17 Hilarious Definitions

It took roughly eight years for Samuel Johnson and his staff of six helpers to complete the Dictionary of the English Language, which was published 263 years ago this month, on April 15, 1755. The work soon established itself as one of the most important dictionaries in the history of the English language, and remained a landmark reference source right through to the early 1900s.

Johnson—a celebrated humourist and anecdotist who also wrote countless works of journalism and criticism, biograph...