Favorite Real-World Definitions

Forget Wikipedia, Webster’s, and the OED … these are my favorite real-world, tell-it-like-it-is definitions of the people and things that we regularly encounter. 🙂

Acquaintance (noun) – a person whom we know well enough to borrow from, but not well enough to lend to

Boss (noun) – someone who is early when you are late, and late when you are early

Calories (noun) – tiny creatures that live in your closet and sew your clothes a little bit tighter every night

Chef (noun) – any cook who swears in French

Chemistry (noun) – a branch of science that can be broken down into two categories: “blowing stuff up” and “making potions”

Conference room (noun) – a place where everyone talks, no one listens, and everyone later disagrees about what was said

Consult (verb) – to seek approval for a course of action already decided upon

Corporation (noun) – an ingenious device for obtaining profit without individual responsibility

Cramming (verb) – those five minutes before the exam when your procrastination comes back to haunt you

Creditor (noun) – one of a tribe of savages dwelling beyond the Financial Straits

Debt (noun) – an ingenious substitute for the chain and whip of the slave driver

DIY (verb; adjective) – Damage-It-Yourself

Expert (noun) – a person who tells you a simple thing in a confusing way in such a fashion as to make you think the confusion is your own fault

Flashlight (noun) – a container for dead batteries

Google (proper noun) – your surrogate brain

Hairdresser (noun) – a miracle worker who creates a hair style you can never duplicate

Hardware (noun) – any portion of a computer system that you can actually smack, thump, slam, punch, whack, bash, or clobber

Hypothetically (adverb) – a word put in front of a question so that one doesn’t end up in trouble if the answer is not what one hopes it to be

Insurance (noun) – a modern game of chance in which the player is permitted to enjoy the comfortable delusion that he is beating the man who keeps the table

Intaxication (noun) – the feeling of euphoria upon receiving a tax refund, which lasts until you realize that it was your money to start with

Key ring (noun) – a handy device that allows you to lose all of your keys at the same time

Laziness (noun) – the habit of resting before you get tired

Lecture (noun) – the process of transferring information from the notes of the lecturer to the notes of the lecturees without any of it passing through the minds of either.

Marketing (noun) – the art of selling a product that doesn’t cost much to produce in such a way that people will take out a small loan to own it

Negotiate (verb) – to seek a meeting of the minds without the knocking together of heads

Perennial (noun) – any plant which, had it lived, would have bloomed year after year

Plagiarism (noun) – getting in trouble for something you didn’t do

Procrastination (noun) – the ability to feel exceedingly guilty about not doing any work, and yet continue to not do any

Retirement (noun) – that marvelous time of life when the sun rises and you don’t

Secret (noun) – something you tell everybody to tell nobody

Shower (verb) – activity consisting of 5% washing, 5% singing, and 90% winning imaginary arguments

State of the art (noun) – anything you can’t afford

Statistics (noun) – the only science wherein two recognized experts using the same set of data may come to completely opposite conclusions

Stress (noun) – what doctors say you have when they can’t find the real cause of your illness

Study (verb) – the act of texting, eating, and watching TV with an open textbook nearby

Summer (noun) – that time of year when parents realize how underpaid teachers really are

Terrifying (adjective) – when you see a spider/mosquito/wasp in your room but it’s gone before you can get something to kill it with

Textpectation (noun) – the anticipation felt while waiting for a response to your text

Whatever (pronoun) – the only response when you realize that you have just lost your argument, but are never going to admit it