The following was part of my friend's college course, when she was through, she sent me the handout. Which I absolutely loved! I just found it again, after cleaning out my entire apartment and thought I would share.

Selections from The Devil's Dictionary
by Ambrose Bierce

abdication, n.   An act whereby a sovereign attests his sense of the high temperature of the throne.

abscond, v.i.  To "move in a mysterious way," commonly with the porperty of another.

accident, n.   An inevitable occurrence due to the action of immutable natural laws.

accordian, n.  An instrument in harmony with the sentiments of an assassin.

achievement, n.  The death of endeavor and the birth of disgust.

admiration, n.  Our polite recognition of another's resemblance to ourselves.

alone, adj.   In bad company.

applause, n.  The echo of a platitude.

bore, n.  A person who talks when you wish him to listen.

cemetary, n.  An isolated suburban spot where mourners match lies, poets write at a target and stone-cutters spell for a wager.

childhood, n.  The period of human life intermediate between the idiocy of infancy and the folly of youth---two removes from the sin of manhood and three from the remorse of age.

Christian, n.   One who believes that the New Testament is a divinely inspired book admirably suited to the spiritual needs of his neighbor.  One who follows the teachings of Christ in so far as they are not consistant with a life of sin.

compulsion, n.  The eloquence of power.

congratulation, n.  The civility of envy.

conservative, n.  A stateman who is enamored of existing evils, as distinguished from the Liberal, who wishes to replace them with others.

consult, v.t.  To seek another's approval of a course already decided on.

contempt, n.  The feeling of a prudent man for an enemy who is too formidable  safely to be opposed.

coward, n.  One who in a perilous emergency thinks with his legs.

destiny, n.  A tyrant's authority for crime and a fool's excuse for failure.

diplomacy, n.  The patriotic arc of lying for one's country.

distance, n.  The only thing that the rick are willing for the poor to call theirs and keep.

duty, n.  That which sternly impels us in the direction of profit, along the line of desire.

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

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

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

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

ghost, n.  The outward and visible sign of an inward fear.

habit, n.  A shackle for the free.

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.

historian, n.  A broad-gauge gossip.

hope, n.  Desire and expectation all rolled into one.

hyprocite, n.  One who, professing virtues that he does not repect, secures the advantage of seeming to be what he despises.

impiety, n.  Your irreverence toward my deity.

impunity, n.  Wealth.

language, n.  The music with which we charm the serpents guarding another's treasure.

logic, n.  The art of thinking and reasoning in strict accordance with the limitaions and incapacities of the human misunderstanding.  The basis of logic is the syllogism, consisting of a major and minor premise and a conclusion---thus:
       Major premise: Sixty men can do a piece of work sixty times as quickly as one man.
       Minor premise: One man can dig a post-hole in sixty seconds; therefore-
       Conclusion:  Sixty men can dig a post-hole in one second.
This may be called the syllogism arithmetical, in which, by combining logic and mathematics, we obtain a double certainty and are twice blessed.

love, n.   A temporary insanity curable my marriage or by removal of the patient from the influences under which he incurred the disorder.  This disease, like caries and many other ailments, is prevalent only among civilized races living under artificial conditions;  barbarous nations breathing pure air  and eating simple food enjoy immunity from  its ravages.  It is sometimes fatal, but more frequently to the physician than to the patient.

miracle, n.  An act or event out of the order of nature and unaccountable, as beating a normal hand of four kings and an ace with four aces and a king.

mouth, n.  In man, the gateway to the soul;  in woman, the outlet of the heart.

non-combatant, n.  A dead Quaker.

platitude, n.  The fundamental element and special glory of popular literature.  A thought that snores in words that smoke.  The wisdom of a million fools in the diction of a dullard.  A fossil sentiment in artificial rock.  A moral without a fable.  All that is mortal of a departed truth.  A demi-tasse of milk-and-morality. The Pope's-nose of a featherless peacock.  A jelly-fish withering on the shore of the sea of thought.  The cackle surviving the egg.  A desicated epigram.

pray, v.  To ask that the laws of the universe be annulled in behalf of a single petitioner confessedly unworthy.

presidency, n.  The greased pig in the fild game of American politics.

prude, n.  A bawd hiding behind the back of her demeanor.

reason, v.i.  To weigh probabilities in the scales of desire.

religion, n.  The daugher of Hope and Fear, explaining to Ignorance the nature of the Unknowable.

resolute, adj.  Obstinate in a course that we approve.

retaliation, n.  The natural rock upon which is reared the Temple of Law.

saint, n.  A dead sinner revised and edited.

valor, n.  A soldiery compound of vanity, duty and the gambler's hope.

Well, damn....that's not what my dictionary says...
And if your dictionary comes from the devil,
I'm afraid to see what your other writings are about!