Related:

• PREHISTORIC, adj. Belonging to an early period and a museum.
  Antedating the art and practice of perpetuating falsehood....
• POSTERITY, n. An appellate court which reverses the judgment of a popular author's contemporaries, the appellant being his obscure competitor.
  -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary...
• EXPOSTULATION, n. One of the many methods by which fools prefer to lose their friends.
  -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary...
• PLEBISCITE, n. A popular vote to ascertain the will of the sovereign.
  -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary...
• ALLIGATOR, n. The crocodile of America, superior in every detail to the crocodile of the effete monarchies of the Old World.
  Herodotus says the Indus is, with one exception, the only river that produces crocodiles, but they appear to have gone West and grown up with the other rivers....
• QUIVER, n. A portable sheath in which the ancient statesman and the aboriginal lawyer carried their lighter arguments.
  He extracted from his quiver, Did the controversial Roman, An argument well fitted To the question as submitted, Then addressed it to the liver, Of the unpersuaded foeman....
• HISTORY, n. An account mostly false, of events mostly unimportant, which are brought about by rulers mostly knaves, and soldiers mostly fools.
  Of Roman history, great Niebuhr's shown 'Tis nine-tenths lying....
• MOUSE, n. An animal which strews its path with fainting women.
  As in Rome Christians were thrown to the lions, so centuries earlier in Otumwee, the most ancient and famous city of the world, female heretics were thrown to the mice....
• Ocean, n.: A body of water occupying about two-thirds of a world made for man -- who has no gills.
  -- Ambrose Bierce "The Devil's Dictionary...