Ambrose Bierce

VALOR, n. A soldierly compound of vanity, duty and the gambler's hope.

UGLINESS, n. A gift of the gods to certain women, entailing virtue without humility.

ULTIMATUM, n. In diplomacy, a last demand before resorting to concessions.

UN-AMERICAN, adj. Wicked, intolerable, heathenish.

UNDERSTANDING, n. A cerebral secretion that enables one having it to know a house from a horse by the roof on the house. Its nature and laws have been exhaustively expounded by Locke, who rode a house, and Kant, who lived in a horse.

UNITARIAN, n. One who denies the divinity of a Trinitarian.

TRICHINOSIS, n. The pig's reply to proponents of porcophagy.

TRUCE, n. Friendship.

TRUST, n. In American politics, a large corporation composed in greater part of thrifty working men, widows of small means, orphans in the care of guardians and the courts, with many similar malefactors and public enemies.

TRUTH, n. An ingenious compound of desirability and appearance. Discovery of truth is the sole purpose of philosophy, which is the most ancient occupation of the human mind and has a fair prospect of existing . . . to the end of time.