(n.) the romanticized image of a homeless vagabond, often depicted as a lovably unshaven traincar-hopping bum clad in battered clothing, whose meager belongings are carried over the shoulder on a bindle.

this depiction is, admittedly, slightly at odds with the type of homeless person one tends to meet in practice.

(n.) a straw human acting as a piece of autumnul decor, as well as to frighten corn thieves away from corn. it operates on the same principle as the panopticon; the corn thief cannot be sure if the scarecrow is a real human capable of reprisal or simply a sack of hay. the uncertainty eats them alive from the inside until they destroy themselves.

compare gargoyles, similarly created as symbols of fear to ward off evil

(n.) pharmaceutical compounds, usually those which produce happiness in those who cannot manufacture it for themselves

(also: hedonism)

A body of water occupying about two-thirds of a world made for man — who has no gills.

(adj.) not in accordance with or otherwise disregarding the dictates of law. describing an action best taken well out of sight of all unbribed authority figures

“Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.”
― Winston S. Churchill
(also: Winston Churchill)

A particular kind of dejection to relieve a general fatigue.
(also: creation of the universe)
(also: The Devil's Dictionary)

A judicial officer of limited jurisdiction and unbounded incapacity.

A dangerous creature known for preying on his victims at the woods.

(n.) someone trained to operate aboard a spacecraft, braving such dangers as the pitiless vacuum of space, the burning agony of unshielded radiation, the wasting-away of their bone and muscle mass, and the existential agony that accompanies total realization of one's insignificance in the grand scheme of things, all in the hopes of exploring totally uninhabitable places with generally little in the way of mineral wealth.

astronauts may be said to blur the line between courageous heroism and flagrant stupidity

(n.) also known as whole water.
step one if your beloved has been cut to pieces in a fairytale: assemble the pieces and pour this special water over the wounds. stay strong, you are not done yet. do not drink the dead water. do not get distracted. your beloved's life is on the line!

https://nicholaskotar.com/2018/10/05/living-and-dead-water/

(also: living water)
(also: magical water)
(also: slavic folktales)

(n.) one of the more tolerated rodents, perhaps due to its twitchy nose and big flappy ears. tends to jump around looking for carrots and being very velveteen and watership downy and so on

(1475 – 1564) Renaissance sculptor, painter and architect
(also: 100 most influential people in the world)
(also: michelangelo quotes)

n. A sacred rite of such efficacy that he who finds himself in heaven without having undergone it will be unhappy forever. It is performed with water in two ways—by immersion, or plunging, and by aspersion, or sprinkling.

---

But whether the plan of immersion
Is better than simple aspersion
Let those immersed
And those aspersed
Decide by the Authorized Version,
And by matching their agues tertian.
—G.J.

(also: The Devil's Dictionary)

n. A crowd; the source of political wisdom and virtue. In a republic, the object of the statesman's adoration. "In a multitude of consellors there is wisdom," saith the proverb. If many men of equal individual wisdom are wiser than any one of them, it must be that they acquire the excess of wisdom by the mere act of getting together. Whence comes it? Obviously from nowhere — as well say that a range of mountains is higher than the single mountains composing it. A multitude is as wise as its wisest member if it obey him; if not, it is no wiser than its most foolish.

(also: The Devil's Dictionary)

(also: bypasses)

A sovereign's right to do wrong.
(also: The Devil's Dictionary)

the secret salvation test. as it is written, "the smash you give is the smash you shall receive"

(also: smash)

(n.) a board game derived from earlier antecedents in Persia or China, in which players must use lesser pieces to successfully capture the enemy king

considered a good way to teach tactical thinking, presumably for some upcoming war where both sides politely take turns, held entirely on a featureless flat plane

n. A person who goes to the capital of his country to increase his own; one who makes laws and money.
(also: The Devil's Dictionary)