Legislator

LEGISLATOR, n. A person who goes to the capital of his country to increase his own; one who makes laws and money.

2010 Update: A member of a legislature, and representative of the neighbor. The legislator may propose, oppose or dispose the laws authorizing, limiting and defining the tyrannical and inquisitive branches of government; may conspire or enter into conspiracies as the hours in the day and longevity allow; and may identify the conspiracies of others as necessary to promote domestic anxiety and explication. The third person of government and the plural.

Happy birthday to Mo'a

Leatherhead

LEATHERHEAD, n. Dr. Bartlett, of the Bulletin.

2010 Update: A sparkling wit out of earshot.

Love

LOVE, n. A temporary insanity curable by marriage or by removal of the patient from the influences under which he incurred the disorder. This disease, like caries and many other ailments, is prevalent only among civilized races living under artificial conditions; barbarous nations breathing pure air and eating simple food enjoy immunity from its ravages. It is sometimes fatal, but more frequently to the physician than to the patient.

2010 Update: Reason's envy of the appetite.

Legacy

LEGACY, n. A gift from one who is legging it out of this vale of tears.

2010 Update: The providential tariff on imported goods and services.

Happy birthday to Pia

Ceres' in the knight time

A farm's a place for heroic yeomen,

For robust women and hired nomen,

For mighty oxen, fearsome cows,

Busy bees and ripping plows,

For beavers building by the lagoon

And yapping dogs who die too soon,

And horses proud and obsolete

And tractors roaring in the heat

And wildcats stalking out their pray

And owls calling end of day.

But in that wide diversity

Of virtues far beyond the city,

The hero all his fellows follow

Is the scarecrow, piked, pecked and hollow.

LEADERSHIP, n. A novel complaint. Avant-garde grief.

Lead

LEAD, n. A heavy blue-gray metal much used in giving stability to light lovers- particularly to those who love not wisely but other men's wives. Lead is also of great service as a counterpoise to an argument of such weight that it turns the scale of debate the wrong way. An interesting fact in the chemistry of international controversy is that at the point of contact of two patriotisms lead is deposited in great quantities- some say by precipitation, but that is to confuse cause and effect, for the precipitation with which one set of patriots withdraws from the contact is caused by the other set's superior deposit of lead.

Hail holy Lead! of human feuds the great

And universal arbiter; endowed

With penetration to pierce any cloud

Fogging the field of controversial hate,

And with a swift, inevitable, straight,

Searching precision find the avowed

But vital point. Thy judgement, when allowed

By the chirurgeon, settles the debate.

O useful metal- were it not for thee

We'd have each other by the ears alway:

We, like old Muhlenberg, "care not to stay."

And when the quick have run away like pullets

Jack Satan smelts the dead to make new bullets.

2010 Update: A medically active element, except that when added to pipes causes debauchery and when added to fuel causes folly. When applied directly to the fool or rogue, however, lead smartens and tidies things up nicely. A cheaper, more portable replacement for the stone tablet in normalizing social relations and carrying the harmony to the frontier.

A couple other notes: I found this site pretty awfully clever, and it sort of reminds me of Amoeba's Dude and Dude.

Also, a good Good Friday to all you worshippers.

Latitudinarian

LATITUDINARIAN, n. In theology, a miscreant who does his thinking at home instead of putting it out. He is regarded by the priesthood and the clergy with the same aversion that barber feels for the man who shaves himself.

2010 Update: A follower of the doctrine that such matters as church membership, leadership and doctrine are less consequential than to be an Episcopalian of prominent standing.

Life

LIFE, n. A spiritual pickle preserving the body from decay. We live in daily apprehension of its loss; yet when lost it is not missed. The question, "Is life worth living?" has been much discussed; particularly by those who think it is not, many of whom have written at great length in support of their view and by careful observance of the laws of health enjoyed for long terms of years the honors of successful controversy.

"Life's not worth living, and that's the truth,"
Carelessly caroled the golden youth.
In manhood still he maintained that view
And held it more strongly the older he grew.
When kicked by a jackass at eighty-three,
"Go fetch me a surgeon at once!" cried he.
—Han Soper

2010 Update: The eleventh plague upon Pharoah and his descendants. The pox for which every other curse is a cure.

Libelous

LIBELOUS, adj. In the nature of an unprivileged excommunication.

2010 Update: Too nearly true.

Lapidate

LAPIDATE, v.t. To rebuke with stones. St. Stephen, for example, was lapidated like a Chinaman*.

Lamented St. Steve,

What Christian can grieve

For the way that you came to your death?

For the monument fair

Of memorial stones

Was reared in the air

O'er your honored bones

Ere yet you'd relinquished your breath.

No doubt as your soul exhaled

You were thanked by resolution;

For the builders' design had failed

Except for your execution.

2009 Update: To blog at close range.

*A note on the language- Among the sects of humanity that Bierce was especially caustic towards were the anti-chinese populists of his era who lobbied in the halls of power to limit immigration and, alternately, committed acts of violence in the alleys of San Francisco. In one case, which might have inspired this definition, a Chinese woman was found murdered, of which Bierce wrote "The cause of her death could not be accurately ascertained, but as her head was caved in it is thought by some physicians that she died of galloping Christianity of the malignant California type."

All of which is to say, Bierce was a honky man of his time and I have intentionally omitted a few racist definitions. I included this entry out of confidence that he did not intend to insult Chinese people, but rather James Sensenbrenner who deserves it.

Logic

LOGIC, n. The art of thinking and reasoning in strict accordance with the limitations and incapacities of the human misunderstanding. The basic 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 posthole in sixty seconds; therefore --

Conclusion: Sixty men can dig a posthole 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.

2009 Update: The most analytical form of reason, by which the capable human animal combines two assumptions into one irrelevancy. Logic is never as coldly precise as when it used to explain a failure of judgement, and judgement fails primarily due to distraction and, therefore, the Orange Bowl? Not too shabby.

Lap

LAP, n. One of the most important organs of the female system -- an admirable provision of nature for the repose of infancy, but chiefly useful in rural festivities to support plates of cold chicken and heads of adult males. The male of our species has a rudimentary lap, imperfectly developed and in no way contributing to the animal's substantial welfare.

2009 Update: The foundation upon which ambition rests.

Libertarian

LIBERTARIAN, n. One who is compelled by the evidence to believe in free-will, and whose will is therefore free to reject that doctrine.

2009 Update: A political philosopher who would limit the government to the construction of roads, the enforcement of contracts and defense of the borders by happy accident. A utopia awaits the triumphant libertarian in which borders recede into the bedroom, grunted greetings grow into contracts and a highway is made straight not only through the desert but across every inch of national soil, extending to the depths of the ocean.

Looking Glass

LOOKING-GLASS, n. A vitreous plane upon which to display a fleeting show for man's disillusion given.

The King of Manchuria had a magic looking-glass, whereon whoso looked saw, not his own image, but only that of the king. A certain courtier who had long enjoyed the king's favor and was thereby enriched beyond any other subject of the realm, said to the king: "Give me, I pray, thy wonderful mirror, so that when absent out of thine august presence I may yet do homage before thy visible shadow, prostrating myself night and morning in the glory of thy benign countenance, as which nothing has so divine splendor, O Noonday Sun of the Universe!"

Please with the speech, the king commanded that the mirror be conveyed to the courtier's palace; but after, having gone thither without apprisal, he found it in an apartment where was naught but idle lumber. And the mirror was dimmed with dust and overlaced with cobwebs. This so angered him that he fisted it hard, shattering the glass, and was sorely hurt. Enraged all the more by this mischance, he commanded that the ungrateful courtier be thrown into prison, and that the glass be repaired and taken back to his own palace; and this was done. But when the king looked again on the mirror he saw not his image as before, but only the figure of a crowned ass, having a bloody bandage on one of its hinder hooves — as the artificers and all who had looked upon it had before discerned but feared to report. Taught wisdom and charity, the king restored his courtier to liberty, had the mirror set into the back of the throne and reigned many years with justice and humility; and one day when he fell asleep in death while on the throne, the whole court saw in the mirror the luminous figure of an angel, which remains to this day.

2009 Update: The portal by which Alice enters a strange and mythical world. Most Alices, in fact.

(Present company excepted, of course. Our Alice enters by graduate school.)

Laocoön

LAOCOÖN, n. A famous piece of antique scripture sculpture representing a priest of that name and his two sons in the folds of two enormous serpents. The skill and diligence with which the old man and lads support the serpents and keep them up to their work have been justly regarded as one of the noblest artistic illustrations of the mastery of human intelligence over brute inertia.

2009 Update: A Trojan priest wise enough to warn his comrades against Greeks bearing gifts but impetuous enough to father two sons. For their lesser incaution, the Trojans were punished with death but allowed to retain some dignity.

Update: Good eye, Jim. The slip, however Freudian, isn't mine. I copied and pasted from The online Devil's Dictionary and missed the error you caught. I checked the book and Bierce is also innocent.

LL.D.

LL.D., Letters indicating the degree Legumptionorum Doctor, one learned in laws, gifted with legal gumption. Some suspicion is cast upon this derivation by the fact that the title was formerly ££.d., and conferred only upon gentlemen distinguished for their wealth. At the date of this writing Columbia University is considering the expediency of making another degree for clergymen, in place of the old D.D. — Damnator Diaboli. The new honor will be known as Sanctorum Custus, and written $$.¢. The name of the Rev. John Satan has been suggested as a suitable recipient by a lover of consistency, who points out that Professor Harry Thurston Peck has long enjoyed the advantage of a degree.

2009 Update: A particularly advanced degree in law available those who prefer to advocate mischief in the classroom rather than the courtroom.

Laurel

LAUREL, n. The laurus, a vegetable dedicated to Apollo, and formerly defoliated to wreathe the brows of victors and such poets as had influence at court. (Vide supra.)

2009 Update: A metaphor for admiration, given to honor a successful poet.

Though the winds howl, and the night should turn ebon

And fear should flow cold through the fount of the pen;

Though their names be given to few to adore

And the granary bares it's own earthen floor,

The complaint is the same where the scribes congregate

"All my orchards I'd offer to be laureate."

-Anonymous

Spoiling the saga

Adventures and epics that fit in your hand,

And twitter wherever reporting is banned;

Tales of today without brave knights or damsels,

Told by bloggers wherever the newscasts are cancelled;

My fear for the future is how can it be

When the present's apparent to all who would see?

For mythos and legend and tales to persist,

A few foggy memories need to exist.

If the Persians had cell phones and YouTube to play

In her time, Shahrazade would have lived just the day.

-Teiresias Jenkins

LEGEND, n. An enchantment cast on the forgetful by the forgotten.

Note to Cooper: I'm following Iran on Andrew Sullivan's blog and wondering if dropping crates of cell phones into Darfur wouldn't have saved more grief than every other intervention proposed.

Update to tweeters. I don't know how (exactly) you got here, but welcome.

Two Limericks

Throughout our long suffering nation,

A mob (or grassroots delegation)

Sets out from their porches

With pitchforks and torches

To demand suffrage and strong regulation.

Let our voices forever ring out,

Whatever the scoundrels bring out

For circus and bread

May go to our head

But it goes on the blog when we pout.

LIBERAL, adj. Objecting to selected arbitrary constraints.

Linguist

LINGUIST, n. A person more learned in the language of others than wise in his own.

2009 Update: Any listener still interested after the third sentence. One who may study the telic clause, only to miss the object.