Related:

• OLEAGINOUS, adj. Oily, smooth, sleek. Disraeli once described the manner of Bishop Wilberforce as "unctuous, oleaginous, saponaceous.
  And the good prelate was ever afterward known as Soapy Sam....
• PIGMY, n. One of a tribe of very small men found by ancient travelers in many parts of the world, but by modern in Central Africa only.
  The Pigmies are so called to distinguish them from the bulkier Caucasians -- who are Hogmies....
• Long's Notes 1) Always store beer in a dark place.
  2) Any priest or shaman must be presumed guilty until proved innocent....
• DEBT, n. An ingenious substitute for the chain and whip of the slave- driver.
  As, pent in an aquarium, the troutlet Swims round and round his tank to find an outlet, Pressing his nose against the glass that holds him, Nor ever sees the prison that enfolds him...
• ADAGE, n. Boned wisdom for weak teeth. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary
• 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....
• PRESIDENT, n. The leading figure in a small group of men of whom -- and of whom only -- it is positively known that immense numbers of their countrymen did not want any of them for President.
  If that's an honor surely 'tis a greater To have been a simple and undamned spectator....
• TREE, n. A tall vegetable intended by nature to serve as a penal apparatus, though through a miscarriage of justice most trees bear only a negligible fruit, or none at all.
  When naturally fruited, the tree is a beneficient agency of civilization and an important factor in public morals....
• Technicality, n. In an English court a man named Home was tried for slander in having accused a neighbor of murder.
  His exact words were: "Sir Thomas Holt hath taken a cleaver and stricken his cook upon the head, so that one side of his head fell on one shoulder and the other side upon the other shoulder....