ABACUS, n.  A tool for census-takers and tax collectors in ancient China and wherever ceramic disks are enfranchised and obligated.

ABANDON, v.t.  To find the safety, prosperity or victory sought by another.

ABASEMENT, n.  The spiritual discipline of self-humiliation, practiced among one’s betters and perfected in private.

ABATTOIR, n.  In the United States an outpost of humanity in which immigrant labor is valued above native grazers.

ABDICATION, n.  A king’s ransom leaving an empty crown and a headless people leaning toward democracy.

ABDOMEN, n.  The middle kingdom of man, north of Satisfactora and south of Oratoria.  With its subtopical clime and postindustrial economy it would be abandoned but for the wall.

ABDUCTION, n.  A form of theft more egregious than mugging but less painful than fraud.  An In Vivo trademark violation.

ABERRATION, n. Traffic slow enough to cause lateness.

ABET, v.t.  To provide assistance or comfort to a criminal as by driving a getaway car or a newscopter.

ABHORRENCE, n.  A stream of bile flowing from the moral core to the beak, stimulating the tongue and cleansing the memory.

ABIDE, v.  To offer the enduring comfort  of one’s presence, as the LORD did unto David, although more often while hoping for chips.

ABILITY, n.  The virtue behind accomplishment such as charisma in a leader or blindness in a follower.

ABSENTEE, n.  An individual whose expanding good fortune, wealth, ease and notoriety greatly exceed their effort and virtue, even on the cusp of their election to committee chair.

ABSOLUTE, adj.  Certain as a prediction or entire as its failure.

ABSTAINER, n.  A good shepherd or a bad host.  A temptation for the epicurean.

ACCEPTABLE, adj.  Comparable.

ACCEPTANCE, n.  Resentment in the crib.

ACCESS, n.  An insufficient filter.

ACCIDENTAL, adj. Successful.

ACCLIMATE, v.t.  To make comfortable on the threshing floor, in the abbatoir,  or at the polling place.

ACCLIMATED, p.p.  Introverted.

ACCOMMODATING, adj.  Deaf and blind.

ACCOMMODATION, n.  The collegiality we offer a stranger or the distance we allow our friends.

ACCOUNT, n. A part of the bank to which we add deposits and sediment.

ACCOUNTANT, n.  A retained maintainer of remainders.

ACCRETE, v.i. To not roll.  

As Dan sat back in his seat,

Chips and beer by his feet

He exclaimed to his bride

“I’ve nothing to hide!”

But plenty, in fact to accrete.”

ACCURATE, adj. Marketable.

ACCUSATION, n. The currency of exchange in Ideas.

ACCURSED, adj. Having voted or played a winning ticket.

ACEPHALOUS, adj.  By popular election.

ACERBITY, n..  The quality distinguishing a satirical lexicographer from a mere saint.

ACHE, v.i.  To suffer and discover ambition or recover from the same.

ACHIEVEMENT, n,  Chaos misconstructed or misconstrued.

ACCOUNTABILITY, n.  The concern of a candidate for the mischief of an incumbent.

ACORN, n.  The symbol of hope that the hard and dense can one day be mighty.  A squirrel’s breakfast.

ADAGE, n.  Unattributed advice from the mouldering dead on the achievement of longevity, prosperity or fame.

ADAPTIVE, adj. (Psych.)  Expedient.  Ethical.

ADHERENT, n.  A vicarious victim.

ADIPOSE, adj.  Untaxable.

ADMIRABILITY, n.  Restraint in a traffic jam, quickness in a rush or madness in a riot.

ADMIRAL, n.  A ranking strategist in the Navy or a deputy adjutant analyst on TV.

ADMIRATION, n.  A soft mold for bronzing a wax likeness.

ADMONITION, n.  A corrective tic.

ADOLESCENCE, n.  The awkward age between conception and the grave.

ADVICE, n.  The coin by which the idle share their wealth.

AESTHETICS, n.  A meticulously crafted lens through which to view anarchy.

AFAR, n.  The place where a harpy becomes a siren.

AGONY, n.  Clarity.

AIR, n.  A song spilling forth from the heart and backing up in the ear.

AKIN, adj.  Admirable.

ALARUM, n.  A bard’s racket.

ALCOHOL, n.  An astringent applied to the soul’s face.

ALIEN, n. A hardworking resident of the United States unentitled to constitutional protection due to the certainty of their participation in a terrorist jihad inspired by the Qu'uran. A Sikh.

ALL, n.  Those in agreement.

ALLEGIANCE, n.  Expediency.

ALLEGORY, n.  The symbolic expression of too great a lie.

ALONE, adj.  Persecuted.

ALREADY, adv.  Ahead of schedule, retroactively.

ALRIGHT, adv. Laborously.

ALSATIAN, adj.  Avec l’esprit Francais über Geistwurst.

ALSO, adv.  Tiresomely.

ALSO-RAN, n.  An insufficient ne’er-do-well.

ALTAR BOY, n.  The mutton of the shepherd of the Lamb.

ALTER, v.t.  To reimperfect.

ALTERCATION, n.  In legal pleadings, a request for directions or a bombing.

ALTER EGO, n.  A substitute pretense.

ALTERNATE, v.i.  To stand firmly for two constituents.

ALTERNATIVE, adj.  Shabby.

ALTERNATOR, n.  A car part providing power to the mechanic.

ALTHOUGH, conj.  Disregarding the fact that; in economics: and.

ALTOGETHER, adv.  Precontroversially.

AMATEUR, adj.  Undermedicated.

AMBROSIA, n.  The soufflé served to salesmen, the  beggars bowlful of broth or grandma’s cooking after a long visit graveside.

ANONYMITY, n.  The laureate of every toast, a deputy to Dionysus.

ANTIPATHY, n.  Enlightened bigotry.

ANTIQUITY, n.  The period of classical philosophy, music and architecture before The Gong Show was cancelled.

APE, v.t.  To imitate as a child does a critic or a critic does a grown-up.

APOCRYPHA, n. pl.  Scripture uncanonized and memories unlived.

If I live until I'm gray with age,

And, mumbling, shuffling, turn back the page

May I not look back at sober youth,

Lived modestly, measured and with couth.

I hope instead that I am able

To recall my life as though a fable.

Talking dogs! Invective Swine!

Society with sheep and kine;

Plans prepared with rodent reason,

Nocturnally and out of season;

Hummingbird dreams of sitting still;

An insect's faith in strength of will.

Let each winter's tale surpass in rightness,

The steps I took in April's brightness.

Let my passages be descriptive

Of life as no one really lived it.

Let all my recollections resound

With truth, intriguing and profound.

Let each tale partake of youthful spirit,

Invigorating all who hear it,

And be told in solemn, ancient tone.

And, may I fail to grasp I speak alone.

APOLOGIZE, v.i.  To comfort in the short term those you will shame in the long.  To justify what can’t be rectified.

APOTHECARY, n.  That person to whom we trust our spirit, vitality and virility the Priest being otherwise occupied.

APOSTASY, n.  Faith without ambition.

APOSTATE, n.  A resurrected infidel.

APPEAL, n.  The advantage a true story holds over an actual event.

APPETITE, n.  A hunger as toward wealth, whelp or weight-loss..

APPLAUSE, n.  An appreciation of talent using the hands when the feet are blocked.

APPROPRIATE, adj.  Typical.

APRIL FOOL, n.  The wizard of March.

APRON, n.  An outer garment worn by a woman to cloak her rebellion or a man to announce his surrender.

ARBITRATION, n.  A formula for prevention of a conflagaration by adding a prelate to litigation when a litigant and a legatee agree to appoint a referee because resolution of the allegation benefits from simplification.

ARCHITECT, n.  An artist with two patrons, the industrialist seeking immortality and the archeologist seeking shards.

ARDOR, n.  A love so sublime and overpowering a person will pay any membership fee, click any link and abbreviate even the shortest of words to prove its valor.

ARISTOCRACY, n.  The category of those whose vices are remembered by strangers, whose virtues are imagined by lovers and whose triumphs are disapproved of by all.  The recently deceased.

ARREARS, n.  The setting of the rising sun.

ARREST, v.t.  To woo with authority.

ARRESTED, adj.  Delivered from justice by the ear.

ARTLESSNESS, n.  The temporary assignment of the tongue to the truth.  Generally attributed to man lying on his deathbed or a woman rising from the marital one.

ASCLEPIUS, n.p.  An ancient physician who learned from animals how to treat humans.

ASH WEDNESDAY, n.  A holy day given to thanking God for creating us temporary.

ASSASSIN, n.  A bearer of glad tidings from an enemy to an heir.

ASTONISH, v.t.  To present with the incredible, unpredictable and inevitable.

ASTROLOGY, n.  The ennobling of character flaws by projecting into the heavens what’s resented by the neighbors.  Autoidolatry.

ASTRONOMY, n.  The establishment of expansive and spherical role models.

AUTOCRAT, n.  Someone whose command is beyond question and whose writ is global such as a man in his shower or every woman at a bee.  The collective noun is “A bride of autocrats.”

ATTORNEY, n.  A professional whose corruption of the  legal system is enforced by the justice system.

ATTRACTION, n.  The inversion of revulsion.

AUCTIONEER, n.  A facilitator of commerce between scoundrels and optimists.  Practically a cabinet position.

AUSPICIOUS, adj.   Promising a great reordering of the laws of inconvenience.

AUSTERE, adj.  Without pie.

AUSTRALIA, n.  The eastmost outpost of the West.

AUTOBIOGRAPHY, n.  A look back at events as they might have occurred looking forward.  An Autobiography differs from a memoir in that it has research staff in lieu of a ghostwriter.

AVERSION, n.  The child of desire and conquest, half-brother to failure and father of conquest and desire.

AWKWARD, adj.  Involving one’s mother and anything beyond basic respiration.