(n.) one who is foolish or contemptible; the word, originally Hebrew, is widely recognized as an inherently funny one to say

an affirmation of maximum certainty and assuredness that something will be accomplished or carried out. a vow may be of peace or inaction, such as that of a pacifist. A vow may be of action, such as that of a soldier promising to deliver a memento to a loved one.

(also: military)
(also: oath)

(n.) job that pays well and requires little to no real work; job held by a person who is too important to work

a small mammal seen as uncute because it is small and furry.

n. The spore of insomnia, as distinguished from Conscience, the bacillus of the same disease. Indigenous to New Jersey, where the marshes in which they multiply are known as meadows and the mosquitoes themselves are affirmed by the natives to be larks.

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"I am the master of all things!" Man cried.
"Then, pray, what am I?" the Mosquito replied.

(also: The Devil's Dictionary)

“I never saw a wild thing sorry for itself”
― D.H. Lawrence

The negligible factor in problems of legislation.

A popular character in old Italian plays, who imitated with ludicrous incompetence the buffone, or clown, and was therefore the ape of an ape; for the clown himself imitated the serious characters of the play. The zany was progenitor to the specialist in humor, as we to-day have the unhappiness to know him. In the zany we see an example of creation; in the humorist, of transmission. Another excellent specimen of the modern zany is the curate, who apes the rector, who apes the bishop, who apes the archbishop, who apes the devil.
(also: The Devil's Dictionary)

Teeth sharpener!

(1901–1976) German theoretical physicist – one of the pioneers of Quantum mechanics
(also: 100 most influential people in the world)
(also: werner heisenberg quotes)

(n.) curdled lactate. intended to be eaten.

n. A person engaged in reigning. Formerly the monarch ruled, as the derivation of the word attests, and as many subjects have had occasion to learn. In Russia and the Orient the monarch has still a considerable influence in public affairs and in the disposition of the human head, ((also: vladimir putin)) but in western Europe political administration is mostly entrusted to his ministers, he being somewhat preoccupied with reflections relating to the status of his own head.

(also: governing people)
(also: The Devil's Dictionary)

(n.) a small island country pretending not to be part of italy. apparently the stronghold of an order of medieval crusader knights, and yet somehow those da vinci code guys never seem to pay it all that much attention

(1856 – 1939) An Austrian neurologist who founded psychoanalysis, which involved the investigation of the subconscious, dreams and human mind.
(also: 100 most influential people in the world)
(also: sigmund freud quotes)

One of the most plentiful meats around. For some it is a dietary staple. Others a foreign delicacy.

one of the baltic nations alongside latvia and lithuania. came out of nowhere in the foggy annals of history when those uncouth crusaders from prussia decided to attack it. after that it spent a lot of time getting roughed up by prussians, nazis, and soviets, and now presumably wishes it could go back to obscurity

An exuse your blood relatives will use to take advantage of you.

a battle between the greeks and the trojans which probably never happened, but remains one of the most famous battles not in history.

the war allegedly began (sometime in the 12th century BC) over helen of troy, a queen who jilted her greek husband, king menelaus, for a trojan prince named paris. menelaus, incensed, declared war on the trojans and summoned his fellow greeks (including his brother agamemnon, who sacrificed his own daughter to the gods to get them some favorable sailing winds) to lay siege to the shining city of troy.

what follows is a long complicated story involving guys with long greek names, and is most notably summed up in homer's "iliad." the famous conclusion of the war, which actually isn't in said story, involved greeks sneaking themselves into troy inside a big wooden horse and massacring the populace. some of the participants got their own little self-contained sequels; for example, the tale of odysseus' return home in homer's "odyssey," and agamemnon getting iced by his wife in a play by aeschylus

n. A follower of Achilles — particularly when he didn't lead.

(also: The Devil's Dictionary)

Anything assuring protection to one in peril. Moses and Joshua provided six cities of refuge — Bezer, Golan, Ramoth, Kadesh, Schekem and Hebron — to which one who had taken life inadvertently could flee when hunted by relatives of the deceased. This admirable expedient supplied him with wholesome exercise and enabled them to enjoy the pleasures of the chase; whereby the soul of the dead man was appropriately honored by observations akin to the funeral games of early Greece.
(also: The Devil's Dictionary)