Ambrose Bierce

Insurrection, n. An unsuccessful revolution. Disaffection's failure to substitute misrule for bad government.

In'ards, n. pl. The stomach, heart, soul, and other bowels.

Infancy, n. The period of our lives when, according to Wordsworth, 'Heaven lies about us.' The world begins lying about us pretty soon afterward.

Incompossible, adj. Unable to exist if something else exists. Two things are incompossible when the world of being has scope enough for one of them, but not enough for both — as Walt Whitman's poetry and God's mercy to man.

Helpmate, n. A wife, or bitter half.

Heaven, n. A place where the wicked cease from troubling you with talk of their personal affairs, and the good listen with attention while you expound your own.

Heathen, n. A benighted creature who has the folly to worship something that he can see and feel.

Happiness, n. An agreeable sensation arising from contemplating the misery of another.

Generous, adj. Originally this word meant noble by birth and was rightly applied to a great multitude of persons. It now means noble by nature and is taking a bit of a rest.

Genealogy, n. An account of one's descent from an ancestor who did not particularly care to trace his own.

Gallows, n. A stage for the performance of miracle plays, in which the leading actor is translated to heaven.

Friendless, adj. Having no favors to bestow. Destitute of fortune. Addicted to utterance of truth and common sense

Freebooter, n. A conqueror in a small way of business, whose annexations lack of the sanctifying merit of magnitude.

Forgetfulness, A gift of God bestowed upon debtors in compensation for their destitution of conscience.

Flesh, n. The Second Person of the secular Trinity.

Feast, n. A festival. A religious celebration usually signalized by gluttony and drunkenness, frequently in honor of some holy person distinguished for abstemiousness.

Fashion, n. A despot whom the wise ridicule and obey.

Faith, n. Belief without evidence in what is told by one who speaks without knowledge, of things without parallel.

Extinction, n. The raw material out of which theology created the future state.

Erudition, n. Dust shaken out of a book into an empty skull.

Electricity, n. The cause of all natural phenomena not known to be caused by something else. It is the same thing as lightning, and its famous attempt to strike Dr. Franklin is one of the most picturesque incidents in that great and good …

Egotist, n. A person of low taste, more interested in himself than in me.

Edible, adj.: Good to eat, and wholesome to digest, as a worm to a toad, a toad to a snake, a snake to a pig, a pig to a man, and a man to a worm.

Education, n. That which discloses to the wise and disguises from the foolish their lack of understanding.