A

ABASEMENT, n.  A decent and customary mental attitude in the presence of wealth of power. Peculiarly appropriate in an employee when addressing an employer.

ABATIS, n.  Rubbish in front of a fort, to prevent the rubbish outside from molesting the rubbish inside.

ABDICATION, n.  An act whereby a sovereign attests his sense of the high temperature of the throne.

  Poor Isabella's Dead, whose abdication
  Set all tongues wagging in the Spanish nation.
  For that performance 'twere unfair to scold her:
  She wisely left a throne too hot to hold her.
  To History she'll be no royal riddle --
  Merely a plain parched pea that jumped the griddle.

ABDOMEN, n.  The temple of the god Stomach, in whose worship, with sacrificial rights, all true men engage.  From women this ancient faith commands but a stammering assent. They sometimes minister at the altar in a half-hearted and ineffective way, but true reverence for the one deity that men really adore they know not. If woman had a free hand in the world's marketing the race would become graminivorous...