Politics: A strife of interests masquerading as a contest of principles. The conduct of public affairs for private advantage.

PRICE, n. Value, plus a reasonable sum for the wear and tear of conscience in demanding it.

OBSOLETE, adj. No longer used by the timid. Said chiefly of words. A word which some lexicographer has marked obsolete is ever thereafter an object of dread and loathing to the fool writer . . .

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

Age - That period of life in which we compound for the vices that remain by reviling those we have no longer the vigor to commit.

Enthusiasm - a distemper of youth, curable by small doses of repentance in connection with outward applications of experience.

Dictionary: a malevolent literary device for cramping the growth of a language and making it hard and inelastic