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Ambrose Bierce
ROSTRUM, n. In...
ROSTRUM, n. In Latin, the beak of a bird or the prow of a ship. In America, a place from which a candidate for office...
SLANG, n. The...
SLANG, n. The speech of one who utters with his tongue what he thinks with his ear, and feels the pride of a creator...
REPORTER, n. A...
REPORTER, n. A writer who guesses his way to the truth and dispels it with a tempest of...
RUBBISH, n. Worthless...
RUBBISH, n. Worthless matter, such as the religions, philosophies, literatures, arts and sciences of the tribes...
ROPE, n. An...
ROPE, n. An obsolescent appliance for reminding assassins that they too are mortal. It is put about the neck and...
RUSSIAN, n. A...
RUSSIAN, n. A person with a Caucasian body and a Mongolian soul. A Tartar Emetic.
SPOOKER, n. A...
SPOOKER, n. A writer whose imagination concerns itself with supernatural phenomena, especially in the doings of...
RESPECTABILITY, n. The...
RESPECTABILITY, n. The offspring of a liaison between a bald head and a bank account.
SABBATH, n. A...
SABBATH, n. A weekly festival having its origin in the fact that God made the world in six days and was arrested on...
RUIN, v. To...
RUIN, v. To destroy. Specifically, to destroy a maid's belief in the virtue of maids.
SAW, n. A...
SAW, n. A trite popular saying, or proverb. (Figurative and colloquial.) So called because it makes its way into a...
TABLE D'HOTE, n....
TABLE D'HOTE, n. A caterer's thrifty concession to the universal passion for...
REVEILLE, n. A...
REVEILLE, n. A signal to sleeping soldiers to dream of battlefields no more, but get up and have their blue noses...
SAFETY-CLUTCH, n. A...
SAFETY-CLUTCH, n. A mechanical device acting automatically to prevent the fall of an elevator, or cage, in case of an...
RUMOR, n. A...
RUMOR, n. A favorite weapon of the assassins of character.
Source: The Devil's...
SUFFRAGE, n. Expression...
SUFFRAGE, n. Expression of opinion by means of a ballot. The right of suffrage (which is held to be both a privilege...
TEETOTALER, n. One...
TEETOTALER, n. One who abstains from strong drink, sometimes totally, sometimes tolerably...
REVELATION, n. A...
REVELATION, n. A famous book in which St. John the Divine concealed all that he knew. The revealing is done by the...
SARCOPHAGUS, n. Among...
SARCOPHAGUS, n. Among the Greeks a coffin which being made of a certain kind of carnivorous stone, had the peculiar...
SAINT, n. A...
SAINT, n. A dead sinner revised and edited.
Source: The Devil's Dictionary,...