Ambrose Gwinett Bierce

Women of genius commonly have masculine faces, figures and manners. In transplanting brains to an alien soil God leaves a little of the original earth clinging to the roots.

You are not permitted to kill a woman who has wronged you, but nothing forbids you to reflect that she is growing older every minute. You are avenged 1440 times each day.

ZOOLOGY, n. The science and history of the animal kingdom, including its king, the House Fly ('Musca maledicta'). The father of Zoology was Aristotle, as is universally conceded, but the name of its mother has not come down to us.

ZIGZAG, v.t. To move forward uncertainly, from side to side, as one carrying the white man's burden. (From 'zed', 'z', and 'jag', an Icelandic word of unknown meaning.)

ZEUS, n. The chief of Grecian gods, adored by the Romans as Jupiter and by the modern Americans as God, Gold, Mob and Dog.

ZENITH, n. The point in the heavens directly overhead to a man standing or a growing cabbage. A man in bed or a cabbage in the pot is not considered as having a zenith, though Horizontalists hold that the posture of the body was immaterial.

ZEAL, n. A certain nervous disorder afflicting the young and inexperienced. A passion that goeth before a sprawl.

ZANY, n. A popular character in old Italian plays, who imitated with ludicrous incompetence the 'buffone', or clown, and was therefore the ape of an ape; for the clown himself imitated the serious characters of the play.

YOUTH, n. The Period of Possibility, when Archimedes finds a fulcrum, Cassandra has a following and seven cities compete for the honor of endowing a living Homer.

YESTERDAY, n. The infancy of youth, the youth of manhood, the entire past of age.

YEAR, n. A period of three hundred and sixty-five disappointments.

YANKEE, n. In Europe, an American. In the Northern States of our Union, a New Englander. In the Southern States the word is unknown. (See DAMYANK.)

X, n. In our alphabet being a needless letter has an added invincibility to the attacks of the spelling reformers, and like them, will doubtless last as long as the language.

WRATH, n. Anger of a superior quality and degree, appropriate to exalted characters and momentous occasions; as, 'the wrath of God,' 'the day of wrath,' etc....

WORSHIP, n. Homo Creator's testimony to the sound construction and fine finish of Deus Creatus. A popular form of abjection, having an element of pride.

WORMS'-MEAT, n. The finished product of which we are the raw material.

WOMAN, n. An animal usually living in the vicinity of Man, and having a rudimentary susceptibility to domestication.

WITTICISM, n. A sharp and clever remark, usually quoted, and seldom noted; what the Philistine is pleased to call a 'joke.'

WITCH, n. (1) Any ugly and repulsive old woman, in a wicked league with the devil. (2) A beautiful and attractive young woman, in wickedness a league beyond the devil.

WIT, n. The salt with which the American humorist spoils his intellectual cookery by leaving it out.

WHITE, adj. and n. Black.

WHEAT, n. A cereal from which a tolerably good whisky can be made; ... also for bread. The French are said to eat more bread 'per capita' of population than any other people, which is natural, for only they know how to make the stuff palatable.

WHANGDEPOOTENAWAH, n. In the Ojibwa tongue, disaster; an unexpected affliction that strikes hard.

WEDDING, n. A ceremony at which two persons undertake to become one, one undertakes to become nothing, and nothing undertakes to become supportable.

WEATHER, n. The climate of the hour. A permanent topic of conversation among persons whom it does not interest, but who have inherited the tendency to chatter about it from naked arboreal ancestors whom it keenly concerned.

WEAKNESSES, n.pl. Certain primal powers of Tyrant Woman wherewith she holds dominion over the male of her species, binding him to the service of her will and paralyzing his rebellious energies.

WASHINGTONIAN, n. A Potomac tribesman who exchanged the privilege of governing himself for the advantage of good government. In justice to him it should be said that he did not want to.

WAR, n. A by-product of the arts of peace. The most menacing political condition is a period of international amity.

WALL STREET, n. A symbol for sin for every devil to rebuke. That Wall Street is a den of thieves is a belief that serves every unsuccessful thief in place of a hope in Heaven.

VOTE, n. The instrument and symbol of a freeman's power to make a fool of himself and a wreck of his country.

VITUPERATION, n. Saite, as understood by dunces and all such as suffer from an impediment in their wit.

VIRTUES, n.pl. Certain abstentions.

VANITY, n. The tribute of a fool to the worth of the nearest ass.

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

UXORIOUSNESS, n. A perverted affection that has strayed to one's own wife.

USAGE, n. The First Person of the literary Trinity, the Second and Third being Custom and Conventionality. Imbued with a decent reverence for this Holy Triad an industrious writer may hope to produce books that will live as long as the fashion.

URBANITY, n. The kind of civility that urban observers ascribe to dwellers in all cities but New York. Its commonest expression is heard in the words, 'I beg your pardon,' and it is not consistent with disregard of the rights of others.

UNIVERSALIST, n. One who forgoes the advantage of a Hell for persons of another faith.

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

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.

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

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

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

UBIQUITY, n. The gift or power of being in all places at one time, but not in all places at all times, which is omnipresence, an attribute of God and the luminiferous ether only.

TZETZE (or TSETSE) FLY, n. An African insect ('Glossina morsitans') whose bite is commonly regarded as nature's most efficacious remedy for insomnia, though some patients prefer that of the American novelist ('Mendax interminabilis').

TYPE, n. Pestilent bits of metal suspected of destroying civilization and enlightenment, despite their obvious agency in this incomparable dictionary.

TWICE, adv. Once too often.

TURKEY, n. A large bird whose flesh when eaten on certain religious anniversaries has the peculiar property of attesting piety and gratitude. Incidentally, it is pretty good eating.

TRUTHFUL, adj. Dumb and illiterate.

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.

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.

TRUCE, n. Friendship.

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

TRIAL, n. A formal inquiry designed to prove and put upon record the blameless characters of judges, advocates and jurors. In order to effect this purpose it is necessary to supply a contrast in the person of one who is called the defendant...

THEOSOPHY, n. An ancient faith having all the certitude of religion and all the mystery of science.

TENACITY, n. A certain quality of the human hand in its relation to the coin of the realm. It attains its highest development in the hand of authority and is considered a serviceable equipment for a career in politics.

TELESCOPE, n. A device having a relation to the eye similar to that of the telephone to the ear, enabling distant objects to plague us with a multitude of needless details. Luckily it is unprovided with a bell summoning us to the sacrifice.

TEETOTALER, n. One who abstains from strong drink, sometimes totally, sometimes tolerably totally.

TARIFF, n. A scale of taxes on imports, designed to protect the domestic producer against the greed of his consumer.

TALK, v.t. To commit an indiscretion without temptation, from an impulse without purpose.

TAKE, v.t. To acquire, frequently by force but preferably by stealth.

TAIL, n. The part of an animal's spine that has transcended its natural limitations to set up an independent existence in a world of its own.

TABLE D'HOTE, n. A caterer's thrifty concession to the universal passion for irresponsibility.

SYMBOL, n. Something that is supposed to typify or stand for something else. Many symbols are mere 'survivals' as funereal urns carved on memorial monuments. We cannot stop making them, but we can give them a name that conceals our helplessness.

SYLPH, n. An immaterial but visible being that inhabited the air when the air was an element and before it was fatally polluted with factory smoke, sewer gas and similar products of civilization.

SYLLOGISM, n. A logical formula consisting of a major and a minor assumption and an inconsequent.

SYCOPHANT, n. One who approaches Greatness on his belly so that he may not be commanded to turn and be kicked. He is sometimes an editor.

SUFFRAGE, n. Expression of opinion by means of a ballot. The right of suffrage (which is held to be both a privilege and a duty) means, as commonly interpreted, the right to vote for the man of another man's choice, and is highly prized.

SUCCESS, n. The one unpardonable sin against one's fellows.

STORY, n. A narrative, commonly untrue. The truth of the stories here following has, however, not been successfully impeached.

STORY, n. A narrative, commonly untrue.

SPOOKER, n. A writer whose imagination concerns itself with supernatural phenomena, especially in the doings of spooks.

SORCERY, n. The ancient prototype and forerunner of political influence. It was, however, deemed less respectable and sometimes was punished by torture and death.

SOPHISTRY, n. The controversial method of an opponent, distinguished from one's own by superior insincerity and fooling.

SLANG, n. The speech of one who utters with his tongue what he thinks with his ear, and feels the pride of a creator in accomplishing the feat of a parrot. A means (under Providence) of setting up as a wit without a capital of sense.

SIREN, n. One of several musical prodigies famous for a vain attempt to dissuade Odysseus from a life on the ocean wave. Figuratively, any lady of splendid promise, dissembled purpose and disappointing performance.

SERIAL, n. A literary work, usually a story that is not true, creeping through several issues of a newspaper or magazine.

SELFISH, adj. Devoid of consideration for the selfishness of others.

SELF-EVIDENT, adj. Evident to one's self and to nobody else.

SELF-ESTEEM,n. An erroneous appraisal.

SELF-denial, n. Indulgence of a propensity to forego.

SEINE, n. A kind of net for effecting an involuntary change of environment. For fish it is made strong and coarse, but women are more easily taken with a singularly delicate fabric weighted with small, cut stones.

SCRIPTURES, n. The sacred books of our holy religion, as distinguished from the false and profane writings on which all other faiths are based.

SCRIBBLER, n. A professional writer whose views are antagonistic to one's own.

SCRAP-BOOK, n. A book that is commonly edited by a fool. Many persons of some small distinction compile scrap-books containing whatever they happen to read about themselves or employ others to collect.

SCEPTER, n. A king's staff of office, the sign and symbol of his authority. It was originally a mace with which the sovereign admonished his jester and vetoed ministerial measures by breaking the bones of their proponents.

SCARABAEUS, n. The sacred beetle of the ancient Egyptians, allied to our familiar 'tumble-bug.' It was supposed to symbolize immortality, the fact that God knew why giving it its peculiar sanctity.

SAW, n. A trite popular saying, or proverb. (Figurative and colloquial.) So called because it makes its way into a wooden head. Following are examples of old saws fitted with new teeth.

SAUCE, n. The one infallible sign of civilization and enlightenment. A people with no sauces has one thousand vices; a people with one sauce has only nine hundred and ninety-nine. For every sauce invented and accepted a vice is renounced and forgiven.

SATIRE, n. An obsolete kind of literary composition in which the vices and follies of the author's enemies were expounded with imperfect tenderness.

SATIETY, n. The feeling that one has for the plate after he has eaten its contents, madam.

SARCOPHAGUS, n. Among the Greeks a coffin which being made of a certain kind of carnivorous stone, had the peculiar property of devouring the body placed in it.

SAINT, n. A dead sinner revised and edited.

SAFETY-CLUTCH, n. A mechanical device acting automatically to prevent the fall of an elevator, or cage, in case of an accident to the hoisting apparatus.

SACRED, adj. Dedicated to some religious purpose; having a divine character; inspiring solemn thoughts or emotions; as ... the Cow in India; the Crocodile, the Cat and the Onion of ancient Egypt.

SACERDOTALIST, n. One who holds the belief that a clergyman is a priest. Denial of this momentous doctrine is the hardest challenge that is now flung into the teeth of the Episcopalian church by the Neo-Dictionarians.

SABBATH, n. A weekly festival having its origin in the fact that God made the world in six days and was arrested on the seventh.

RUSSIAN, n. A person with a Caucasian body and a Mongolian soul. A Tartar Emetic.

RUMOR, n. A favorite weapon of the assassins of character.

RUM, n. Generically, fiery liquors that produce madness in total abstainers.

RUIN, v. To destroy. Specifically, to destroy a maid's belief in the virtue of maids.

RUBBISH, n. Worthless matter, such as the religions, philosophies, literatures, arts and sciences of the tribes infesting the regions lying due south from Boreaplas.

ROSTRUM, n. In Latin, the beak of a bird or the prow of a ship. In America, a place from which a candidate for office energetically expounds the wisdom, virtue and power of the rabble.

ROPE, n. An obsolescent appliance for reminding assassins that they too are mortal. It is put about the neck and remains in place one's whole life long.

ROMANCE, n. Fiction that owes no allegiance to the God of Things as They Are. In the novel the writer's thought is tethered to probability, but in romance it ranges at will over the entire region of the imagination ...

ROBBER, n. A candid man of affairs.

ROAD, n. A strip of land along which one may pass from where it is too tiresome to be to where it is futile to go.

RITUALISM, n. A Dutch Garden of God where He may walk in rectilinear freedom, keeping off the grass.

RITE, n. A religious or semi-religious ceremony fixed by law, precept or custom, with the essential oil of sincerity carefully squeezed out of it.

RIOT, n. A popular entertainment given to the military by innocent bystanders.

RIMER, n. A poet regarded with indifference or disesteem.

RIME, n. Agreeing sounds in the terminals of verse, mostly bad. The verses themselves, as distinguished from prose, mostly dull. Usually (and wickedly) spelled 'rhyme.'

RIGHTEOUSNESS, n. A sturdy virtue that was once found among the Pantidoodles inhabiting the lower part of the peninsula of Oque. Some feeble attempts were made by returned missionaries to introduce it into several European countries ...

RIGHT, n. Legitimate authority to be, to do or to have; as the right to be a king, the right to do one's neighbor, the right to have measles, and the like.

RIDICULE, n. Words designed to show that the person of whom they are uttered is devoid of the dignity of character distinguishing him who utters them.

RICH, adj. Holding in trust and subject to an accounting the property of the indolent, the incompetent, the unthrifty, the envious and the luckless.

RICE-WATER, n. A mystic beverage secretly used by our most popular novelists and poets to regulate the imagination and narcotize the conscience.

RIBROASTER, n. Censorious language by oneself concerning another.

RIBALDRY, n. Censorious language by another concerning oneself.

RHADOMANCER, n. One who uses a divining-rod in prospecting for precious metals in the pocket of a fool.

REVOLUTION, n. In politics, an abrupt change in the form of misgovernment.... the substitution of the rule of an Administration for that of a Ministry, whereby the welfare and happiness of the people were advanced a full half-inch.

REVIEW, v.t. To set your wisdom (holding not a doubt of it./ Although in truth there's neither bone nor skin to it)/ At work upon a book, and so read out of it/ The qualities that you have first read into it.

REVERENCE, n. The spiritual attitude of a man to a god and a dog to a man.

REVELATION, n. A famous book in which St. John the Divine concealed all that he knew. The revealing is done by the commentators, who know nothing.

REVEILLE, n. A signal to sleeping soldiers to dream of battlefields no more, but get up and have their blue noses counted.

RETRIBUTION, n. A rain of fire-and-brimstone that falls alike upon the just and such of the unjust as have not procured shelter by evicting them.

RETALIATION, n. The natural rock upon which is reared the Temple of Law.

RESTITUTOR, n. Benefactor; philanthropist.

RESTITUTIONS, n. The founding or endowing of universities and public libraries by gift or bequest.

RESPONSIBILITY, n. A detachable burden easily shifted to the shoulders of God, Fate, Fortune, Luck or one's neighbor. In the days of astrology it was customary to unload it upon a star.

RESPLENDENT, adj. Like a simple American citizen beduking himself in his lodge, or affirming his consequence in the Scheme of Things as an elemental unit of a parade.

RESPITE, n. A suspension of hostilities against a sentenced assassin, to enable the Executive to determine whether the murder may not have been done by the prosecuting attorney. Any break in the continuity of a disagreeable expectation.

RESPIRATOR, n. An apparatus fitted over the nose and mouth of an inhabitant of London, whereby to filter the visible universe in its passage to the lungs.

RESPECTABILITY, n. The offspring of a 'liaison' between a bald head and a bank account.

RESOLUTE, adj. Obstinate in a course that we approve.

RESIGN, v.t. To renounce an honor for an advantage. To renounce an advantage for a greater advantage.

RESIDENT, adj. Unable to leave.

REQUIEM, n. A mass for the dead which the minor poets assure us the winds sing o'er the graves of their favorites. Sometimes, by way of providing a varied entertainment, they sing a dirge.

REPUBLIC, n. A nation in which, the thing governing and the thing governed being the same, there is only a permitted authority to enforce an optional obedience.

REPRESENTATIVE, n. In national politics, a member of the Lower House in this world, and without discernible hope of promotion in the next.

REPOSE, v.i. To cease from troubling.

REPORTER, n. A writer who guesses his way to the truth and dispels it with a tempest of words.

REPENTANCE, n. The faithful attendant and follower of Punishment. It is usually manifest in a degree of reformation that is not inconsistent with continuity of sin.

REPARTEE, n. Prudent insult in retort. Practiced by gentlemen with a constitutional aversion to violence, but a strong disposition to offend. In a war of words, the tactics of the North American Indian.

REPARATION, n. Satisfaction that is made for a wrong and deducted from the satisfaction felt in committing it.

RENOWN, n. A degree of distinction between notoriety and fame a little more supportable than the one and a little more intolerable than the other. Sometimes it is conferred by an unfriendly and inconsiderate hand.

RELIGION, n. A daughter of Hope and Fear, explaining to Ignorance the nature of the Unknowable.

REFUSAL, n. Denial of something desired; Refusals are graded in a descending scale of finality thus: the refusal absolute, the refusal condition, the refusal tentative and the refusal feminine. The last is called by some casuists the refusal assentive.

REFORM, v. A thing that mostly satisfies reformers opposed to reformation.

REFLECTION, n. An action of the mind whereby we obtain a clearer view of our relation to the things of yesterday and are able to avoid the perils that we shall not again encounter.

REFERENDUM, n. A law for submission of proposed legislation to a popular vote to learn the nonsensus of public opinion.

REDUNDANT, adj. Superfluous; needless; 'de trop'.

REDRESS, n. Reparation without satisfaction.

REDEMPTION, n. Deliverance of sinners from the penalty of their sin, through their murder of the deity against whom they sinned .... whoso believeth in it shall not perish, but have everlasting life in which to try to understand it.

RED-SKIN, n. A North American Indian, whose skin is not red at least not on the outside.

RECTOR, n. In the Church of England, the Third Person of the parochial Trinity, the Cruate and the Vicar being the other two.

RECRUIT, n. A person distinguishable from a civilian by his uniform and from a soldier by his gait.

RECREATION, n. A particular kind of dejection to relieve a general fatigue.

RECOUNT, n. In American politics, another throw of the dice, accorded to the player against whom they are loaded.

RECONSIDER, v. To seek a justification for a decision already made.

RECONCILIATION, n. A suspension of hostilities. An armed truce for the purpose of digging up the dead.

RECOLLECT, v. To recall with additions something not previously known.

REBEL, n. A proponent of a new misrule who has failed to establish it.

REASONABLE, adj. Accessible to the infection of our own opinions. Hospitable to persuasion, dissuasion and evasion.

REASON, v.i. To weight probabilities in the scales of desire.

REASON, n. Propensitate of prejudice.

REAR, n. In American military matters, that exposed part of the army that is nearest to Congress.

REALLY, adv. Apparently.

REALITY, n. The dream of a mad philosopher. That which would remain in the cupel if one should assay a phantom. The nucleus of a vacuum.

REALISM, n. The art of depicting nature as it is seem by toads. The charm suffusing a landscape painted by a mole, or a story written by a measuring-worm.

READING, n. The general body of what one reads. In our country it consists, as a rule, of Indiana novels, short stories in 'dialect' and humor in slang.

REACH, n. The radius of action of the human hand. The area within which it is possible (and customary) to gratify directly the propensity to provide.

RATTLESNAKE, n. Our prostrate brother, 'Homo ventrambulans'.

RATIONAL, adj. Devoid of all delusions save those of observation, experience and reflection.

RASH, adj. Insensible to the value of our advice.

RASCALITY, n. Stupidity militant. The activity of a clouded intellect.

RASCAL, n. A fool considered under another aspect.

RANSOM, n. The purchase of that which neither belongs to the seller, nor can belong to the buyer. The most unprofitable of investments.

RANK, n. Relative elevation in the scale of human worth.

RAMSHACKLE, adj. Pertaining to a certain order of architecture, otherwise known as the Normal American. Most of the public buildings of the United States are of the Ramshackle order, though some of our earlier architects preferred the Ironic.

RAILROAD, n. The chief of many mechanical devices enabling us to get away from where we are to where we are no better off. The railroad is held in highest favor by the optimist, for it permits him to make the transit with great expedition.

RADIUM, n. A mineral that gives off heat and stimulates the organ that a scientist is a fool with.

RADICALISM, n. The conservatism of to-morrow injected into the affairs of to-day.

RACK, n. An argumentative implement formerly much used in persuading devotees of a false faith to embrace the living truth. As a call to the unconverted the rack never had any particular efficacy, and is now held in light popular esteem.

RABBLE, n. In a republic, those who exercise a supreme authority tempered by fraudulent elections. The rabble is like the sacred Simurgh, of Arabian fable omnipotent on condition that it do nothing.

R.I.P. A careless abbreviation of 'requiescat in pace', attesting to indolent goodwill to the dead. According to the learned Dr. Drigge, however, the letters originally meant nothing more than 'reductus in pulvis'.

QUOTIENT, n. A number showing how many times a sum of money belonging to one person is contained in the pocket of another usually about as many times as it can be got there.

QUOTATION, n. The act of repeating erroneously the words of another. The words erroneously repeated.

QUORUM, n. A sufficient number of members of a deliberative body to have their own way and their own way of having it. In the U.S. Senate a quorum consists of the chairman of the Committee on Finance and a messenger from the White House.

QUIXOTIC, adj. Absurdly chivalric, like Don Quixote. An insight into the beauty and excellence of this incomparable adjective is unhappily denied to him who has the misfortune to know that the gentleman's name is pronounced Ke-ho-tay.

QUIVER, n. A portable sheath in which the ancient statesman and the aboriginal lawyer carried their lighter arguments.

QUILL, n. An implement of torture yielded by a goose and commonly wielded by an ass. This use of the quill is now obsolete, but its modern equivalent, the steel pen, is wielded by the same everlasting Presence.

QUEEN, n. A woman by whom the realm is ruled when there is a king, and through whom it is ruled when there is not.

PYRRHONISM, n. An ancient philosophy, named for its inventor. It consisted of an absolute disbelief in everything but Pyrrhonism. Its modern professors have added that.

PUSH, n. One of the two things mainly conducive to success, especially in politics. The other is Pull.

PUBLISH, n. In literary affairs, to become the fundamental element in a cone of critics.

PRUDE, n. A bawd hiding behind the back of her demeanor.

PROVIDENTIAL, adj. Unexpectedly and conspicuously beneficial to the person so describing it.

PROSPECT, n. An outlook, usually forbidding. An expectation, usually forbidden.

PROPHECY, n. The art and practice of selling one's credibility for future delivery.

PRESCRIPTION, n. A physician's guess at what will best prolong the situation with least harm to the patient.

PRESBYTERIAN, n. One who holds the conviction that the government authorities of the Church should be called presbyters.

PREROGATIVE, n. A sovereign's right to do wrong.

PRELATE, n. A church officer having a superior degree of holiness and a fat preferment. One of Heaven's aristocracy. A gentleman of God.

PREJUDICE, n. A vagrant opinion without visible means of support.

PREHISTORIC, adj. Belonging to an early period and a museum. Antedating the art and practice of perpetuating falsehood.

PREFERENCE, n. A sentiment, or frame of mind, induced by the erroneous belief that one thing is better than another.

PREDILECTION, n. The preparatory stage of disillusion.

PREDICAMENT, n. The wage of consistency.

PREDESTINATION, n. The doctrine that all things occur according to programme.... not be confused with that of foreordination. The difference is great enough to have deluged Christendom with ink, to say nothing of the gore.

PRECIPITATE, adj. Anteprandial.

PRE-EXISTENCE, n. An unnoted factor in creation.

PRE-ADAMITE, n. One of an experimental and apparently unsatisfactory race of antedated Creation.... Little its known of them beyond the fact that they supplied Cain with a wife and theologians with a controversy.

PRAY, v. To ask that the laws of the universe be annulled in behalf of a single petitioner confessedly unworthy.

POVERTY, n. A file provided for the teeth of the rats of reform. Its victims are distinguished by possession of all the virtues and by their faith in leaders seeking to conduct them into a prosperity where they believe these to be unknown.

POTABLE, n. Suitable for drinking. Water is said to be potable; indeed, some declare it our natural beverage, although even they find it palatable only when suffering from the recurrent disorder known as thirst, for which it is a medicine.

POSTERITY, n. An appellate court which reverses the judgment of a popular author's contemporaries, the appellant being his obscure competitor.

POSITIVISM, n. A philosophy that denies our knowledge of the Real and affirms our ignorance of the Apparent. Its longest exponent is Comte, its broadest Mill and its thickest Spencer.

PORTUGUESE, n.pl. A species of geese indigenous to Portugal. They are mostly without feathers and imperfectly edible, even when stuffed with garlic.

PORTABLE, adj. Exposed to a mutable ownership through vicissitudes of possession.

POPULIST, n. A fossil patriot of the early agricultural period, found in the old red soapstone underlying Kansas ...

POLITICS, n. The conduct of public affairs for private advantage.

POLITICS, n. A strife of interests masquerading as a contest of principles.

POLITICIAN, n. An eel in the fundamental mud upon which the superstructure of organized society is reared. When he wriggles, he mistakes the agitation of his tail for the trembling of the edifice.

POLITENESS, n. The most acceptable hypocrisy.

POLICE, n. An armed force for protection and participation.

POKER, n. A game said to be played with cards for some purpose to this lexicographer unknown.

POETRY, n. A form of expression peculiar to the Land beyond the Magazines.

POCKET, n. The cradle of motive and the grave of conscience. In woman this organ is lacking; so she acts without motive, and her conscience, denied burial, remains ever alive, confessing the sins of others.

PLUNDER, v. To take the property of another without observing the decent and customary reticences of theft. To wrest the wealth of A from B and leave C lamenting a vanishing opportunity.

PLOW, n. An implement that cries aloud for hands accustomed to the pen.

PLEONASM, n. An army of words escorting a corporal of thought.

PLENIPOTENTIARY, adj. Having full power. A Minister Plenipotentiary is a diplomatist possessing absolute authority on condition that he never exert it.

PLEBISCITE, n. A popular vote to ascertain the will of the sovereign.

PLEBEIAN, n. An ancient Roman who in the blood of his country stained nothing but his hands. Distinguished from the Patrician, who was a saturated solution.

PLEASURE, n. The least hateful form of dejection.

PLEASE, v. To lay the foundation for a superstructure of imposition.

PLAUDITS, n. Coins with which the populace pays those who tickle and devour it.

PLATONIC, adj. Pertaining to the philosophy of Socrates. Platonic Love is a fool's name for the affection between a disability and a frost.

PLATITUDE, n. The fundamental element and special glory of popular literature. A thought that snores in words that smoke. All that is mortal of a departed truth. A jelly-fish withering on the shore of the sea of thought. A desiccated epigram.

PLAN, v.t. To bother about the best method of accomplishing an accidental result.

PLAGUE, n. In ancient times a general punishment of the innocent for admonition of their ruler, as in the familiar instance of Pharaoh the Immune. The plague today ... is merely Nature's fortuitous manifestation of her purposeless objectionableness.

PLAGIARIZE, v. To take the thought or style of another writer whom one has never, never read.

PLAGIARISM, n. A literary coincidence compounded of a discreditable priority and an honorable subsequence.

PITY, n. A failing sense of exemption, inspired by contrast.

PITIFUL, adj. The state of an enemy of opponent after an imaginary encounter with oneself.

PIRACY, n. Commerce without its folly-swaddles, just as God made it.

PILLORY, n. A mechanical device for inflicting personal distinction prototype of the modern newspaper conducted by persons of austere virtues and blameless lives.

PILGRIM, n. A traveler that is taken seriously. A Pilgrim Father was one who [was] not permitted to sing psalms through his nose [in Europe], followed it to Massachusetts, where he could personate God according to the dictates of his conscience.

PIGMY, n. One of a tribe of very small men found by ancient travelers in many parts of the world, but by modern in Central Africa only. The Pigmies are so called to distinguish them from the bulkier Caucasians who are Hogmies.

PIG, n. An animal ('Porcus omnivorus') closely allied to the human race by the splendor and vivacity of its appetite, which, however, is inferior in scope, for it sticks at pig.

PIETY, n. Reverence for the Supreme Being, based upon His supposed resemblance to man.

PIE, n. An advance agent of the reaper whose name is Indigestion.

PICTURE, n. A representation in two dimensions of something wearisome in three.

PICKANINNY, n. The young of the 'Procyanthropos', or 'Americanus dominans'. It is small, black and charged with political fatalities.

PIANO, n. A parlor utensil for subduing the impenitent visitor. It is operated by pressing the keys of the machine and the spirits of the audience.

PHYSIOGNOMY, n. The art of determining the character of another by the resemblances and differences between his face and our own, which is the standard of excellence.

PHYSICIAN, n. One upon whom we set our hopes when ill and our dogs when well.

PHRENOLOGY, n. The science of picking the pocket through the scalp. It consists in locating and exploiting the organ that one is a dupe with.

PHOTOGRAPH, n. A picture painted by the sun without instruction in art. It is a little better than the work of an Apache, but not quite so good as that of a Cheyenne.

PHONOGRAPH, n. An irritating toy that restores life to dead noises.

PHOENIX, n. The classical prototype of the modern 'small hot bird.'

PHILOSOPHY, n. A route of many roads leading from nowhere to nothing.

PHILISTINE, n. One whose mind is the creature of its environment, following the fashion in thought, feeling and sentiment. He is sometimes learned, frequently prosperous, commonly clean and always solemn.

PHILANTHROPIST, n. A rich (and usually bald) old gentleman who has trained himself to grin while his conscience is picking his pocket.

PESSIMISM, n. A philosophy forced upon the convictions of the observer by the disheartening prevalence of the optimist with his scarecrow hope and his unsightly smile.

PERSEVERANCE, n. A lowly virtue whereby mediocrity achieves an inglorious success.

PERORATION, n. The explosion of an oratorical rocket. It dazzles, but to an observer having the wrong kind of nose its most conspicuous peculiarity is the smell of the several kinds of powder used in preparing it.

PERIPATETIC, adj. Walking about. Relating to the philosophy of Aristotle, who, while expounding it, moved from place to place in order to avoid his pupil's objections. A needless precaution they knew no more of the matter than he.

PERFECTION, n. An imaginary state of quality distinguished from the actual by an element known as excellence; an attribute of the critic.

PENITENT, adj. Undergoing or awaiting punishment.

PEDIGREE, n. The known part of the route from an arboreal ancestor with a swim bladder to an urban descendant with a cigarette.

PEDESTRIAN, n. The variable (an audible) part of the roadway for an automobile.

PEACE, n. In international affairs, a period of cheating between two periods of fighting.

PATRIOTISM, n. Combustible rubbish read to the torch of anyone ambitious to illuminate his name.

PATRIOT, n. One to whom the interests of a part seem superior to those of the whole. The dupe of statesmen and the tool of conquerors.

PATIENCE, n. A minor form of despair, disguised as a virtue.

PASTIME, n. A device for promoting dejection. Gentle exercise for intellectual debility.

PAST, n. That part of Eternity with some small fraction of which we have a slight and regrettable acquaintance. [T]he Past is the Future of yesterday, the Future is the Past of to-morrow. They are one the knowledge and the dream.

PASSPORT, n. A document treacherously inflicted upon a citizen going abroad, exposing him as an alien and pointing him out for special reprobation and outrage.

PARDON, v. To remit a penalty and restore to the life of crime. To add to the lure of crime the temptation of ingratitude.

PANTOMIME, n. A play in which the story is told without violence to the language. The least disagreeable form of dramatic action.

PANTHEISM, n. The doctrine that everything is God, in contradistinction to the doctrine that God is everything.

PANTALOONS, n. A nether habiliment of the adult civilized male. The garment is tubular and unprovided with hinges at the points of flexion. Supposed to have been invented by a humorist. Called 'trousers' by the enlightened and 'pants' by the unworthy.

PANDEMONIUM, n. Literally, the Place of All the Demons. Most of them have escaped into politics and finance, and the place is now used as a lecture hall by the Audible Reformer.

PALMISTRY, n. The 947th method ... of obtaining money by false pretences [by] 'reading character' in the wrinkles [of] the hand. The pretence is not altogether false... for the wrinkles in every hand submitted plainly spell the word 'dupe.'

PALM, n. A species of tree ... of which the familiar 'itching palm' ('Palma hominis') is most widely distributed .... This noble vegetable exudes a kind of invisible gum, which may be detected by applying to the bark a piece of gold or silver.

PALACE, n. A fine and costly residence, particularly that of a great official. The residence of a high dignitary of the Christian Church is called a palace; that of the Founder of his religion was known as a field, or wayside. There is progress.

PAINTING, n. The art of protecting flat surfaces from the weather and exposing them to the critic.

PAIN, n. An uncomfortable frame of mind that may have a physical basis in something that is being done to the body, or may be purely mental, caused by the good fortune of another.

OYSTER, n. A slimy, gobby shellfish which civilization gives men the hardihood to eat without removing its entrails! The shells are sometimes given to the poor.

OWE, v. To have (and to hold) a debt. The word formerly signified not indebtedness, but possession; it meant 'own,' and in the minds of debtors there is still a good deal of confusion between assets and liabilities.

OVERWORK, n. A dangerous disorder affecting high public functionaries who want to go fishing.

OVEREAT, v. To dine.

OVATION, n. n ancient Rome, a definite, formal pageant in honor of one who had been disserviceable to the enemies of the nation. A lesser 'triumph.'

OUTDO, v.t. To make an enemy.

OUTCOME, n. A particular type of disappointment .... judged by the outcome, the result. This is immortal nonsense; the wisdom of an act is to be juded by the light that the doer had when he performed it.

OUT-OF-DOORS, n. That part of one's environment upon which no government has been able to collect taxes. Chiefly useful to inspire poets.

OTHERWISE, adv. No better.

OSTRICH, n. A large bird to which (for its sins, doubtless) nature has denied that hinder toe .... The absence of a good working pair of wings is no defect, for, as has been ingeniously pointed out, the ostrich does not fly.

ORTHOGRAPHY, n. The science of spelling by the eye instead of the ear.

ORTHODOX, n. An ox wearing the popular religious joke.

ORPHAN, n. A living person whom death has deprived of the power of filial ingratitude ...

ORATORY, n. A conspiracy between speech and action to cheat the understanding. A tyranny tempered by stenography.

OPTIMIST, n. A proponent of the doctrine that black is white. A pessimist applied to God for relief.

OPTIMISM, n. The doctrine, or belief, that everything is beautiful, including what is ugly, everything good, especially the bad, and everything right that is wrong. It is hereditary, but fortunately not contagious.

OPPOSITION, n. In politics the party that prevents the Government from running amuck by hamstringing it.

OPPOSE, v. To assist with obstructions and objections.

OPPORTUNITY, n. A favorable occasion for grasping a disappointment.

OPIATE, n. An unlocked door in the prison of Identity. It leads into the jail yard.

OPERA, n. A play representing life in another world, whose inhabitants have no speech but song, no motions but gestures and no postures but attitudes.

ONCE, adv. Enough.

OMEN, n. A sign that something will happen if nothing happens.

OLYMPIAN, adj. Relating to a mountain in Thessaly, once inhabited by gods, now a repository of yellowing newspapers, beer bottles and mutilated sardine cans, attesting the presence of the tourist and his appetite.

OLD, adj. In that stage of usefulness which is not inconsistent with general inefficiency, as an 'old man'. Discredited by lapse of time and offensive to the popular taste, as an 'old' book.

OFFENSIVE, adj. Generating disagreeable emotions or sensations, as the advance of an army against its enemy.

OCEAN, n. A body of water occupying about two-thirds of a world made for man who has no gills.

OCCIDENT, n. The world lying west (or east) of the Orient. Largely inhabited by Christians, powerful sub-tribe of the Hypocrites, whose principal industries are murder and cheating, which they are pleased to call 'war' and 'commerce.'

OBSTINATE, adj. Inaccessible to the truth as it is manifest in the splendor and stress of our advocacy.

OBSOLETE, adj. No longer used by the timid. Said chiefly of words. A word which some lexicographer has marked obsolete is ever thereafter an object of dread and loathing to the fool writer ...

OBSERVATORY, n. A place where astronomers conjecture away the guesses of their predecessors.

OBLIVION, n. The state or condition in which the wicked cease from struggling and the dreary are at rest. Fame's eternal dumping ground.

OBLIVION, n. Cold storage for high hopes. A place where ambitious authors meet their works without pride and their betters without envy. A dormitory without an alarm clock.

OATH, n. In law, a solemn appeal to the Deity, made binding upon the conscience by a penalty for perjury.

NOVEL, n. A short story padded. A species of composition bearing the same relation to literature that the panorama bears to art. As it is too long to be read at a sitting the impressions made by its successive parts are successively effaced, as in the panorama. Unity, totality of effect, is impossible; for besides the few pages last read all that is carried in mind is the mere plot of what has gone before. To the romance the novel is what photography is to painting. Its distinguishing principle, probability, corresponds to the literal actuality of the photograph and puts it distinctly into the category of reporting; whereas the free wing of the romancer enables him to mount to such altitudes of imagination as he may be fitted to attain; and the first three essentials of the literary art are imagination, imagination and imagination. The art of writing novels, such as it was, is long dead everywhere except in Russia, where it is new. Peace to its ashes -- some of which have a large sale.

NOUMENON, n. That which exists, as distinguished from that which merely seems to exist, the latter being a phenomenon. The noumenon is a bit difficult to locate; it can be apprehended only by a process of reasoning which is a phenomenon.

NOTORIETY, n. The fame of one's competitor for public honors. The kind of renown most accessible and acceptable to mediocrity. A Jacob's-ladder leading to the vaudeville stage, with angels ascending and descending.

NOSE, n. The extreme outpost of the face. It has been observed that one's nose is never so happy as when thrust into the affairs of others, from which some physiologists have drawn the inference that the nose is devoid of the sense of smell.

NONSENSE, n. The objections that are urged against this excellent dictionary.

NON-COMBATANT, n. A dead Quaker.

NOMINEE, n. A modest gentleman shrinking from the distinction of private life and diligently seeking the honorable obscurity of public office.

NOMINATE, v. To designate for the heaviest political assessment. To put forward a suitable person to incur the mudgobbling and deadcatting of the opposition.

NOISE, n. A stench in the ear. Undomesticated music. The chief product and authenticating sign of civilization.

NOBLEMAN, n. Nature's provision for wealthy American minds ambitious to incur social distinction and suffer high life.

NIRVANA, n. In the Buddhist religion, a state of pleasurable annihilation awarded to the wise, particularly to those wise enough to understand it.

NIHILIST, n. A Russian who denies the existence of anything but Tolstoi. The leader of the school is Tolstoi.

NEWTONIAN, adj. Pertaining to a philosophy of the universe invented by Newton, who discovered that an apple will fall to the ground, but was unable to say why. His successors and disciples have advanced so far as to be able to say when.

NEPOTISM, n. Appointing your grandmother to office for the good of the party.

NEIGHBOR, n. One whom we are commanded to love as ourselves, and who does all he knows how to make us disobedient.

NECTAR, n. A drink served at banquets of the Olympian deities. The secret of its preparation is lost, but the modern Kentuckians believe that they come pretty near to a knowledge of its chief ingredient.

MYTHOLOGY, n. The body of a primitive people's beliefs concerning its origin, early history, heroes, deities and so forth, as distinguished from the true accounts which it invents later.

MUSTANG, n. An indocile horse of the western plains. In English society, the American wife of an English nobleman.

MUMMY, n. An ancient Egyptian ... handy, too, in museums in gratifying the vulgar curiosity that serves to distinguish man from the lower animals.

MULTITUDE, n. A crowd; the source of political wisdom and virtue. In a republic, the object of the statesman's adoration.

MUGWUMP, n. In politics one afflicted with self-respect and addicted to the vice of independence. A term of contempt.

MOUTH, n. In man, the gateway to the soul; in woman, the outlet of the heart.

MOUSQUETAIRE, n. A long glove covering a part of the arm. Worn in New Jersey. But 'mousquetaire' is a might poor way to spell muskeeter.

MORE, adj. The comparative degree of too much.

MORAL, adj. Conforming to a local and mutable standard of right. Having the quality of general expediency.

MONUMENT, n. A structure intended to commemorate something which either needs no commemoration or cannot be commemorated.

MONSIGNOR, n. A high ecclesiastical title, of which the Founder of our religion overlooked the advantages.

MONOSYLLABIC, adj. Composed of words of one syllable ... Commonly Saxon that is to say, words of a barbarous people destitute of ideas and incapable of any but the most elementary sentiments and emotions.

MONKEY, n. An arboreal animal which makes itself at home in genealogical trees.

MONEY, n. A blessing that is of no advantage to us excepting when we part with it. An evidence of culture and a passport to polite society. Supportable property.

MONARCHICAL GOVERNMENT, n. Government.

MONARCH, n. A person engaged in reigning. Formerly the monarch ruled, as the derivation of the word attests, and as many subjects have had occasion to learn.

MONAD, n. The ultimate, indivisible unit of matter (see Molecule). The monad has body without bulk, and mind without manifestation containing all the powers and possibilities needful to his evolution into a German philosopher ...

MOLECULE, n. The ultimate, indivisible unit of matter. It is distinguished from the corpuscle, also the ultimate, indivisible unit of matter, by a closer resemblance to the atom, also the ultimate, indivisible unit of matter ...

MISS, n. The title with which we brand unmarried women to indicate that they are in the market. Let us be consistent and [also] give one to the unmarried man. I venture to suggest Mush, abbreviated to Mh.

MISERICORDE, n. A dagger which in mediaeval warfare was used by the foot soldier to remind an unhorsed knight that he was mortal.

MISDEMEANOR, n. An infraction of the law having less dignity than a felony and constituting no claim to admittance into the best criminal society.

MISCREANT, n. A person of the highest degree of unworth. Etymologically, the word means unbeliever, and its present signification may be regarded as theology's noblest contribution to the development of our language.

MIRACLE, n. An act or event out of the order of nature and unaccountable, as beating a normal hand of four kings and an ace with four aces and a king.

MINOR, adj. Less objectionable.

MINISTER, n. An agent of a higher power with a lower responsibility. In diplomacy, an officer sent into a foreign country as the visible embodiment of his sovereign's hostility.

MINE, adj. Belonging to me if I can hold or seize it.

MIND, n. A mysterious form of matter secreted by the brain. Its chief activity consists in the endeavor to ascertain its own nature, the futility of the attempt being due to the fact that it has nothing but itself to know itself with.

MILLENNIUM, n. The period of a thousand years when the lid is to be screwed down, with all reformers on the under side.

METROPOLIS, n. A stronghold of provincialism.

MESMERISM, n. Hypnotism before it wore good clothes, kept a carriage and asked Incredulity to dinner.

MERCY, n. An attribute beloved of detected offenders.

MERCHANT, n. One engaged in a commercial pursuit. A commercial pursuit is one in which the thing pursued is a dollar.

MENDACIOUS, adj. Addicted to rhetoric.

MEERSCHAUM, n. A fine white clay, which for convenience in coloring it brown is made into tobacco pipes and smoked by the workmen engaged in that industry.

MEEKNESS, n. Uncommon patience in planning a revenge that is worth while.

MEDICINE, n. A stone flung down the Bowery to kill a dog in Broadway.

MEDAL, n. A small metal disk given as a reward for virtues, attainments or services more or less authentic.

MEANDER, n. To proceed sinuously and aimlessly. The word is the ancient name of a river about one hundred and fifty miles south of Troy, which turned and twisted in the effort to get out of hearing when the Greeks and Trojans boasted of their prowess.

ME, pro. The objectionable case of I. The personal pronoun in English has three cases, the dominative, the objectionable and the oppressive. Each is all three.

MAYONNAISE, n. One of the sauces which serve the French in place of a state religion.

MAUSOLEUM, n. The final and funniest folly of the rich.

MATERIAL, adj. Having an actual existence, as distinguished from an imaginary one. Important.

MARTYR, n. One who moves along the line of least reluctance to a desired death.

MARRIAGE, n. The state or condition of a community consisting of a master, a mistress and two slaves, making in all, two.

MANNA, n. A food miraculously given to the Israelites in the wilderness. When it was no longer supplied to them they settled down and tilled the soil, fertilizing it, as a rule, with the bodies of the original occupants.

MANICHEISM, n. The ancient Persian doctrine of an incessant warfare between Good and Evil. When Good gave up the fight the Persians joined the victorious Opposition.

MAN, n. An animal so lost in rapturous contemplation of what he thinks he is as to overlook what he indubitably ought to be.

MAMMON, n. The god of the world's leading religion. The chief temple is in the holy city of New York.

MAMMALIA, n.pl. A family of vertebrate animals whose females in a state of nature suckle their young, but when civilized and enlightened put them out to nurse, or use the bottle.

MALTHUSIAN, adj. Pertaining to Malthus and his doctrines, who believed in artificially limiting population, but found that it could not be done by talking. Herod of Judea, all the famous soldiers have been practical exponents of the Malthusian idea.

MALEFACTOR, n. The chief factor in the progress of the human race.

MALE, n. A member of the unconsidered, or negligible sex. The male of the human race is commonly known (to the female) as Mere Man. The genus has two varieties: good providers and bad providers.

MAJESTY, n. The state and title of a king. Regarded with a just contempt by the Most Eminent Grand Masters, Grand Chancellors, Great Incohonees and Imperial Potentates of the ancient and honorable orders of republican America.

MAIDEN, n. A young person of the unfair sex. The maiden is not altogether unpleasing to the eye, nor (without her piano and her views) insupportable to the ear, though beaten out of the field by the canary which, also, is more portable.

MAGPIE, n. A bird whose thievish disposition suggested to someone that it might be taught to talk.

MAGNITUDE, n. Size [that is] purely relative. If everything in the universe were increased 1,000 diameters nothing would be any larger than it was before, but if one thing remain unchanged all the others would be larger than they had been.

MAGNIFICENT, adj. Having a grandeur or splendor superior to that to which the spectator is accustomed, as the ears of an ass, to a rabbit, or the glory of a glowworm, to a maggot.

MAGNETISM, n. Something acting upon a magnet.

MAGNET, n. Something acted upon by magnetism.

MAGIC, n. An art of converting superstition into coin. There are other arts serving the same high purpose, but the discreet lexicographer does not name them.

MAD, adj. Affected with a high degree of intellectual independence; at odds with the majority; in short, unusual. It is noteworthy that persons are pronounced mad by officials destitute of evidence that themselves are sane.

MACHINATION, n. The method employed by one's opponents in baffling one's open and honorable efforts to do the right thing.

MACE, n. A staff of office signifying authority. Its form, that of a heavy club, indicates its original purpose and use in dissuading from dissent.

LYRE, n. An ancient instrument of torture.

LUNARIAN, n. An inhabitant of the moon, as distinguished from Lunatic, one whom the moon inhabits.

LUMINARY, n. One who throws light upon a subject; as an editor by not writing about it.

LOW-BRED, adj. 'Raised' instead of brought up.

LOVE, n. A temporary insanity curable by marriage or by removal of the patient from the influences under which he incurred the disorder.

LOSS, n. Privation of that which we had, or had not. Thus, in the latter sense, it is said of a defeated candidate that he 'lost his election'.

LOQUACITY, n. A disorder which renders the sufferer unable to curb his tongue when you wish to talk.

LOOKING-GLASS, n. A vitreous plane upon which to display a fleeting show for man's disillusion given.

LONGEVITY, n. Uncommon extension of the fear of death.

LOGOMACHY, n. A war in which the weapons are words and the wounds punctures in the swim-bladder of self-esteem a kind of contest in which, the vanquished being unconscious of defeat, the victor is denied the reward of success.

LOGIC, n. The art of thinking and reasoning in strict accordance with the limitations and incapacities of the human misunderstanding.

LOGANIMITY, n. The disposition to endure injury with meek forbearance while maturing a plan of revenge.

LODGER, n. A less popular name for the Second Person of that delectable newspaper Trinity, the Roomer, the Bedder, and the Mealer.

LOCK-AND-KEY, n. The distinguishing device of civilization and enlightenment.

LIVER, n. A large red organ thoughtfully provided by nature to be bilious with. The liver is heaven's best gift to the goose; without it that bird would be unable to supply us with the Strasbourg 'pate'.

LITIGATION, n. A machine which you go into as a pig and come out of as a sausage.

LITIGANT, n. A person about to give up his skin for the hope of retaining his bones.

LINEN, n. 'A kind of cloth the making of which, when made of hemp, entails a great waste of hemp.' Calcraft the Hangman.

LIMB, n. The branch of a tree or the leg of an American woman.

LIFE, n. A spiritual pickle preserving the body from decay. We live in daily apprehension of its loss; yet when lost it is not missed.

LICKSPITTLE, n. A useful functionary, not infrequently found editing a newspaper ... the lickspittle is only the blackmailer under another aspect, although the latter is frequently found as an independent species.

LIBERTY, n. One of Imagination's most precious possessions.

LIAR, n. A lawyer with a roving commission.

LEXICOGRAPHER, n. A pestilent fellow who, under the pretense of recording some particular stage in the development of a language, does what he can to arrest its growth, stiffen its flexibility and mechanize its methods.

LEGACY, n. A gift from one who is legging it out of this vale of tears.

LECTURER, n. One with his hand in your pocket, his tongue in your ear and his faith in your patience.

LEAD, n. A heavy blue-gray metal much used in giving stability to light lovers particularly to those who love not wisely but other men's wives.

LAZINESS, n. Unwarranted repose of manner in a person of low degree.

LAWYER, n. One skilled in circumvention of the law.

LAWSUIT, n. A machine which you go into as a pig and come out as a sausage.

LAWFUL, adj. Compatible with the will of a judge having jurisdiction.

LAUREATE, adj. Crowned with leaves of the laurel. In England the Poet Laureate is an officer of the sovereign's court, acting as dancing skeleton at every royal feast and singing-mute at every royal funeral.

LAST, n. A shoemaker's implement, named by a frowning Providence as opportunity to the maker of puns.

LAP, n. One of the most important organs of the female system an admirable provision of nature for the repose of infancy, but chiefly useful in rural festivities to support plates of cold chicken and heads of adult males.

LANGUAGE, n. The music with which we charm the serpents guarding another's treasure.

KLEPTOMANIAC, n. A rich thief.

KISS, n. A word invented by the poets as a rhyme for 'bliss.' It is supposed to signify, in a general way, some kind of rite or ceremony appertaining to a good understanding; but the manner of its performance is unknown to this lexicographer.

KING, n. A male person commonly known in America as a 'crowned head,' although he never wears a crown and has usually no head to speak of.

KINDNESS, n. A brief preface to ten volumes of exaction.

KILT, n. A costume sometimes worn by Scotchmen in America and Americans in Scotland.

KILL, v.t. To create a vacancy without nominating a successor.

K, n. A consonant; originally precisely that of our H, but altered to its present shape to commemorate the destruction of [one of two lofty columns in] the great temple of Jarute.

JUSTICE, n. A commodity which is a more or less adulterated condition the State sells to the citizen as a reward for his allegiance, taxes and personal service.

JOSS-STICKS, n. Small sticks burned by the Chinese in their pagan tomfoolery, in imitation of certain sacred rites of our holy religion.

JEWS-HARP, n. An unmusical instrument, played by holding it fast with the teeth and trying to brush it away with the finger.

JESTER, n. An officer attached to the king's household to amuse the court by ludicrous actions and utterances ... the king's own conduct and decrees [being] sufficiently ridiculous for the amusement not only of his court but of all mankind.

JEALOUS, adj. Unduly concerned about the preservation of that which can be lost only if not worth keeping.

J, n. A consonant in English, but some nations use it as a vowel ... from a Latin verb, 'jacere', 'to throw,' because when a stone is thrown at a dog the dog's tail assumes that shape.

ITCH, n. The patriotism of a Scotchman.

IRRELIGION, n. The principal one of the great faiths of the world.

INVENTOR, n. A person who makes an ingenious arrangement of wheels, levers, and springs, and believes it civilization.

INTRODUCTION, n. A social ceremony invented by the devil for the gratification of his servants and the plaguing of his enemies.

INTIMACY, n. A relation into which fools are providentially drawn for their mutual destruction.

INTERPRETER, n. One who enables two persons of different languages to understand each other by repeating to each what it would have been to the interpreter's advantage for the other to have said.

INTENTION, n. The mind's sense of the prevalence of one set of influences over another set; an effect whose cause is the imminence, immediate or remote, of the performance of an involuntary act.

INSURRECTION, n. An unsuccessful revolution. Disaffection's failure to substitute misrule for bad government.

INSURANCE, n. An ingenious modern game of chance in which the player is permitted to enjoy the comfortable conviction that he is beating the man who keeps the table.

INSCRIPTION, n. Something written on another thing mostly memorial, intended to commemorate the fame of some illustrious person and hand down to distant ages ... e.g., the name of John Smith, penciled on the Washington monument.

INK, n. A villainous compound of tannogallate of iron, gum-arabic, and water, chiefly used to facilitate the infection of idiocy and promote intellectual crime.

INJUSTICE, n. A burden which of all those that we load upon others and carry ourselves is lightest in the hands and heaviest upon the back.

INJURY, n. An offense next in degree of enormity to a slight.

INGRATE, n. One who receives a benefit from another, or is otherwise an object of charity.

INFIDEL, n. In New York, one who does not believe in the Christian religion; in Constantinople, one who does.

INFALAPSARIAN, n. One who ventures to believe that Adam need not have sinned unless he had a mind to in opposition to the Supralapsarians, who hold that that luckless person's fall was decreed from the beginning.

INEXPEDIENT, adj. Not calculated to advance one's interests.

INDISCRETION, n. The guilt of woman.

INDIGESTION, n. A disease which the patient and his friends frequently mistake for deep religious conviction and concern for the salvation of mankind.

INDIFFERENT, adj. Imperfectly sensible to distinctions among things.

INCUMBENT, n. A person of the liveliest interest to the outcumbents.

INCOMPOSSIBLE, adj. Unable to exist if something else exists. Two things are incompossible when the world of being has scope enough for one of them, but not enough for both as Walt Whitman's poetry and God's mercy to man.

INCOMPATIBILITY, n. In matrimony a similarity of tastes, particularly the taste for domination. Incompatibility may, however, consist of a meek-eyed matron living just around the corner. It has even been known to wear a moustache.

INADMISSIBLE, adj. Not competent to be considered. Hearsay evidence is inadmissible ... but there is no religion in the world that has any other basis than hearsay evidence.

IMPUNITY, n. Wealth.

IMPROVIDENCE, n. Provision for the needs of to-day from the revenues of to-morrow.

IMPOSTOR n. A rival aspirant to public honors.

IMPOSITION, n. The act of blessing or consecrating by the laying on of hands a ceremony common to many ecclesiastical systems, but performed with the frankest sincerity by the sect known as Thieves.

IMPIETY, n. Your irreverence toward my deity.

IMPENITENCE, n. A state of mind intermediate in point of time between sin and punishment.

IMPARTIAL, adj. Unable to perceive any promise of personal advantage from espousing either side of a controversy or adopting either of two conflicting opinions.

IMPALE, v.t. In popular usage, to pierce with any weapon which remains fixed in the wound .... properly, to put to death by thrusting an upright sharp stake into the body, the victim being left in a sitting position.

IMMORAL, adj. Inexpedient. Whatever in the long run and with regard to the greater number of instances men find to be generally inexpedient comes to be considered wrong, wicked, immoral.

IMMODEST, adj. Having a strong sense of one's own merit, coupled with a feeble conception of worth in others.

IMMIGRANT, n. An unenlightened person who thinks one country better than another.

IMBECILITY, n. A kind of divine inspiration, or sacred fire affecting censorious critics of this dictionary.

IMAGINATION, n. A warehouse of facts, with poet and liar in joint ownership.

ILLUSTRIOUS, adj. Suitably placed for the shafts of malice, envy and detraction.

ILLUMINATI, n. A sect of Spanish heretics of the latter part of the sixteenth century; so called because they were light weights 'cunctationes illuminati'.

IGNORAMUS, n. A person unacquainted with certain kinds of knowledge familiar to yourself, and having certain other kinds that you know nothing about.

IDLENESS, n. A model farm where the devil experiments with seeds of new sins and promotes the growth of staple vices.

IDIOT, n. A member of a large and powerful tribe whose influence in human affairs has always been dominant and controlling. The Idiot's activity is not confined to any special field of thought or action, but 'pervades and regulates the whole'.

HYPOCHONDRIASIS, n. Depression of one's own spirits.

HYENA, n. A beast held in reverence by some oriental nations from its habit of frequenting at night the burial-places of the dead. But the medical student does that.

HYDRA, n. A kind of animal that the ancients catalogued under many heads.

HYBRID, n. A pooled issue.

HUSBAND, n. One who, having dined, is charged with the care of the plate.

HURRY, n. The dispatch of bunglers.

HURRICANE, n. An atmospheric demonstration once very common but now generally abandoned for the tornado and cyclone. The hurricane is still in popular use in the West Indies and is preferred by certain old-fashioned sea-captains.

HUMORIST, n. A plague that would have softened down the hoar austerity of Pharaoh's heart and persuaded him to dismiss Israel with his best wishes, cat-quick.

HUMANITY, n. The human race, collectively, exclusive of the anthropoid poets.

HOUSELESS, adj. Having paid all taxes on household goods.

HOUSE, n. A hollow edifice erected for the habitation of man, rat, mouse, beelte, cockroach, fly, mosquito, flea, bacillus and microbe.

HOSPITALITY, n. The virtue which induces us to feed and lodge certain persons who are not in need of food and lodging.

HOPE, n. Desire and expectation rolled into one.

HONORABLE, adj. Afflicted with an impediment in one's reach. In legislative bodies, it is customary to mention all members as honorable; as, 'the honorable gentleman is a scurvy cur.'

HOMOEOPATHY, n. A school of medicine midway between Allopathy and Christian Science. To the last both the others are distinctly inferior, for Christian Science will cure imaginary diseases, and they can not.

HOMOEOPATHIST, n. The humorist of the medical profession.

HOMILETICS, n. The science of adapting sermons to the spiritual needs, capacities and conditions of the congregation.

HOMICIDE, n. The slaying of one human being by another. There are four kinds of homocide: felonious, excusable, justifiable, and praiseworthy, but it makes no great difference to the person slain ..., [but] is for the advantage of the lawyers.

HISTORY, n. An account mostly false, of events mostly unimportant, which are brought about by rulers mostly knaves, and soldiers mostly fools.

HISTORIAN, n. A broad-gauge gossip.

HIPPOGRIFF, n. An animal (now extinct) which was half horse and half griffin. The griffin was a compound creature, half lion and half eagle. The hippogriff was, therefore, only one quarter eagle, which is $2.50 in gold. Zoology is full of surprises.

HERMIT, n. A person whose vices and follies are not sociable.

Heaven, n. A place where the wicked cease from troubling you with talk of their personal affairs, and the good listen with attention while you expound your own.

HEATHEN, n. A benighted creature who has the folly to worship something that he can see and feel.

HEART, n. Figuratively, this useful organ is said to be the seat of emotions and sentiments .... It is now known that sentiments and emotions reside in the stomach, being evolved from food by chemical action of the gastric fluid.

HATCHET, n. A young axe, known among Indians as a Thomashawk.

HASH, x. There is no definition for this word nobody knows what hash is.

HARMONISTS, n. A sect of Protestants, now extinct, who came from Europe in the beginning of the last century and were distinguished for the bitterness of their internal controversies and dissensions.

HARBOR, n. A place where ships taking shelter from storms are exposed to the fury of customs.

HARANGUE, n. A speech by an opponent, who is known as an harrangue-outang.

HAND, n. A singular instrument worn at the end of the human arm and commonly thrust into somebody's pocket.

HABIT, n. A shackle for the free.

HABEAS CORPUS. A writ by which a man may be taken out of jail when confined for the wrong crime.

GUNPOWDER, n. An agency employed by civilized nations for the settlement of disputes which might become troublesome if left unadjusted.

GUILLOTINE, n. A machine which makes a Frenchman shrug his shoulders with good reason.

GRAVE, n. A place in which the dead are laid to await the coming of the medical student.

GRAMMAR, n. A system of pitfalls thoughtfully prepared for the feet for the self-made man, along the path by which he advances to distinction.

GOUT, n. A physician's name for the rheumatism of a rich patient.

GOOSE, n. A bird that supplies quills for writing. These [quills] when inked and drawn mechanically across paper by a person called an 'author,' there results a very fair and accurate transcript of the fowl's thought and feeling.

GOOD, adj. Sensible, madam, to the worth of this present writer. Alive, sir, to the advantages of letting him alone.

GNU, n. An animal of South Africa, which in its domesticated state resembles a horse, a buffalo and a stag. In its wild condition it is something like a thunderbolt, an earthquake and a cyclone.

GNOSTICS, n. A sect of philosophers who tried to engineer a fusion between the early Christians and the Platonists. The former would not go into the caucus and the combination failed, greatly to the chagrin of the fusion managers.

GLUTTON, n. A person who escapes the evils of moderation by committing dyspepsia.

GHOST, n. The outward and visible sign of an inward fear.

GEOGRAPHER, n. A chap who can tell you offhand the difference between the outside of the world and the inside.

GENEROUS, adj. Originally this word meant noble by birth and was rightly applied to a great multitude of persons. It now means noble by nature and is taking a bit of a rest.

GENEALOGY, n. An account of one's descent from an ancestor who did not particularly care to trace his own.

GAMBLING,n. [As in] 'The gambling known as business looks with austere disfavor upon the business known as gambling'.

FUTURE, n. That period of time in which our affairs prosper, our friends are true, and our happiness is assured.

FUNERAL, n. A pageant whereby we attest our respect for the dead by enriching the undertaker, and strengthen our grief by an expenditure that deepens our groans and doubles our tears.

FRIENDSHIP, n. A ship big enough to carry two in fair weather, but only one in foul.

FRIENDLESS, adj. Having no favors to bestow. Destitute of fortune. Addicted to utterance of truth and common sense.

FREEBOOTER, n. A conqueror in a small way of business, whose annexations lack of the sanctifying merit of magnitude.

FORMA PAUPERIS. [Latin] In the character of a poor person a method by which a litigant without money for lawyers is considerately permitted to lose his case.

FORK, n. An instrument used chiefly for the purpose of putting dead animals into the mouth.

FORGETFULNESS, n. A gift of God bestowed upon doctors in compensation for their destitution of conscience.

FOREFINGER, n. The finger commonly used in pointing out two malefactors.

FORCE, n. 'Force is but might,' the teacher said p/ 'That definition's just.'/ The boy said naught but throught instead,/ Remembering his pounded head:/ 'Force is not might but must!'

FOLLY, n. That 'gift and faculty divine' whose creative and controlling energy inspires Man's mind, guides his actions and adorns his life.

FLOP, v. Suddenly to change one's opinions and go over to another party. The most notable flop on record was that of Saul of Tarsus, who has been severely criticised as a turn-coat by some of our partisan journals.

FLAG, n. A colored rag borne above troops and hoisted on forts and ships. It appears to serve the same purpose as certain signs that one sees and vacant lots in London 'Rubbish may be shot here.'

FINANCE, n. The art or science of managing revenues and resources for the best advantage of the manager. The pronunciation of this word with the i long and the accent on the first syllable is one of America's most precious discoveries and possessions.

FIDELITY, n. A virtue peculiar to those who are about to be betrayed.

FIDDLE, n. An instrument to tickle human ears by friction of a horse's tail on the entrails of a cat.

FICKLENESS, n. The iterated satiety of an enterprising affection.

FIB, n. A lie that has not cut its teeth. An habitual liar's nearest approach to truth: the perigee of his eccentric orbit.

FELON, n. A person of greater enterprise than discretion, who in embracing an opportunity has formed an unfortunate attachment.

FASHION, n. A despot whom the wise ridicule and obey.

FAMOUS, adj. Conspicuously miserable.

FAITH, n. Belief without evidence in what is told by one who speaks, without knowledge, of things without parallel.

EXTINCTION, n. The raw material out of which theology created the future state.

EXPOSTULATION, n. One of the many methods by which fools prefer to lose their friends.

EXPERIENCE, n. The wisdom that enables us to recognize as an undesirable old acquaintance the folly that we have already embraced.

EXISTENCE, n. A transient, horrible, fantastic dream,/ Wherein is nothing yet all things do seem:/ From which we're wakened by a friendly nudge/ Of our bedfellow Death, and cry: 'O fudge!'

EXILE, n. One who serves his country by residing abroad, yet is not an ambassador.

EXHORT, v.t. In religious affairs, to put the conscience of another upon the spit and roast it to a nut-brown discomfort.

EXECUTIVE, n. An officer of the Government, whose duty it is to enforce the wishes of the legislative power until such time as the judicial department shall be pleased to pronounce them invalid and of no effect.

EXCESS, n. In morals, an indulgence that enforces by appropriate penalties the law of moderation.

EXCEPTION, n. A thing which takes the liberty to differ from other things of its class, as an honest man, a truthful woman, etc.

EVANGELIST, n. A bearer of good tidings, particularly (in a religious sense) such as assure us of our own salvation and the damnation of our neighbors.

EULOGY, n. Praise of a person who has either the advantages of wealth and power, or the consideration to be dead.

ERUDITION, n. Dust shaken out of a book into an empty skull.

EPITAPH, n. An inscription on a tomb, showing that virtues acquired by death have a retroactive effect.

EPIGRAM, n. A short, sharp saying in prose or verse, frequently characterize by acidity or acerbity and sometimes by wisdom.

ENVY, n. Emulation adapted to the meanest capacity.

ENTHUSIASM, n. A distemper of youth, curable by small doses of repentance in connection with outward applications of experience. Byron, who recovered long enough to call it 'entuzy-muzy,' had a relapse, which carried him off to Missolonghi.

ENTERTAINMENT, n. Any kind of amusement whose inroads stop short of death by injection.

ENOUGH, pro. All there is in the world if you like it.

END, n. The position farthest removed on either hand from the Interlocutor.

EMOTION, n. A prostrating disease caused by a determination of the heart to the head. It is sometimes accompanied by a copious discharge of hydrated chloride of sodium from the eyes.

ELOQUENCE, n. The art of orally persuading fools that white is the color that it appears to be. It includes the gift of making any color appear white.

ELEGY, n. A composition in verse, in which, without employing any of the methods of humor, the writer aims to produce in the reader's mind the dampest kind of dejection.

ELECTOR, n. One who enjoys the sacred privilege of voting for the man of another man's choice.

EJECTION, n. An approved remedy for the disease of garrulity. It is also much used in cases of extreme poverty.

EGOTIST, n. A person of low taste, more interested in himself than in me.

EFFECT, n. The second of two phenomena which always occur together in the same order. The first, called a Cause, is said to generate the other which is no more sensible than it would be ... to declare the rabbit the cause of a dog [who pursues it].

EDUCATION, n. That which discloses to the wise and disguises from the foolish their lack of understanding.

EDIBLE, adj. Good to eat, and wholesome to digest, as a worm to a toad, a toad to a snake, a snake to a pig, a pig to a man, and a man to a worm.

ECONOMY, n. Purchasing the barrel of whiskey that you do not need for the price of the cow that you cannot afford.

ECCENTRICITY, n. A method of distinction so cheap that fools employ it to accentuate their incapacity.

EAVESDROP, v.i. Secretly to overhear a catalogue of the crimes and vices of another or yourself.

EAT, v.i. To perform successively (and successfully) the functions of mastication, humectation, and deglutition.

DUTY, n. That which sternly impels us in the direction of profit, along the line of desire.

DUEL, n. A formal ceremony preliminary to reconciliation of two enemies. Great skill is necessary to its satisfactory observance; if awkwardly performed ... deplorable consequences sometimes ensue. A long time ago a man lost his life.

DRAMATIST, n. One who adapts plays from the French.

DRAGOON, n. A soldier who combines dash and steadiness in so equal measure that he makes his advances on foot and his retreats on horseback.

DOG, n. A subsidiary Deity designed to catch the overflow and surplus of the world's worship.... [H]is master works for the means wherewith to purchase the idle wag of the Solomonic tail, seasoned with a look of tolerant recognition.

DIVINATION, n. The art of nosing out the occult. Divination is of as many kinds as there are fruit-bearing varieties of the flowering dunce and the early fool.

DISTANCE, n. The only thing that the rich are willing for the poor to call theirs, and keep.

DISSEMBLE, v.i. To put a clean shirt upon the character.

DISOBEY, v.t. To celebrate with an appropriate ceremony the maturity of a command.

DISOBEDIENCE, n. The silver lining to the cloud of servitude.

DISCRIMINATE, v.i. To note the particulars in which one person or thing is, if possible, more objectionable than another.

DISABUSE, v.t. To present your neighbor with another and better error than the one which he has deemed advantageous to embrace.

DIPLOMACY, n. Lying in state, or the patriotic art of lying for one's country.

DIGESTION, n. The conversion of victuals into virtues. When the process is imperfect, vices are evolved instead a circumstance from which that wicked writer, Dr. Jeremiah Blenn, infers that the ladies are the greater sufferers from dyspepsia.

DIE, n. The singular of 'dice.' We seldom hear the word, because there is a prohibitory proverb, 'Never say die.'

DICTIONARY, n. A malevolent literary device for cramping the growth of a language and making it hard and inelastic. This [my] dictionary, however, is a most useful work.

DIARY, n. A daily record of that part of one's life, which he can relate to himself without blushing.

DIAPHRAGM, n. A muscular partition separating disorders of the chest from disorders of the bowels.

DIAGNOSIS, n. A physician's forecast of the disease by the patient's pulse and purse.

DESTINY, n. A tyrant's authority for crime and fool's excuse for failure.

DEPENDENT, adj. Reliant upon another's generosity for the support which you are not in a position to exact from his fears.

DELUSION, n. The father of a most respectable family, comprising Enthusiasm, Affection, Self-denial, Faith, Hope, Charity and many other goodly sons and daughters.

DELUGE, n. A notable first experiment in baptism which washed away the sins (and sinners) of the world.

DELEGATION, n. In American politics, an article of merchandise that comes in sets.

DEJEUNER, n. The breakfast of an American who has been in Paris. Variously pronounced.

DEGRADATION, n. One of the stages of moral and social progress from private station to political preferment.

DEFENCELESS, adj. Unable to attack.

DECIDE, v.i. To succumb to the preponderance of one set of influences over another set.

DECALOGUE, n. A series of commandments, ten in number just enough to permit an intelligent selection for observance, but not enough to embarrass the choice.

DEBT, n. An ingenious substitute for the chain and whip of the slave driver.

DEBAUCHEE, n. One who has so earnestly pursued pleasure that he has had the misfortune to overtake it.

DEATH, n. To stop sinning suddenly.

DAY, n. A period of twenty-four hours, mostly misspent. This period is divided into two parts, the day proper and the night, or day improper the former devoted to sins of business, the latter consecrated to the other sort.

DAWN, n. The time when men of reason go to bed.

DARING, n. One of the most conspicuous qualities of a man in security.

CYNIC, n. A blackguard whose faulty vision sees things as they are, not as they ought to be. Hence the custom among the Scythians of plucking out a cynic's eyes to improve his vision.

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.

CUNNING, n. The faculty that distinguishes a weak animal or person from a strong one. It brings its possessor much mental satisfaction and great material adversity. An Italian proverb says: 'The furrier gets the skins of more foxes than asses.'

CUI BONO? [Latin] What good would that do 'me'?

CRITIC, n. A person who boasts himself hard to please because nobody tries to please him.

CREDITOR, n. One of a tribe of savages dwelling beyond the Financial Straits and dreaded for their desolating incursions.

CRAYFISH, n. A small crustacean very much resembling the lobster, but less indigestible.

CORPORATION, n. An ingenious device for obtaining individual profit.

CONVERSATION, n. A fair to the display of the minor mental commodities, each exhibitor being too intent upon the arrangement of his own wares to observe those of his neighbor.

CONVENT, n. A place of retirement for woman who wish for leisure to meditate upon the vice of idleness.

CONTROVERSY, n. A battle in which spittle or ink replaces the injurious cannon-ball and the inconsiderate bayonet.

CONTEMPT, n. The feeling of a prudent man for an enemy who is too formidable safely to be opposed.

CONSULT, v.i. To seek another's disapproval of a course already decided on.

CONSOLATION, n. The knowledge that a better man is more unfortunate than yourself.

CONSERVATIVE, n. A statesman who is enamoured of existing evils, as distinguished from a Liberal who wishes to replace them with others.

CONNOISSEUR, n. A specialist who knows everything about something and nothing about anything else.

CONGRESS, n. A body of men who meet to repeal laws.

CONGRATULATION, n. The civility of envy.

CONFIDANT, CONFIDANTE, n. One entrusted by A with the secrets of B, confided by 'him' to C.

CONDOLE, v.i. To show that bereavement is a smaller evil than sympathy.

COMPULSION, n. The eloquence of power.

COMPROMISE, n. Such an adjustment of conflicting interests as gives each adversary the satisfaction of thinking he has got what he ought not to have, and is deprived of nothing except what was justly his due.

COMMERCE, n. A kind of transaction in which A plunders from B the goods of C, and for compensation B picks the pocket of D of money belonging to E.

COMMENDATION, n. The tribute that we pay to achievements that resembles, but do not equal, our own.

COMFORT, n. A state of mind produced by contemplation of a neighbor's uneasiness.

COENOBITE, n. A man who piously shuts himself up to meditate upon the sin of wickedness; and to keep it fresh in his mind joins a brotherhood of awful examples.

CLOSE-FISTED, adj. Unduly desirous of keeping that which many meritorious persons wish to obtain.

CLOCK, n. A machine of great moral value to man, allaying his concern for the future by reminding him what a lot of time remains to him.

CLERGYMAN, n. A man who undertakes the management of our spiritual affairs as a method of better his temporal ones.

CLARIONET, n. An instrument of torture operated by a person with cotton in his ears. There are two instruments that are worse than a clarionet two clarionets.

CIRCUS, n. A place where horses, ponies and elephants are permitted to see men, women and children acting the fool.

CHRISTIAN, n. One who follows the teachings of Christ in so far as they are not inconsistent with a life of sin.

CHRISTIAN, n. One who believes that the New Testament is a divinely inspired book admirably suited to the spiritual needs of his neighbor.

CHILDHOOD, n. The period of human life intermediate between the idiocy of infancy and the folly of youth two removes from the sin of manhood and three from the remorse of age.

CHARITY, n. a thing that begins at home and usually stays there.

CERBERUS, n. The watch-dog of Hades, whose duty it was to guard the entrance against whom or what does not clearly appear; everybody, sooner or later, had to go there, and nobody wanted to carry off the entrance.

CENTAUR, n. One of a race of persons who lived before the division of labor had been carried to such a pitch of differentiation, and who followed the primitive economic maxim, 'Every man his own horse.'

CEMETERY, n. An isolated suburban spot where mourners match lies, poets write at a target and stone-cutters spell for a wager.

CAVILER, n. A critic of our own work.

CAT, n. A soft, indestructible automaton provided by nature to be kicked when things go wrong in the domestic circle.

CARTESIAN, adj. Relating to Descartes, author of 'Cogito ergo sum' to demonstrate the reality of human existence. The dictum might be improved: 'Cogito cogito ergo cogito sum' 'I think that I think, therefore I think that I am;' as close an approach.

CANNON, n. An instrument employed in the rectification of national boundaries

CALUMNUS, n. A graduate of the School for Scandal.

CALLOUS, adj. Gifted with great fortitude to bear the evils afflicting another.

CALAMITY, n. A more than commonly plain and unmistakable reminder that the affairs of this life are not of our own ordering. Calamities are of two kinds: misfortune to ourselves, and good fortune to others.

Calamities, n. of two kinds: misfortunes to ourselves, and good fortune to others.

CABBAGE, n. A familiar kitchen-garden vegetable about as large and wise as a man's head.

BOUNTY, n. The liberality of one who has much, in permitting one who has nothing to get all that he can.

BOTANY, n. The science of vegetables those that are not good to eat, as well as those that are. It deals largely with their flowers, which are commonly badly designed, inartistic in color, and ill- smelling.

BLANK-VERSE, n. Unrhymed iambic pentameters the most difficult kind of English verse to write acceptably; a kind, therefore, much affected by those who cannot acceptably write any kind.

BIGOT, n. One who is obstinately and zealously attached to an opinion that you do not entertain.

BENEFACTOR, n. One who makes heavy purchases of ingratitude, without, however, materially affecting the price, which is still within the means of all.

BELLADONNA, n. In Italian a beautiful lady; in English a deadly poison. A striking example of the essential identity of the two tongues.

BEHAVIOR, n. Conduct, as determined, not by principle, but by breeding.

BEGGAR, n. One who has relied on the assistance of his friends.

BEG, v. To ask for something with an earnestness proportioned to the belief that it will not be given.

BEFRIEND, v.t. To make an ingrate.

BEAUTY, n. That power by which a woman charms a lover and terrifies a husband.

BATTLE, n. A method of untying with the teeth of a political knot that would not yield to the tongue.

BATH, n. A kind of mystic ceremony substituted for religious worship, with what spiritual efficacy has not been determined.

BAROMETER, n. An ingenious instrument which indicates what kind of weather we are having.

BAIT, n. A preparation that renders the hook more palatable. The best kind is beauty.

BACKBITE, v.t. To speak of a man as you find him when he can't find you.

BACK, n. That part of your friend which it is your privilege to contemplate in your adversity

BACCHUS, n. A convenient deity invented by the ancients as an excuse for getting drunk.

BABE or BABY, n. A misshapen creature of no particular age, sex, or condition, chiefly remarkable for the violence of the sympathies and antipathies it excites in others, itself without sentiment or emotion.

AUSTRALIA, n. A country lying in the South Sea, whose industrial and commercial development has been unspeakably retarded by an unfortunate dispute among geographers as to whether it is a continent or an island.

AUCTIONEER, n. The man who proclaims with a hammer that he has picked a pocket with his tongue.

ASS, n. A public singer with a good voice but no ear.

ASPERSE, v.t. Maliciously to ascribe to another vicious actions which one has not had the temptation and opportunity to commit.

ARTLESSNESS, n. A certain engaging quality to which women attain by long study and severe practice upon the admiring male, who is pleased to fancy it resembles the candid simplicity of his young.

ART, n. This word has no definition. Its origin is related by the ingenious Father Gassalasca Jape as 'One day a wag what would the wretch be at? Shifted a letter of the cipher RAT, And said it was a god's name! ...'

ARREST, v.t. Formally to detain one accused of unusualness.

ARMOR, n. The kind of clothing worn by a man whose tailor is a blacksmith.

ARENA, n. In politics, an imaginary rat-pit in which the statesman wrestles with his record.

ARDOR, n. The quality that distinguishes love without knowledge.

ARCHITECT, n. One who drafts a plan of your house, and plans a draft of your money.

ARCHBISHOP, n. An ecclesiastical dignitary one point holier than a bishop.

APPETITE, n. An instinct thoughtfully implanted by Providence as a solution to the labor question.

APOSTATE, n. A leech who, having penetrated the shell of a turtle only to find that the creature has long been dead, deems it expedient to form a new attachment to a fresh turtle.

APOLOGIZE, v.i. To lay the foundation for a future offense.

APHORISM, n. Predigested wisdom.

ANTIPATHY, n. The sentiment inspired by one's friend's friend.

AMNESTY, n. The state's magnanimity to those offenders whom it would be too expensive to punish.

AMBITION, n. An overmastering desire to be vilified by enemies while living and made ridiculous by friends when dead.

ALONE, adj. In bad company.

ALLIANCE, n. In international politics, the union of two thieves who have their hands so deeply inserted in each other's pockets that they cannot separately plunder a third.

ALDERMAN, n. An ingenious criminal who covers his secret thieving with a pretense of open marauding.

AIR, n. A nutritious substance supplied by a bountiful Providence for the fattening of the poor.

AIM, n. The task we set our wishes to.

AGITATOR, n. A statesman who shakes the fruit trees of his neighbors to dislodge the worms.

AGE, n. That period of life in which we compound for the vices that we still cherish by reviling those that we no longer have the enterprise to commit.

AFFLICTION, n. An acclimatizing process preparing the soul for another and bitter world.

AFFIANCED, pp. Fitted with an ankle-ring for the ball-and-chain.

ADORE, v.t. To venerate expectantly.

ADOLESCENCE The stage between puberty and adultery.

ADMONITION, n. Gentle reproof, as with a meat-axe. Friendly warning.

ADMIRAL, n. That part of a war-ship which does the talking while the figure-head does the thinking.

ADMINISTRATION, n. An ingenious abstraction in politics, designed to receive the kicks and cuffs due to the premier or president. A man of straw, proof against bad-egging and dead-catting.

ADHERENT, n. A follower who has not yet obtained all that he expects to get.

ADAGE, n. Boned wisdom for weak teeth.

ACTUALLY, adv. Perhaps; possibly.

ACKNOWLEDGE, v.t. To confess. Acknowledgment of one another's faults is the highest duty imposed by our love of truth.

ACHIEVEMENT, n. The death of endeavor and the birth of disgust.

ACCUSE, v.t. To affirm another's guilt or unworth; most commonly as a justification of ourselves for having wronged him.

ACCOUNTABILITY, n. The mother of caution.

ACCORD, n. Harmony./ ACCORDION, n. An instrument in harmony with the sentiments of an assassin.

ACCIDENT, n. An inevitable occurrence due to the action of immutable natural laws.

ACADEME, n. An ancient school where morality and philosophy were taught./ ACADEMY, n. [from ACADEME] A modern school where football is taught.

ABSTAINER, n. A weak person who yields to the temptation of denying himself a pleasure. A total abstainer is one who abstains from everything but abstention, and especially from inactivity in the affairs of others.

ABSCOND, v.i. To 'move in a mysterious way,' commonly with the property of another.

ABRUPT, adj. Sudden, without ceremony, like the arrival of a cannon-shot and the departure of the soldier whose interests are most affected by it.

ABRIDGE, v.t. To shorten.

ABNORMAL, adj. Not conforming to standard. In matters of thought and conduct, to be independent is to be abnormal, to be abnormal is to be detested. Wherefore the lexicographer adviseth a striving toward the straiter [sic] resemblance of the Average Man

ABILITY, n. The natural equipment to accomplish some small part of the meaner ambitions distinguishing able men from dead ones. In the last analysis ability is commonly found to consist mainly in a high degree of solemnity.

Violin, n. An instrument to tickle human ears by friction of a horse's tail on the entrails of a cat.

Prejudice: n. a vagrant opinion without visible means of support.

Modesty, The gentle art of enhancing your charm by pretending not to be aware of it.

LIAR, n. One who tells an unpleasant truth.

Think twice before you speak to a friend in need.

Dawn, n. Certain old men prefer to rise at about that time, taking a cold bath and a long walk with an empty stomach, and otherwise mortifying the flesh. They then point with pride to these practices as the cause of their sturdy health and ripe years; the truth being that they are hearty and old, not because of their habits, but in spite of them. The reason we find only robust persons doing this thing is that it has killed all the others who have tried it.

Certainty, When one is mistaken at the top of ones voice.

The gambling known as business looks with austere disfavor on the business known as gambling.

Boundary: n. in political geography, an imaginary line between two nations, separating the imaginary rights of one from the imaginary rights of the other.

Bore: n. a person who talks when you wish him to listen.

Aristocrats: n. fellows that wear downy hats and clean shirts guilty of education and suspected of bank accounts.

Applause: n. the echo of a platitude.

Advice: n. to seek anothers approval of a course already decided upon.

Advice: n. the smallest current coin.

Admiration: n. our polite recognition of another's resemblance to ourselves.

Acquaintance: a person whom we know well enough to borrow from, but not well enough to lend to.

Acquaintance: a degree of friendship called slight when its object is poor or obscure, and intimate when he is rich or famous.

Absurdity, n. A statement or belief manifestly inconsistent with one's own opinion.

PROPERTY, n. Any material thing, having no particular value, that may be held by A against the cupidity of B. Whatever gratifies the passion for possession in one and disappoints it in all others.

PROOF-READER, n. A malefactor who atones for making your writing nonsense by permitting the compositor to make it unintelligible.

PROOF, n. Evidence having a shade more of plausibility than of unlikelihood. The testimony of two credible witnesses as opposed to that of only one.

PROJECTILE, n. The final arbiter in international disputes. With the growth of prudence in military affairs the projectile came more and more into favor, and is now held in high esteem by the most courageous.

PROBOSCIS, n. The rudimentary organ of an elephant which serves him in place of the knife-and-fork that Evolution has as yet denied him. For purposes of humor it is popularly called a trunk.

PRIVATE, n. A military gentleman with a field-marshal's baton in his knapsack and an impediment in his hope.

PRISON, n. A place of punishments and rewards. The poet assures us that 'Stone walls do not a prison make,' but a combination of the stone wall, the political parasite and the moral instructor is no garden of sweets.

PRICE, n. Value, plus a reasonable sum for the wear and tear of conscience in demanding it.

PRESIDENT, n. The leading figure in a small group of men of whom and of whom only it is positively known that immense numbers of their countrymen did not want any of them for President.

PRESIDENCY, n. The greased pig in the field game of American politics.

PRESIDE, v. To guide the action of a deliberative body to a desirable result. In Journalese, to perform upon a musical instrument; as, 'He presided at the piccolo.'

PRESENTABLE, adj. Hideously appareled after the manner of the time and place.

PRESENT, n. That part of eternity dividing the domain of disappointment from the realm of hope.

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