Scriptures

Scriptures, n. The sacred books of our holy religion, as distinguished from the false and profane writings on which all other faiths are based.

2005 Update: Divine narrative from which objective truths are inferred and universal ones extrapolated.

Satiety

Satiety, n. The feeling that one has for the plate after he has eaten its contents, madam.

2005 Update: The first step toward dissatisfaction.

Mayonnaise

Mayonnaise, n. One of the sauces which serve the French in place of a state religion.

2005 Update: The edible part of a salmon.

Opportunity

Opportunity: A favorable occasion for grasping a disappointment.

2005 Update: The concurrence of a desire, the desired and a means for joining the two. For example, a thirsty traveler, an oasis in the desert and a stealthy cannibal.

Presentable

Presentable, adj. Hideously appareled after the manner of the time and place.

In Boorioboola-Gha a man is presentable on occasions of ceremony if he have his abdomen painted a bright blue and wear a cow's tail; in New York he may, if it please him, omit the paint, but after sunset he must wear two tails made of the wool of a sheep and dyed black.

2005 Update: Wearing underwear, if at all, beneath one's clothes and smelling passably sober.

Heaven

Heaven, n. A place where the wicked cease from troubling you with talk of their personal affairs, and the good listen with attention while you expound your own.

2005 Update: A perfect world where sin remits and revenge forgets, the certainty of which alone can explain the behavior of heaven's adherents.

Poverty

Poverty, n. A file provided for the teeth of the rats of reform. The number of plans for its abolition equals that of the reformers who suffer from it, plus that of the philosophers who know nothing about it. Its victims are distinguished by possession of all the virtues and by their faith in leaders seeking to conduct them into a prosperity where they believe these to be unknown.

2005 Update: The product of a rich imagination

Cupid

Cupid, n. The so-called god of love. This bastard creation of a barbarous fancy was no doubt inflicted upon mythology for the sins of its deities. Of all unbeautiful and inappropriate conceptions this is the most reasonless and offensive. The notion of symbolizing sexual love by a semisexless babe, and comparing the pains of passion to the wounds of an arrow -- of introducing this pudgy homunculus into art grossly to materialize the subtle spirit and suggestion of the work -- this is eminently worthy of the age that, giving it birth, laid it on the doorstep of prosperity.

2005 Update: A demon who torments by proxy.

Bigamy

Bigamy, n. A mistake in taste for which the wisdom of the future will adjudge a punishment called trigamy.

2005 Update: A household in which suspicion and disappointment are kept in separate ledgers.

Advice

Advice, n. The smallest current coin.

2005 Update: The manner by which the idle share their wealth.