REFERENDUM, n. A law for submission of proposed legislation to a popular vote to learn the nonsensus of public opinion.

MUSTANG, n. An indocile horse of the western plains. In English society, the American wife of an English nobleman.

OBSERVATORY, n. A place where astronomers conjecture away the guesses of their predecessors.

HARMONISTS, n. A sect of Protestants, now extinct, who came from Europe in the beginning of the last century and were distinguished for the bitterness of their internal controversies and dissensions.

RATTLESNAKE, n. Our prostrate brother, "Homo ventrambulans".

OYSTER, n. A slimy, gobby shellfish which civilization gives men the hardihood to eat without removing its entrails! The shells are sometimes given to the poor.

Something that is supposed to typify or stand for something else. Many symbols are mere "survivals" - as funereal urns carved on memorial monuments. We cannot stop making them, but we can give them a name that conceals our helplessness.