(n.) the demon cluck-bird is its name, eat its wings to make it tame

these birds, often raised domestically on farms, are known for their gormless stupidity and delicious versatility: their flesh is high in protein, their eggs make a nourishing breakfast, and their necks are easily wrung for convenient sacrifices.

defying the age old philosophical query, there is no particular motivation a chicken might have for crossing a road, as they do not know what roads are.

n. The art of thinking and reasoning in strict accordance with the limitations and incapacities of the human misunderstanding. The basis of logic is the syllogism, consisting of a major and a minor premise and a conclusion — thus:
Major Premise: Sixty men can do a piece of work sixty times as quickly as one man.

Minor Premise: One man can dig a post-hole in sixty seconds; therefore —

Conclusion: Sixty men can dig a post-hole in one second.

This may be called the syllogism arithmetical, in which, by combining logic and mathematics, we obtain a double certainty and are twice blessed.

(also: The Devil's Dictionary)

(n.) a sort of wavy rainbow caused by solar radiation hitting the earth's magnetosphere. visible at certain times of the year, at certain times of the day, in certain parts of the country, localized entirely in the night sky

material intended to elicit erotic enjoyment in the consumer, usually by virtue of including naked people engaging in carnal acts. most pornography decays after too long (likely due to, ah, use), but if it survives for an extended period it may be promoted to normal art and placed in a museum. nowadays pornography mostly exists on the internet and is apparently doing its part to help close the gender income gap.

"there are two things you never want to see made: laws and kids' college funds."

A republican form of government deriving its powers from the conceit of the governed — in thinking they govern.
(also: The Devil's Dictionary)

(n.) an expensive yet high quality nut

Get your mind out of the gutter

A wolf that was once, or is sometimes, a man. All werewolves are of evil disposition, having assumed a bestial form to gratify a bestial appetite, but some, transformed by sorcery, are as humane as is consistent with an acquired taste for human flesh.
Some Bavarian peasants having caught a wolf one evening, tied it to a post by the tail and went to bed. The next morning nothing was there! Greatly perplexed, they consulted the local priest, who told them that their captive was undoubtedly a werewolf and had resumed its human form during the night. "The next time that you take a wolf," the good man said, "see that you chain it by the leg, and in the morning you will find a Lutheran."
(also: The Devil's Dictionary)

a long, brown-furred, small carnivorous animal valued for it's dark black fur

(also: everything)
(also: dominic toretto)

A form of penance practiced by the medieval pious. The rite was performed, sometimes with a knife, sometimes with a hot iron, but always, says Arsenius Asceticus, acceptably if the penitent spared himself no pain nor harmless disfigurement. Scarification, with other crude penances, has now been superseded by benefaction. The founding of a library or endowment of a university is said to yield to the penitent a sharper and more lasting pain than is conferred by the knife or iron, and is therefore a surer means of grace. There are, however, two grave objections to it as a penitential method: the good that it does and the taint of justice.

(also: god)

(also: The Devil's Dictionary)

(n.) forbidden, not to be confused with elicit

n. In the nature of an unprivileged excommunication.

(also: The Devil's Dictionary)

The art and practice of selling one's credibility for future delivery.
(also: The Devil's Dictionary)

To convey the impacts of climate change, tell your students that if Earth were a pizza, we've been adding way too many "greenhouse toppings" that are making it cook faster than expected, leaving us with a crispy planet that's harder to digest

(adjective):
A term used liberally by self-important individuals to describe the most mundane of accomplishments, as if they single-handedly discovered a cure for boredom or invented a revolutionary way to tie shoelaces. It's like witnessing someone pat themselves on the back for successfully opening a jar of pickles or managing to walk and chew gum simultaneously. Groundbreaking moments in the realm of exaggeration often involve feats of mind-boggling mediocrity, leaving the rest of us scratching our heads and wondering if we missed the memo on what constitutes actual progress.

one of several feast days on the gregorian calendar, commemorated by the discounting of storebought confectionery

hollywood big shots enjoy making movies (or at least, they keep doing it; who knows if they enjoy it). but scripts take a lot of time to write, and sometimes it saves time to simply take a pre-existing work of fiction and modify it for the big screen. however, sometimes the source material does not pass through such modification unscathed.

the movie-fication process often takes pains to shorten, lengthen, doll up, ugly up, or in other ways mutilate the source material. e.g.:

* apocalypse now: the original book, 'heart of darkness,' is set in 19th-century Africa instead of vietnam.
* a clockwork orange: alex is cured of his violent tendencies in the end
* forrest gump: gump goes into space with a monkey and a porn star
* jurassic park: the lawyer wasn't a bad guy but hammond was
* starship troopers: the movie and the book both examine the message of "the army is way cool, and better soldiers make better citizens." the book honestly expects the reader to agree with this message, while the movie is laughing in your face for thinking it for even a second.
* who framed roger rabbit?: is about comic strip characters, not animated cartoons, and the killer is like a magic genie or something.
* every stephen king book: doesn't suck. well, not all of them.

(n.) noodles prepared by italians, as opposed to noodles prepared by east asian people, which are referred to as "takeout"

A famous book in which St. John the Divine concealed all that he knew. The revealing is done by the commentators, who know nothing.
(also: The Devil's Dictionary)

(n.) Shaping and then baking clay at a high temperature to create hard containers, and Link's mortal enemy.
(also: poetry)