Sarcastic, misanthropic definitions of words that take shots at science, fashion, religion, politics, marriage, values, critics, etc., often with poems and stories to back them up. Somewhat redundant and dated, but often clever and biting. Here are some of my favorites:

EDIBLE, adj. — good to eat, and wholesome to digest, as a worm to a toad, a toad to a snake, a snake to a pig, a pig to a man, and a man to a worm.

MAN, n. — An animal so lost in rapturous contemplation of what he thinks he is as to overlook what he indubitably ought to be. His chief occupation is extermination of other animals and his own species, which, however, multiplies with such insistent rapidity as to infest the whole habitable earth and Canada.

PARDON, v. — To remit a penalty and restore to a life of crime. To add to the lure of crime the temptation of ingratitude.

PORTUGUESE, n. pl. — A species of geese indigenous to Portugal. They are mostly without feathers and imperfectly edible, even when stuffed with garlic.

SERIAL, n. — A literary work, usually a story that is not true, creeping through several issues of a newspaper or magazine. Frequently appended to each installment is a “synopsis of preceding chapters for those who have not read them, but a direr need is a synopsis of succeeding chapters for those who do not intend to read them. A synopsis of the entire work would be better still.

VALOR, n. — A soldierly compound of vanity, duty and the gambler’s hope.
“Why have you halted?” roared the commander of a division at Chickamauga, who had ordered a charge; “move forward, sir, at once.”
“General,” said the commander of the delinquent brigade, “I am persuaded that any further display of valor by my troops will bring them into collision with the enemy.”

WEATHER, n. — … A permanent topic of conversation among persons whom it does not interest, but who have inherited the tendency to chatter about it from naked arboreal ancestors whom it keenly concerned …

Once I dipt into the future far as human eye could see,
And I saw the Chief Forcaster, dead as anyone can be —
With a record of unreason seldom paralleled on earth.
Wile I looked he reared him solemnly, that incandescent youth
From the coals that he’s preferred to the advantages of truth,
He cast his eyes about him and above him; then he wrote
On a slab of thin asbestos what I venture here to quote —
For I read it in the rose-light of the everlasting glow:
“Cloudy; variable winds, with local showers; cooler; snow.”