male and a female tool.

  They stood before the altar and supplied
  The fire themselves in which their fat was fried.
  In vain the sacrifice! -- no god will claim
  An offering burnt with an unholy flame.

M.P. Nopput


AMBIDEXTROUS, adj.  Able to pick with equal skill a right-hand pocket
or a left.

AMBITION, n.  An overmastering desire to be vilified by enemies while
living and made ridiculous by friends when dead.

AMNESTY, n.  The state's magnanimity to those offenders whom it would
be too expensive to punish.

ANOINT, v.t.  To grease a king or other great functionary already
sufficiently slippery.

  As sovereigns are anointed by the priesthood,
  So pigs to lead the populace are greased good.

Judibras


ANTIPATHY, n.  The sentiment inspired by one's friend's friend.

APHORISM, n.  Predigested wisdom.

  The flabby wine-skin of his brain
  Yields to some pathologic strain,
  And voids from its unstored abysm
  The driblet of an aphorism.

"The Mad Philosopher," 1697


APOLOGIZE, v.i.  To lay the foundation for a future offence.

APOSTATE, n.  A leech who, having penetrated the shell of a turtle
only to find that the creature has long been dead, deems it expedient
to form a new attachment to a fresh turtle.

APOTHECARY, n.  The physician's accomplice, undertaker's benefactor
and grave worm's provider.

  When Jove sent blessings to all men that are,
  And Mercury conveyed them in a jar,
  That friend of tricksters introduced by stealth
  Disease for the apothecary's health,
  Whose gratitude impelled him to proclaim:
  "My deadliest drug shall bear my patron's name!"

G.J.


APPEAL, v.t.  In law, to put the dice into the box for another throw.

APPETITE, n.  An instinct thoughtfully implanted by Providence as a
solution to the labor question.

APPLAUSE, n.  The echo of a platitude.

APRIL FOOL, n.  The March fool with another month added to his folly.

ARCHBISHOP, n.  An ecclesiastical dignitary one point holier than a
bishop.

  If I were a jolly archbishop,
  On Fridays I'd eat all the fish up --
  Salmon and flounders and smelts;
  On other days everything else.

Jodo Rem


ARCHITECT, n.  One who drafts a plan of your house, and plans a draft
of your money.

ARDOR, n.  The quality that distinguishes love without knowledge.

ARENA, n.  In politics, an imaginary rat-pit in which the statesman
wrestles with his record.

ARISTOCRACY, n.  Government by the best men.  (In this sense the word
is obsolete; so is that kind of government.)  Fellows that wear downy
hats and clean shirts -- guilty of education and suspected of bank
accounts.

ARMOR, n.  The kind of clothing worn by a man whose tailor is a
blacksmith.

ARRAYED, pp.  Drawn up and given an orderly disposition, as a rioter
hanged to a lamppost.

ARREST, v.t.  Formally to detain one accused of unusualness.