Tried With Fire

Presidency, n . The greased pig in the field game of American politics. 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. Vote, n . The instrument and symbol of a freeman's power to make a fool of himself and a wreck of his country. From The Unabridged Devil's Dictionary by Ambrose Bierce (1842-1914?), The University of Georgia Press. And finally...

Slang, n . The grunt of the human hog ( Pignoramus intolerabilis ) with an audible memory. The speech of one who utters with his tongue what he thinks with his ear, and feels the pride of a creator in accomplishing the feat of a parrot. A means (under Providence) of setting up as a wit without a capital of sense. Novel, n . The short story padded. Pie, n . An advance agent of the reaper whose name is Indigestion. Man, n . An animal so lost in rapturous contemplation of what he thinks he is as to overlook what he indubitably ought to be. His chief occupation is extermination of other animals and his own species, which, however, multiples with such insistent rapidity as to infest the whole habitable earth and Canada. Pedigree, n. The known part of the route from an arboreal ancestor with a swim bladder to an urban descendent with a cigarette. Adage, n . Boned wisdom for weak teeth. (Thanks to the InkSlinger 's recommendation, I borrowed a copy of The Unabridged Devil'...