CRAYFISH, n. A small crustacean very much resembling the lobster, but less indigestible.
Ambrose BierceINTENTION, n. The mind's sense of the prevalence of one set of influences over another set; an effect whose cause is the imminence, immediate or remote, of the performance of an involuntary act.
Ambrose BiercePRESBYTERIAN, n. One who holds the conviction that the government authorities of the Church should be called presbyters.
Ambrose BierceOne engaged in a commercial pursuit. A commercial pursuit is one in which the thing pursued is a dollar.
Ambrose BierceCertain old men prefer to rise at dawn, taking a cold bath and a long walk with an empty stomach and otherwise mortifying the flesh. They then point with pride to these practices as the cause of their sturdy health and ripe years; the truth being that they are hearty and old, not because of their habits, but in spite of them. The reason we find only robust persons doing this thing is that it has killed all the others who have tried it.
Ambrose Bierce