Related:

• BAAL, n. An old deity formerly much worshiped under various names.
  As Baal he was popular with the Phoenicians; as Belus or Bel he had the honor to be served by the priest Berosus, who wrote the famous account of the Deluge...
• GOOSE, n. A bird that supplies quills for writing.
  These, by some occult process of nature, are penetrated and suffused with various degrees of the bird's intellectual energies and emotional character, so that when inked and drawn mechanically across paper by a person called an "author," there results a very fair and accurate transcript of the fowl's thought and feeling....
• 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...
• W (double U) has, of all the letters in our alphabet, the only cumbrous name, the names of the others being monosyllabic.
  This advantage of the Roman alphabet over the Grecian is the more valued after audibly spelling out some simple Greek word, like _epixoriambikos_....
• 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....
• SATYR, n. One of the few characters of the Grecian mythology accorded recognition in the Hebrew.
  (Leviticus, xvii, 7.) The satyr was at first a member of the dissolute community acknowledging a loose allegiance with Dionysius, but underwent many transformations and improvements....
• FORK, n. An instrument used chiefly for the purpose of putting dead animals into the mouth.
  Formerly the knife was employed for this purpose, and by many worthy persons is still thought to have many advantages over the other tool, which, however, they do not altogether reject, but use to assist in charging the knife....