Definition Metaphors, Analogies and Similes

Acting: the art of keeping a group of people from coughing.

Advertising: the rattling of a stick inside a swill bucket.

George Orwell

Advertising: the rich asking for more money.

G.K. Chesterton

Atheism: a non-prophet organization.

Atheist: someone of no invisible means of support.

Binge drinking: to drink like a doctor, as opposed to as advised by a doctor.

Bullfighters: ballet dancers who stab bulls.

Bureaucrats: like custard pies; you can't nail them to the wall.

Committee: a body that keeps minutes and wastes hours.

Corporation: an ingenious device for obtaining individual profit without individual responsibility.

Education: the path from cocky ignorance to miserable uncertainty.

Mark Twain

Debt: the slavery of the free.

Deerstalking: a fine sport, if only the deer had guns.

Death: nature's way of telling you to slow down.

Diplomat: a man who thinks twice before he says nothing.

Diplomacy: the art of saying 'nice doggie' until you can find a rock.

Drug: a substance that, when it is injected into a rat, produces a scientific paper.

E-athlete: someone who enjoys computer games too much.

Elephant: a mouse built to government specifications.

Fanatic: one who can't change his mind and won't change the subject.

Fogey: one who hates anything that has happened in his lifetime.

Free society: a society where it is safe to be unpopular.

Friendship: a ship big enough to carry two in fair weather but only one in foul.

Gambling: the surest way of getting nothing for something.

Genius: a Saharan African who dreams up snow.

A Glasgow atheist: a man who goes to a Celtic-Rangers game to watch the football.

Gym weight-training: ineffable preparation for such things as playing stiff accordions.

Lift attendant: an indoor aviator.

Luck: a useful topic to bring up in the presence of self-made men.

Political language — and with variations this is true of all political parties, from Conservatives to Anarchists — is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind.

George Orwell

Professor: someone who talks in someone else's sleep.

Lawyer: one who writes a ten-thousand-word document and calls it a brief.

Lottery: a tax on people who are bad at maths.

Irritable Cowell Syndrome: an inability to stomach watching Simon Cowell's TV shows.

Judge: a law student who marks his own examination papers.

Physicist: an atom's way of looking at itself.

It's recession when your neighbour loses his job; it's a depression when you lose yours.

Harry S Truman

Tsar: just another consultant with responsibility in a specific area.