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.

IMPALE, v.t. In popular usage, to pierce with any weapon which remains fixed in the wound . . . . properly, to put to death by thrusting an upright sharp stake into the body, the victim being left in a sitting position.

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

PIE, n. An advance agent of the reaper whose name is Indigestion.

Crowned with leaves of the laurel. In England the Poet Laureate is an officer of the sovereign's court, acting as dancing skeleton at every royal feast and singing-mute at every royal funeral.

CRAYFISH, n. A small crustacean very much resembling the lobster, but less indigestible.

PLAGIARIZE, v. To take the thought or style of another writer whom one has never, never read.