Today is January 9, 2009, and the following are two nouns, the first from the “B” words and the second from the “C” words:
Belladonna, n. In Italian a beautiful lady; in English a deadly poison. A striking example of the essential identity of the two languages.
and
Curiosity. n. An objectionable quality of the female mind. The desire to know whether or not a woman is cursed with curiosity is one of the most active and insatiable passions of the masculine soul.
(Read a few biographical words about Ambrose Bierce, from the 1958 Dover paperback edition of The Devil’s Dictionary, here.)
