• EMANCIPATION, n. A bondman's change from the tyranny of another to the despotism of himself.
  He was a slave: at word he went and came; His iron collar cut him to the bone....
• DUTY, n. That which sternly impels us in the direction of profit, along the line of desire.
  Sir Lavender Portwine, in favor at court, Was wroth at his master, who'd kissed Lady Port....
• FIB, n. A lie that has not cut its teeth. An habitual liar's nearest approach to truth
  he perigee of his eccentric orbit. When David said...
• SATAN, n. One of the Creator's lamentable mistakes, repented in sashcloth and axes.
  Being instated as an archangel, Satan made himself multifariously objectionable and was finally expelled from Heaven....
• SUFFRAGE, n. Expression of opinion by means of a ballot.
  The right of suffrage (which is held to be both a privilege and a duty) means, as commonly interpreted, the right to vote for the man of another man's choice, and is highly prized....
• POPULIST, n. A fossil patriot of the early agricultural period, found in the old red soapstone underlying Kansa
  characterized by an uncommon spread of ear, which some naturalists contend gave him the power of flight, though Professors Morse and Whitney, pursuing independent lines of thought, have ingeniously pointed out that had he possessed it he would have gone elsewhere....
• DEGENERATE, adj. Less conspicuously admirable than one's ancestors.
  The contemporaries of Homer were striking examples of degeneracy...
• AUCTIONEER, n. The man who proclaims with a hammer that he has picked a pocket with his tongue.
  -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary...
• SERIAL, n. A literary work, usually a story that is not true, creeping through several issues of a newspaper or magazine.
  Frequently appended to each installment is a "synposis of preceding chapters" for those who have not read them, but a direr need is a synposis of succeeding chapters for those who do not intend to read _them_....