There's a man with a Nose
There's nothing vital in the eggs they've laid;
These all must quickly pass away
These gamblers take your cash."
these individual probabilities that make the aggregate
These particulars is mentioned
Thet non coude pas on eyder syde;
They all were good for all were males.
They buried him where he lay
They cannot struggle half an inch!
They dared not close an eyeâdared not
They give me the cat-o'-nine
they have paid you as much as you must pay them? The case
They locked horns with him tete-a-tete
They named him Sheriff. The affair
They never had not read before.
They say 'tis conscience feels compunction;
They say that hens do cackle loudest when
they seem to the unthinking a kind of credibility.
They sent him to jail and they'll send him toâwell
They still rebuffed him for he was detected.
They stood before the altar and supplied
They took away his vote and gave instead
they were a rebuke represented them as vices. They are here
They'd all escaped through the meshes.
They're not entirely different from the hen.
They're visible unveiled.
They're working by night and by day
Thine own thy neighbor doth caress
Think twice before you speak to a friend in need.
Thinketh to cleanliness he's wed
Thinking the laughter of the scribes
This "excommunication" is a word
This added fault: it made him mad
This all audible big-smiling
This commonwealth's capitol's corridors view
This is a truth as old as the hills
This quaint sweet song sang she;
This tariff makes even devils cheat!
This thing and thought may be
This thing Allegiance as I suppose
This view of it which better far expressed
Thou hadst not perished by the law of libel.
Thou shalt no God but me adore:
Thou shalt not pay thy butcher's bill.
Thou'dst better make him by decree
Though hard indeed the task to get it in
Though he didn't care two figs
Though he never was heard
Though he's livin' none would know him
Though Hebrew and Howison cannot agree
Thought fled and left her clothing which they took
Through all thy maze his brothers fool and dunce
through my own neck! Father of the Moon I resign my office."
Through to the end; the golden goal
Throughout eternal space dread silence fell;
Thy great invention the unfatal feast
Thy praise is ever on the tongue
Thy spirit (usefully employed) in Hell.
Thyself inspiring me the song of praise.
Tightened the rivets and inscribed his own.
Till wrecked in his fortune
Till its black hide distended with bad blood
Till Democrats forlorn and lone
Till Deth released the dear deceased
Till fatter it grew than the fattest friar
Till his head begun to swim.
Till Neddy was pretty well rested.
Till tears of sentiment expressed
Till the rocks and the flocks and the trees that grew
Till the Shah in a rage sent a trusty page
Till the strength of the beast was o'ertested;
Time to the dead so all unreckoned flies
To a very remarkable heightâ
To accept the homage of a dying reign!
To accept the tyrant of his party's choice.
To all the virtues he possessed
To an open keyhole heard inside
To battle: "The brokers are parasites all!"
To be told how every member stands
To bear to happy hunting-grounds the corse.
To beg was unlawfulâimproper as well.
To bind the chains about her feet
To bring the early peas on.
To censure freely and fault to find
To chapel engaged in colloquial frayâ
To come again and part him from his roll.
To confidences straight they fell
To do them nicely to a turn
To ecclesiastical service.
To entoken and give warning
to estop as to forestall mine own tort. Wherefore if I would be
To falsehood of so desperate a sort.
To fiddle-faddle in a minor key.
To fix itself upon a part diseased
To follow the new fashion.
To further proceedings in its behalf.
To have been a simple and undamned spectator.
To him secure that he'll perform his trust
To History she'll be no royal riddleâ
To joy in the thick of the fray.
To know another man was bad.
To know that's what you would have done."
To laughâhe had no sleeveâthe thing
To Leonard's resignationâ
To live my life out in some favored spotâ
To look at and I do not doubt it aches.
To love that is unlawful.
To make it plastic for the mould.
To make new sacrifices at thine altar!
To make the March of Mind a wild stampede;
To make the royal way less rough.
To match all living things He'd made
To me my fair and rightful prey
To medicine the spirit were compounded
To men a man is but a mind. Who cares
To mend their lives and to sustain his own
To mitigate the miser's joy
To my spirit in the skies
To my undoing my own lies;
To Nero Rome replied: "Pray do your worst
To one who journeying through night and fog
To pierce although to angels' eyes
To poets all Nature is pregnant with grand
To prove this unbelieving dog redundant."
To rise at any hour of night
To Rome said Nero: "If to smoke you turn
To safer villainies of darker dye
To say: "I'm great because I'm good!"
To see the sun setting in glory
To serve his temple and maintain the fires
To set with monarchses of thought
To set your wisdom (holding not a doubt of it
To sit at his feet and hear and hear
To smell the sweetness of the Lord's anointed.
To so great a height that they called the wight
To something dark and dreary
To split a rival like a fish or slice
To stand high-pinnacled upon the peak
To stay the shadow on the dial's face
To steal (they call it "cornering") our bread
To swell the revenue. "So great
To the adjacent village of Xelam
To the business of being a lord himself.
To the capitol's door and announced his name.
To the question as submitted
To the succeeding royalty he leaves
To thee in worship do I bend the knee
To think the God of Swine has snout and bristles.
To thrifty J. Macpherson;
To Truth; though I suspect the aged knave
To utter the abhorrent word
To whom the Grand Vizier with mien impressive
To-night (if it be dark) shall try.
Tolerationâthat's all very well
tong ye same as "rapscal" in our owne.
Took action first and then his dinner.
Tranquillity o'er all around.
True I believe the only sinner
True spinsters spin adown the way
Twaddle said: "I'll grovel
Two female gossips in converse freeâ
Two Seidlitz powders one in blue
Two theologues once as they wended their way
Unfinished prophecy and witch-fires freak
Ungrateful he who afterward would falter
Unheard by him who slumbered
Unless I'm greatly lying.
Unless Thou dost establish birth"â
Unlike that reptile he will not let go.
unmovedcommand him to blow his nose with his fingers.
Unmoved that awful vision stood.
Until to buy babes he has squandered
Unworthy the father-in-legal care
Upon a dwelling whose magnificence
Upon a rigorous examination
Upon Minerva's temple walls
Upon my forehead and along my spine.
Upon some stars bestowed her name.
Upon the Deputy's bent back
Upon the pestilential blast
Upon your knees if you appear
violently from him. Nothing occurred: the performance prospered
vitalizing wishes have been pestilently disregarded. With joy I
volumes each. So how can any one know?
Was "Bread!" ever "Bread!"
Was "cursed." But that is all symbolic:
Was given to the cheerful flame.
Was just as bad as he could be.
Was musing on a distant hillâ
Was one day with a tarry coat
Was wroth at his master who'd kissed Lady Port.
Waving his robe of office. Straight
We dig them out of ruins now
We know better the needs of ourselves than of others. To
We must awake Man's spirit from his sin
We must fix the premium so that you will have paid more.
We must knight our dogs to get any lower.
We plunder his tomb be he sinner or saint
We saw a wild hyena slink
We'd grapple one another's ears alway:
We'll cheerfully divide with you."
We're never for an hour without it."
We're not that way at present
Wedded a wandering English lordâ
Wedded and took him to dwell with her "paw
Well I suppose this new regime
Well skilled to overeat without distress!
Well-buttered eels you may o'erwhelm
Were an impressive martial spectacle
Were convalescent ere they knew they had 'em.
Wh. he of Scottlande charmed awaye.
What face he carries or what form he wears?
What is worth doing is worth the trouble of asking somebody to do it.
What should they do? They were not hot
What though of all man's works your tomb alone
What would they have?âalthough I yearn
What's Satan done that him you should eschew?
What's the matter with pie?
What's this that's found upon the ground?
Whate'er occurs God wills it so. Good land!
Whatever he gained the loss was ours.
Whatever is is so by Right Divine;
When with a Titan's energy and strength
When Adam long ago in Cupid's awful court
When all was absurd and phantasmagoric.
When danger threatened them below.
When David said: "All men are liars Dave,
When e'er we let the wine rest.
When even his dog deserts him and his goat
When from the cloudless sky there fell
When I was young the world was fair
When I was young the year extended
When ignorance from out of our lives can banish
When in the course of human events it becomes necessary for
When Jove sent blessings to all men that are
When kicked by a jackass at eighty-three
When Man's extinct a better world may see
When on thy stool of penitence I sit
When pure it makes you lame.
When straightway to the floor there fell
When the great Gichi-Kuktai was Mikado he condemned to
When the world was young and Man was new
When visiting a graveyard stood
When you came to think it out
When Zeal sought Gratitude for his reward
Whence thank the good Lord
Whence this audible big-smiling
Where all the pictures you arrange
Where every prospect pleases
Where he met a mendicant monk
Where long the village rubbish had been shot
Where saints apparelled all in white
Where solemn shadows all the land invest
Where the beast was stabled and fed
Where the cobbler is unknown
Where there's a will there's a won't.
Where there's nobody to love him
Where they each respective
Where they were perching for the night.
Where thundered once Olympian Zeus
Whereby my broilers every one
Whereby that organ is kept rightly pointed
Wherein he blundered and how much he lied.
Wherein is nothing yet all things do seem:
Wherein you paste the printed gibes
Wherewith all matters here below
Whether on the gallows high
Whether the word is a verb or a noun
Which darkened half the earth he drew
Which does no more than just commence
Which I wasn't first intentioned
Which mortal sight has failed
Which they published nextâ
Which was (as well the crafty seer
While all the church bells made a solemn dinâ
While his shoulders overlook it?
While I looked he reared him solemnly that incandescent youth
While I retire to question Fate."
While in yt londe I was carried to see ye Ghogo tree whereof
While it was turning nice and brown
While Nick unseen threw some away.
While rivers from their courses rolled
While still you're possessed of a single baubee
While they were turning him on t'other side.
While yet it hangs upon his back; then thou
While youâyou Supralapsarian pup!â
While your friend holds you affectionately by both your hands
whirled it in air and then
whistles and wearing silken bristles
white as the snows on the summit of Fujiama. His legs trembled
Who began to lift his noddle.
Who bought a meerschaum pipe and swore
Who came to draw remain to pay.
Who damned her from the altar!
Who differs from me in his faith is an 'ist
Who entered the confessional
Who have what you are lacking."
Who held out his hands and cried:
Who hoards with greed that never tires
Who load their skins with liquorâ
Who loot in freight and spoliate in fares
Who might for all we know
Who never shot (it were a vain attack)
Who never since has cursed me to repay
Who own you for their sovereign I've
Who played the tambourine;
Who preach abstemiousness unto meâ
who should have been at that time ten minutes dead!
Who showed us life as all should live it;
Who turned to stone the Greeks of old
Who with great gravity said: "Wait
Who'd give their lords to save their hair
Who'd think this gorgeous creature's only virtue
Whom Dispossession with alluring wile
Whom no elector e'er denied a vote!â
Whom rascals appoint and the populace pays
Whom thrifty settler ne'er besought to stayâ
Whose 'lips are sealed' and will not disavow!"
Whose business 'tis to drive the tongue or pen
Whose eyes diffused a melancholy light.
Whose gratitude impelled him to proclaim:
Whose is the sanction of their state and pow'r?
Whose loss is our eternal gain
Whose premises adjoin it claims
Whose simple appetite untaught to stray
Whose tax-collectors could not wring
Whose the thoughtless hand that gave your
Whose was it?âfor the dead keep naught.
Why back there in Dreamland
Why what assurance have you 'twould be so?
Why did they put him there father?
Why the great deeps of the spirit
Why the unplummeted abysmus
Will get more of punches than pence.
Will ride to the devil!"âand thump
Will scarcely meet them. Pray reflect:
William Bryan he has Caught It
Wishing he had died when little
With a holy leer and a pious grin
With a most just discrimination founded
With a record of unreason seldom paralleled on earth.
With a tireless tongue and a brazen lung
With a true tongue honest Injun:
With a white heart tumpitumpy
With all the world; the mad race run
With all thine offspring thronged from every land
With bandinage the Solemn Sex!
With barley and oil and bread
With battle-chaps on fields of fame
With brambles 'twas encumbered;
With Citizen Mendicant all is not well.
With clamor from the trees o'erhead
With deaf attention scarcely deigns to look.
With deviltry did so accord
With dirty vapors of the boiling.
With dropping shots he makes him sick.
With equal power they contend.
With feet folded up so demurelyâ
With Heaven's taboo to palter;
With his bill his william
With his head retracted inly
With his own fangs inflict the fatal wound.
With his wing-tips crossed behind him
With imposing rites in the White Man's head.
With its labial extension
With its maxillar distortion
With lifted hands Miss Charlotte stands
With little to wear he had nothing to sell;
With living things had stocked the earth.
With lusty lung here on his western strand
With my most trusted minister."
With others for sins that I'm not inclined
With penetration to pierce any cloud
With pious mien appropriately sad
With plated-ware we now compress
With reason as thy touch exact and free
with reference to any one of them that he will. It is
With skill will set the human fist a-moving
With the hot grape I warm no more my wit;
With tranquil disaffection chews his coat
With tranquil face upon that holy show
With veneration I am overcome
With vollied prayers you wound Old Nick;
With windows closed you are asthmatic;
Within that bowel of compassion.
Within the shadow of a wall.
Women in love are less ashamed than men. They have less to be
Work not on Sabbath days at all
world died on the Sandwich Islands and was devoured by savages
Would fly abandoned Virtue's gross advances.
Would hale him to the nearest tree
Would it advantage you to dwell therein
Would know the dream and vision ne'er again.
would otherwise have paid to youâamounting to more than the
wrought upon still another the which it is as manifestly my duty
Ye Kynge his evill in me laye
Ye wrongly interpret the names that they bear.
Yea yesterday my soul was all aflame
years somebody objects to its operation against himselfâI
Yet feels the narrow limits that impound him
Yet Heaven has had the designing of me
Yields to some pathologic strain
You a total abstainer my son."
you are safe for you can watch both his.
You ask me how this miracle is done?
You differ from the anchorite
You know how Adam with good reason
You lackâexcuse my mentioning itâSoul.
you money on the supposition that something will occur
You sit there so calm and securely
You slip on a peel of banana brown.
You thrust from jail consumed in getting back."
You will repent and join the Church Parnell?
You'd never be content this side the tombâ
You'll have no hand in it at all.
You'll think you scarcely can have closed your eyes.
You're self-satisfied unduly.
You're the First Person Singular surely.
YouâInfralapsarian son of a clown!â
your clients that they lose money on you it is probable
Your criminal ranks may the death angel thin
Your doom I'll mollify and pains abate.
Your favor for a moment's space denied
Your friends in Illinois when held in thrall."
Your funny figure and your strange
Your gait's between a stagger and a sprawl.
Your progeny in power and control
Your soul's stained white with ichorshed!"
Your spirit into everything!"
Your sycophantic disposition's trend
Your talent to the service of a goat
Your throat and shake you like a rat. You know
Youth is the true Saturnian Reign the Golden Age on earth
'Course not, said he: "the feller's deadâ
'Tis better you should eat it, pet,
'Twas Predestination, cried oneâ"for the Lord
(from the headstone of a British nobleman in Kalamazoo)
(in a funeral sermon over a British nobleman)
A little present for you.
A pessimist applied to God for relief.
ABASEMENT,n. A decent and customary mental attitude in the presence of wealth or power. Peculiarly appropriate in an employee when addressing an employer.
ABATIS n. Rubbish in front of a fort
ABDICATION n. An act whereby a sovereign attests his sense of the high temperature of the throne.
ABDOMEN n. The temple of the god Stomach
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. Perhaps
ABNORMAL adj. Not conforming to standard. In matters of thought and conduct
ABORIGINIES n. Persons of little worth found cumbering the soil of a newly discovered country. They soon cease to cumber; they fertilize.
ABSCOND v.i. To "move in a mysterious way
ABSENT adj. Peculiarly exposed to the tooth of detraction; vilifed; hopelessly in the wrong; superseded in the consideration and affection of another.
ABSENTEE n. A person with an income who has had the forethought to remove himself from the sphere of exaction.
ABSOLUTE adj. Independent
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
ABSURDITY n. A statement or belief manifestly inconsistent with one's own opinion.
ACADEME n. An ancient school where morality and philosophy were taught.
ACADEMY n. [from ACADEME] A modern school where football is taught.
ACCIDENT n. An inevitable occurrence due to the action of immutable natural laws.
ACCOMPLICE n. One associated with another in a crime
ACCORDION n. An instrument in harmony with the sentiments of an assassin.
ACCOUNTABILITY n. The mother of caution.
Accounting for the uncommon behavior of ghosts Heine mentions somebody's ingenious theory to the effect that they are as much afraid of us as we of them. Not quite
ACCUSE v.t. To affirm another's guilt or unworth; most commonly as a justification of ourselves for having wronged him.
ACEPHALOUS adj. In the surprising condition of the Crusader who absently pulled at his forelock some hours after a Saracen scimitar had
ACHIEVEMENT n. The death of endeavor and the birth of disgust.
ACKNOWLEDGE v.t. To confess. Acknowledgement of one another's faults is the highest duty imposed by our love of truth.
ACQUAINTANCE n. A person whom we know well enough to borrow from
Actions can't here be that way prosecuted.
ACTUALLY adv. Perhaps; possibly.
ADAGE n. Boned wisdom for weak teeth.
Adam rose and with a reproachful look got down on all fours in the manner of his kind and scuffling across the room to a table
ADAMANT n. A mineral frequently found beneath a corset. Soluble in solicitate of gold.
ADDER n. A species of snake. So called from its habit of adding funeral outlays to the other expenses of living.
ADHERENT n. A follower who has not yet obtained all that he expects to get.
ADMINISTRATION n. An ingenious abstraction in politics
ADMIRAL n. That part of a war-ship which does the talking while the figure-head does the thinking.
ADMIRATION n. Our polite recognition of another's resemblance to ourselves.
ADMONITION n. Gentle reproof
ADORE v.t. To venerate expectantly.
ADVICE n. The smallest current coin.
AFFIANCED pp. Fitted with an ankle-ring for the ball-and-chain.
AFFLICTION n. An acclimatizing process preparing the soul for another and bitter world.
Affliction sore long time she boar,
AFRICAN n. A nigger that votes our way.
AGE n. That period of life in which we compound for the vices that we still cherish by reviling those that we have no longer the enterprise to commit.
aged 27 yrs. 4 mos. and 12 ds. Indigenous."
AGITATOR n. A statesman who shakes the fruit trees of his neighbors âto dislodge the worms.
Ah, yes, said the neglected bride
Ah, you wish me to restore your hope and cheerfulness, said God.
AIR n. A nutritious substance supplied by a bountiful Providence for the fattening of the poor.
ALDERMAN n. An ingenious criminal who covers his secret thieving with a pretence of open marauding.
ALIEN n. An American sovereign in his probationary state.
All men are ingrates, sneered the cynic. "Nay
ALLAH n. The Mahometan Supreme Being
ALLIANCE n. In international politics
ALLIGATOR n. The crocodile of America
ALONE adj. In bad company.
ALTAR n. The place whereupon the priest formerly raveled out the small intestine of the sacrificial victim for purposes of divination and cooked its flesh for the gods. The word is now seldom used
AMBIDEXTROUS adj. Able to pick with equal skill a right-hand pocket or a left.
AMBITION n. An overmastering desire to be vilified by enemies while living and made ridiculous by friends when dead.
Amica curiae, she repliedâ
AMNESTY n. The state's magnanimity to those offenders whom it would be too expensive to punish.
Among the ancients the idea of Hades was not synonymous with our Hell many of the most respectable men of antiquity residing there in a very comfortable kind of way. Indeed
Among the Anglo-Saxon a subject conceiving himself wronged by the king was permitted on proving his injury
An aim? Well, no, I haven't, wife;
An ancient philosopher expounding his conviction that life is no better than death
An English sea-captain being asked if he had read "The Exile of Erin replied: No
An ointment for my cracked and bleeding crown.
An old wine-bibber having been smashed in a railway collision some wine was pouted on his lips to revive him. "Pauillac
and after supper they agreed to tell robber stories in turn. "Once
And how many impenetrable battleships strike terror to the hearts of all Christian swine? he asked the Imaum of the Ever Victorious Navy.
ANOINT v.t. To grease a king or other great functionary already sufficiently slippery.
ANTIPATHY n. The sentiment inspired by one's friend's friend.
APHORISM n. Predigested wisdom.
APOLOGIZE v.i. To lay the foundation for a future offence.
APOTHECARY n. The physician's accomplice
APPETITE n. An instinct thoughtfully implanted by Providence as a solution to the labor question.
APPLAUSE n. The echo of a platitude.
APRIL FOOL n. The March fool with another month added to his folly.
ARCHBISHOP n. An ecclesiastical dignitary one point holier than a bishop.
ARCHITECT n. One who drafts a plan of your house
ARDOR n. The quality that distinguishes love without knowledge.
ARISTOCRACY n. Government by the best men. (In this sense the word is obsolete; so is that kind of government.) Fellows that wear downy hats and clean shirtsâguilty of education and suspected of bank accounts.
ARMOR n. The kind of clothing worn by a man whose tailor is a blacksmith.
ARRAYED pp. Drawn up and given an orderly disposition
ARREST v.t. Formally to detain one accused of unusualness.
ARSENIC n. A kind of cosmetic greatly affected by the ladies
ART n. This word has no definition. Its origin is related as follows by the ingenious Father Gassalasca Jape
ARTLESSNESS n. A certain engaging quality to which women attain by long study and severe practice upon the admiring male
arts and industries. The question of its economical application to
As long, poor soul, as any of the pack
As long, sweet demon, let my respite be
as the "Doctor" in Macbeth hath it. This useful property of the royal hand could it appears
Asked how he knew that an elephant was going on a journey the illustrious Jo. Miller cast a reproachful look upon his tormentor
ASPERSE v.t. Maliciously to ascribe to another vicious actions which one has not had the temptation and opportunity to commit.
ASS n. A public singer with a good voice but no ear. In Virginia City
AUCTIONEER n. The man who proclaims with a hammer that he has picked a pocket with his tongue.
AUSTRALIA n. A country lying in the South Sea
AVERNUS n. The lake by which the ancients entered the infernal regions. The fact that access to the infernal regions was obtained by a lake is believed by the learned Marcus Ansello Scrutator to have suggested the Christian rite of baptism by immersion. This
BABE or BABY n. A misshapen creature of no particular age
BACCHUS n. A convenient deity invented by the ancients as an excuse for getting drunk.
BACK n. That part of your friend which it is your privilege to contemplate in your adversity.
BACKBITE v.t. To speak of a man as you find him when he can't find you.
BAIT n. A preparation that renders the hook more palatable. The best kind is beauty.
BAPTISM n. A sacred rite of such efficacy that he who finds himself in heaven without having undergone it will be unhappy forever. It is performed with water in two waysâby immersion
BAROMETER n. An ingenious instrument which indicates what kind of weather we are having.
BARRACK n. A house in which soldiers enjoy a portion of that of which it is their business to deprive others.
BASILISK n. The cockatrice. A sort of serpent hatched from the egg of a cock. The basilisk had a bad eye
BASTINADO n. The act of walking on wood without exertion.
BATH n. A kind of mystic ceremony substituted for religious worship
BATTLE n. A method of untying with the teeth of a political knot that would not yield to the tongue.
Be gone! Ye ill no longer stayd.
Be good, be good! the sisterhood
BEARD n. The hair that is commonly cut off by those who justly execrate the absurd Chinese custom of shaving the head.
BEAUTY n. The power by which a woman charms a lover and terrifies a husband.
Because, 'twas answeredothers lack
BEFRIEND v.t. To make an ingrate.
BEG v. To ask for something with an earnestness proportioned to the belief that it will not be given.
BEGGAR n. One who has relied on the assistance of his friends.
Begone! he shoutedâ"there's the doorâ
Behold great Daubert's picture here on viewâ
Behold, rash mortal, whom you've bledâ
BELLADONNA n. In Italian a beautiful lady; in English a deadly poison. A striking example of the essential identity of the two tongues.
BENEDICTINES n. An order of monks otherwise known as black friars.
BENEFACTOR n. One who makes heavy purchases of ingratitude
BERENICE'S HAIR n. A constellation (Coma Berenices) named in honor of one who sacrificed her hair to save her husband.
BIGAMY n. A mistake in taste for which the wisdom of the future will adjudge a punishment called trigamy.
BIGOT n. One who is obstinately and zealously attached to an opinion that you do not entertain.
BILLINGSGATE n. The invective of an opponent.
Biography of Bishop Potter
BIRTH n. The first and direst of all disasters. As to the nature of it there appears to be no uniformity. Castor and Pollux were born from the egg. Pallas came out of a skull. Galatea was once a block of stone. Peresilis
Black friars in this world, fried black in the next.
BLACKGUARD n. A man whose qualities
BLANK-VERSE n. Unrhymed iambic pentametersâthe most difficult kind of English verse to write acceptably; a kind
BODY-SNATCHER n. A robber of grave-worms. One who supplies the young physicians with that with which the old physicians have supplied the undertaker. The hyena.
BORE n. A person who talks when you wish him to listen.
BOTANY n. The science of vegetablesâthose that are not good to eat
BOTTLE-NOSED adj. Having a nose created in the image of its maker.
BOUNDARY n. In political geography
BOUNTY n. The liberality of one who has much
BRAHMA n. He who created the Hindoos
BRAIN n. An apparatus with which we think what we think. That which distinguishes the man who is content to be something from the man who wishes to do something. A man of great wealth
BRANDY n. A cordial composed of one part thunder-and-lightning
BRIDE n. A woman with a fine prospect of happiness behind her.
but a combination of the stone wall the political parasite and the moral instructor is no garden of sweets.
but Agammemnon's fame suffers no diminution in consequence. The monument custom has its reductiones ad absurdum in monuments "to the unknown dead"âthat is to say monuments to perpetuate the memory of those who have left no memory.
But as records of courts of justice are admissible it can easily be proved that powerful and malevolent magicians once existed and were a scourge to mankind. The evidence (including confession) upon which certain women were convicted of witchcraft and executed was without a flaw; it is still unimpeachable. The judges' decisions based on it were sound in logic and in law. Nothing in any existing court was ever more thoroughly proved than the charges of witchcraft and sorcery for which so many suffered death. If there were no witches
But not, sir, a bigoted one.
But since thy stubborn heart will be
But the gift somewhere dropped out of the line of succession: the later sovereigns of England have not been tactual healers and the disease once honored with the name "king's evil" now bears the humbler one of "scrofula
But, bedad, it's a fact which the word implies,
By these we swear he shall forsake
CABBAGE n. A familiar kitchen-garden vegetable about as large and wise as a man's head.
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
CALLOUS adj. Gifted with great fortitude to bear the evils afflicting another.
CALUMNUS n. A graduate of the School for Scandal.
CAMEL n. A quadruped (the Splaypes humpidorsus) of great value to the show business. There are two kinds of camelsâthe camel proper and the camel improper. It is the latter that is always exhibited.
CANNIBAL n. A gastronome of the old school who preserves the simple tastes and adheres to the natural diet of the pre-pork period.
CANNON n. An instrument employed in the rectification of national boundaries.
CANONICALS n. The motley worn by Jesters of the Court of Heaven.
CAPITAL n. The seat of misgovernment. That which provides the fire
Captains of industry refused his hand
CARMELITE n. A mendicant friar of the order of Mount Carmel.
CARNIVOROUS adj. Addicted to the cruelty of devouring the timorous vegetarian
CARTESIAN adj. Relating to Descartes
CAVILER n. A critic of our own work.
CEMETERY n. An isolated suburban spot where mourners match lies
CENTAUR n. One of a race of persons who lived before the division of labor had been carried to such a pitch of differentiation
CERBERUS n. The watch-dog of Hades
Champ, it is not right to leave that mule out there in the sun. He'll roast, sure!âhe was smoking as I passed him.
Cheer up! Have you no aim in life?
Chief Deputy, the Master cried
CHILDHOOD n. The period of human life intermediate between the idiocy of infancy and the folly of youthâtwo removes from the sin of manhood and three from the remorse of age.
CHRISTIAN n. One who believes that the New Testament is a divinely inspired book admirably suited to the spiritual needs of his neighbor. One who follows the teachings of Christ in so far as they are not inconsistent with a life of sin.
Chronicles of the Classes
CIRCUS n. A place where horses
CLARIONET n. An instrument of torture operated by a person with cotton in his ears. There are two instruments that are worse than a clarionetâtwo clarionets.
Clear out! he crieddisordered wench!
CLERGYMAN n. A man who undertakes the management of our spiritual affairs as a method of bettering his temporal ones.
CLIO n. One of the nine Muses. Clio's function was to preside over historyâwhich she did with great dignity
CLOCK n. A machine of great moral value to man
CLOSE-FISTED adj. Unduly desirous of keeping that which many meritorious persons wish to obtain.
Close-fisted Scotchman! Johnson cried
Cloudy; variable winds, with local showers; cooler; snow.
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.
Come to think, I don't either, said Joy; "but I see General Miles coming down the avenue and that pageant always affects me in the same way as a brass band. One has to scrutinize one's impressions pretty closely
COMFORT n. A state of mind produced by contemplation of a neighbor's uneasiness.
COMMENDATION n. The tribute that we pay to achievements that resembles
COMMERCE n. A kind of transaction in which A plunders from B the goods of C
COMMONWEALTH n. An administrative entity operated by an incalculable multitude of political parasites
companion lodged at a wayside inn. The surroundings were suggestive
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
COMPULSION n. The eloquence of power.
Concerning the nature of the soul, saith the renowned author of Diversiones Sanctorumthere hath been hardly more argument than that of its place in the body. Mine own belief is that the soul hath her seat in the abdomenâin which faith we may discern and interpret a truth hitherto unintelligible, namely that the glutton is of all men most devout. He is said in the Scripture to 'make a god of his belly' âwhy, then, should he not be pious, having ever his Deity with him to freshen his faith? Who so well as he can know the might and majesty that he shrines? Truly and soberly, the soul and the stomach are one Divine Entity; and such was the belief of Promasius, who nevertheless erred in denying it immortality. He had observed that its visible and material substance failed and decayed with the rest of the body after death, but of its immaterial essence he knew nothing. This is what we call the Appetite, and it survives the wreck and reek of mortality, to be rewarded or punished in another world, according to what it hath demanded in the flesh. The Appetite whose coarse clamoring was for the unwholesome viands of the general market and the public refectory shall be cast into eternal famine, whilst that which firmly though civilly insisted on ortolans, caviare, terrapin, anchovies, pates de foie gras and all such Christian comestibles shall flesh its spiritual tooth in the souls of them forever and ever, and wreak its divine thirst upon the immortal parts of the rarest and richest wines ever quaffed here below. Such is my religious faith, though I grieve to confess that neither His Holiness the Pope nor His Grace the Archbishop of Canterbury (whom I equally and profoundly revere) will assent to its dissemination.
Conclusion: Sixty men can dig a posthole in one second.
CONDOLE v.i. To show that bereavement is a smaller evil than sympathy.
CONGRATULATION n. The civility of envy.
CONGRESS n. A body of men who meet to repeal laws.
CONNOISSEUR n. A specialist who knows everything about something and nothing about anything else.
CONSERVATIVE n. A statesman who is enamored of existing evils
CONSOLATION n. The knowledge that a better man is more unfortunate than yourself.
CONSUL n. In American politics
CONSULT v.i. To seek another's disapproval of a course already decided on.
CONTEMPT n. The feeling of a prudent man for an enemy who is too formidable safely to be opposed.
CONTROVERSY n. A battle in which spittle or ink replaces the injurious cannon-ball and the inconsiderate bayonet.
CONVENT n. A place of retirement for woman who wish for leisure to meditate upon the vice of idleness.
CONVERSATION n. A fair for the display of the minor mental commodities
CORONATION n. The ceremony of investing a sovereign with the outward and visible signs of his divine right to be blown skyhigh with a dynamite bomb.
CORPORAL n. A man who occupies the lowest rung of the military ladder.
CORPORATION n. An ingenious device for obtaining individual profit without individual responsibility.
CORSAIR n. A politician of the seas.
COURT FOOL n. The plaintiff.
COWARD n. One who in a perilous emergency thinks with his legs.
CRAYFISH n. A small crustacean very much resembling the lobster
CREDITOR n. One of a tribe of savages dwelling beyond the Financial Straits and dreaded for their desolating incursions.
CREMONA n. A high-priced violin made in Connecticut.
CRITIC n. A person who boasts himself hard to please because nobody tries to please him.
CROSS n. An ancient religious symbol erroneously supposed to owe its significance to the most solemn event in the history of Christianity
CUI BONO? [Latin] What good would that do me?
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."
CUPID n. The so-called god of love. This bastard creation of a barbarous fancy was no doubt inflicted upon mythology for the sins of its deities. Of all unbeautiful and inappropriate conceptions this is the most reasonless and offensive. The notion of symbolizing sexual love by a semisexless babe
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.
CURSE v.t. Energetically to belabor with a verbal slap-stick. This is an operation which in literature
CYNIC n. A blackguard whose faulty vision sees things as they are
DANCE v.i. To leap about to the sound of tittering music
DARING n. One of the most conspicuous qualities of a man in security.
DATARY n. A high ecclesiastic official of the Roman Catholic Church
Daughter, the mimic priest replied
DAWN n. The time when men of reason go to bed. Certain old men prefer to rise at about that time
DAY n. A period of twenty-four hours
DEBAUCHEE n. One who has so earnestly pursued pleasure that he has had the misfortune to overtake it.
DEBT n. An ingenious substitute for the chain and whip of the slave-driver.
DECALOGUE n. A series of commandments
DECIDE v.i. To succumb to the preponderance of one set of influences over another set.
Decks are no longer holystoned but the cable still supplies the captain with opportunity to attest a pious respect for the divine ordinance.
DEFAME v.t. To lie about another. To tell the truth about another.
DEFENCELESS adj. Unable to attack.
DEGENERATE adj. Less conspicuously admirable than one's ancestors. The contemporaries of Homer were striking examples of degeneracy; it required ten of them to raise a rock or a riot that one of the heroes of the Trojan war could have raised with ease. Homer never tires of sneering at "men who live in these degenerate days
DEGRADATION n. One of the stages of moral and social progress from private station to political preferment.
DEINOTHERIUM n. An extinct pachyderm that flourished when the Pterodactyl was in fashion. The latter was a native of Ireland
DEJEUNER n. The breakfast of an American who has been in Paris. Variously pronounced.
DELEGATION n. In American politics
DELIBERATION n. The act of examining one's bread to determine which side it is buttered on.
DELUGE n. A notable first experiment in baptism which washed away the sins (and sinners) of the world.
DELUSION n. The father of a most respectable family
DENTIST n. A prestidigitator who
DEPENDENT adj. Reliant upon another's generosity for the support which you are not in a position to exact from his fears.
DEPUTY n. A male relative of an office-holder
DESTINY n. A tyrant's authority for crime and fool's excuse for failure.
DIAGNOSIS n. A physician's forecast of the disease by the patient's pulse and purse.
DIAPHRAGM n. A muscular partition separating disorders of the chest from disorders of the bowels.
DIARY n. A daily record of that part of one's life
DICTATOR n. The chief of a nation that prefers the pestilence of despotism to the plague of anarchy.
DICTIONARY n. A malevolent literary device for cramping the growth of a language and making it hard and inelastic. This dictionary
DIE n. The singular of "dice." We seldom hear the word
DIGESTION n. The conversion of victuals into virtues. When the process is imperfect
DIPLOMACY n. The patriotic art of lying for one's country.
DISABUSE v.t. To present your neighbor with another and better error than the one which he has deemed it advantageous to embrace.
DISCRIMINATE v.i. To note the particulars in which one person or thing is
DISCUSSION n. A method of confirming others in their errors.
DISOBEDIENCE n. The silver lining to the cloud of servitude.
DISOBEY v.t. To celebrate with an appropriate ceremony the maturity of a command.
Disraeli once described the manner of Bishop Wilberforce as "unctuous oleaginous
DISSEMBLE v.i. To put a clean shirt upon the character.
DISTANCE n. The only thing that the rich are willing for the poor to call theirs
DISTRESS n. A disease incurred by exposure to the prosperity of a friend.
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.
Do you mean that? the doctor gravely asked.
Do you mean to say that's what you did this time?
DOG n. A kind of additional or subsidiary Deity designed to catch the overflow and surplus of the world's worship. This Divine Being in some of his smaller and silkier incarnations takes
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.
DRAMATIST n. One who adapts plays from the French.
DRUIDS n. Priests and ministers of an ancient Celtic religion which did not disdain to employ the humble allurement of human sacrifice. Very little is now known about the Druids and their faith. Pliny says their religion
Druids performed their religious rites in groves and knew nothing of church mortgages and the season-ticket system of pew rents. They were
DUCK-BILL n. Your account at your restaurant during the canvas-back season.
DUEL n. A formal ceremony preliminary to the reconciliation of two enemies. Great skill is necessary to its satisfactory observance; if awkwardly performed the most unexpected and deplorable consequences sometimes ensue. A long time ago a man lost his life in a duel.
DULLARD n. A member of the reigning dynasty in letters and life. The Dullards came in with Adam
DUTY n. That which sternly impels us in the direction of profit
Eastward, said heI now shall steer.
Eat arsenic? Yes, all you get,
EAVESDROP v.i. Secretly to overhear a catalogue of the crimes and vices of another or yourself.
ECCENTRICITY n. A method of distinction so cheap that fools employ it to accentuate their incapacity.
ECONOMY n. Purchasing the barrel of whiskey that you do not need for the price of the cow that you cannot afford.
EDITOR n. A person who combines the judicial functions of Minos
EDUCATION n. That which discloses to the wise and disguises from the foolish their lack of understanding.
EFFECT n. The second of two phenomena which always occur together in the same order. The first
EGOTIST n. A person of low taste
EJECTION n. An approved remedy for the disease of garrulity. It is also much used in cases of extreme poverty.
ELECTOR n. One who enjoys the sacred privilege of voting for the man of another man's choice.
ELECTRICITY n. The power that causes all natural phenomena not known to be caused by something else. It is the same thing as lightning
ELEGY n. A composition in verse
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.
ELYSIUM n. An imaginary delightful country which the ancients foolishly believed to be inhabited by the spirits of the good. This ridiculous and mischievous fable was swept off the face of the earth by the early Christiansâmay their souls be happy in Heaven!
EMANCIPATION n. A bondman's change from the tyranny of another to the despotism of himself.
EMBALM v.i. To cheat vegetation by locking up the gases upon which it feeds. By embalming their dead and thereby deranging the natural balance between animal and vegetable life
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.
ENCOMIAST n. A special (but not particular) kind of liar.
END n. The position farthest removed on either hand from the Interlocutor.
ENOUGH pro. All there is in the world if you like it.
ENTERTAINMENT n. Any kind of amusement whose inroads stop short of death by injection.
ENTHUSIASM n. A distemper of youth
ENVELOPE n. The coffin of a document; the scabbard of a bill; the husk of a remittance; the bed-gown of a love-letter.
ENVY n. Emulation adapted to the meanest capacity.
EPAULET n. An ornamented badge
EPICURE n. An opponent of Epicurus
EPITAPH n. An inscription on a tomb
ERUDITION n. Dust shaken out of a book into an empty skull.
ESOTERIC adj. Very particularly abstruse and consummately occult. The ancient philosophies were of two kinds
ETHNOLOGY n. The science that treats of the various tribes of Man
EUCHARIST n. A sacred feast of the religious sect of Theophagi.
EULOGY n. Praise of a person who has either the advantages of wealth and power
EVANGELIST n. A bearer of good tidings
EVERLASTING adj. Lasting forever. It is with no small diffidence that I venture to offer this brief and elementary definition
EXCEPTION n. A thing which takes the liberty to differ from other things of its class
Excuse usâthey are mostly out of fashion.
EXECUTIVE n. An officer of the Government
EXHORT v.t. In religious affairs
EXILE n. One who serves his country by residing abroad
EXPERIENCE n. The wisdom that enables us to recognize as an undesirable old acquaintance the folly that we have already embraced.
EXPOSTULATION n. One of the many methods by which fools prefer to lose their friends.
EXTINCTION n. The raw material out of which theology created the future state.
FAITH n. Belief without evidence in what is told by one who speaks without knowledge
FAMOUS adj. Conspicuously miserable.
FASHION n. A despot whom the wise ridicule and obey.
Father, she saidthine ear bend downâ
FEAST n. A festival. A religious celebration usually signalized by gluttony and drunkenness
FELON n. A person of greater enterprise than discretion
FEMALE n. One of the opposing
FIB n. A lie that has not cut its teeth. An habitual liar's nearest approach to truth: the perigee of his eccentric orbit.
FICKLENESS n. The iterated satiety of an enterprising affection.
FIDDLE n. An instrument to tickle human ears by friction of a horse's tail on the entrails of a cat.
FIDELITY n. A virtue peculiar to those who are about to be betrayed.
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.
First thoughts are best? That's not the moral;
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 on vacant lots in Londonâ"Rubbish may be shot here."
FLESH n. The Second Person of the secular Trinity.
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
FLY-SPECK n. The prototype of punctuation. It is observed by Garvinus that the systems of punctuation in use by the various literary nations depended originally upon the social habits and general diet of the flies infesting the several countries. These creatures
FOLLY n. That "gift and faculty divine" whose creative and controlling energy inspires Man's mind
FOOL n. A person who pervades the domain of intellectual speculation and diffuses himself through the channels of moral activity. He is omnific
For eight hours the broad brow of the Sheik of the Imperial Chibouk was corrugated with evidences of deep thought: he was calculating the chances of war. ThenSons of angels, he said
For mercy's sake! he said taking it with sugar
Force is but might, the teacher saidâ
Force is not might but must!
FOREFINGER n. The finger commonly used in pointing out two malefactors.
FOREORDINATION n. This looks like an easy word to define
FORGETFULNESS n. A gift of God bestowed upon doctors in compensation for their destitution of conscience.
FORK n. An instrument used chiefly for the purpose of putting dead animals into the mouth. Formerly the knife was employed for this purpose
FORMA PAUPERIS. [Latin] In the character of a poor personâa method by which a litigant without money for lawyers is considerately permitted to lose his case.
Formerly painting and sculpture were combined in the same work: the ancients painted their statues. The only present alliance between the two arts is that the modern painter chisels his patrons.
FRANKALMOIGNE n. The tenure by which a religious corporation holds lands on condition of praying for the soul of the donor. In mediaeval times many of the wealthiest fraternities obtained their estates in this simple and cheap manner
FREEBOOTER n. A conqueror in a small way of business
FREEDOM n. Exemption from the stress of authority in a beggarly half dozen of restraint's infinite multitude of methods. A political condition that every nation supposes itself to enjoy in virtual monopoly. Liberty. The distinction between freedom and liberty is not accurately known; naturalists have never been able to find a living specimen of either.
FREEMASONS n. An order with secret rites
Fresh every day must be my books and bread.
Friend of the court, so please you.
FRIENDLESS adj. Having no favors to bestow. Destitute of fortune. Addicted to utterance of truth and common sense.
FRIENDSHIP n. A ship big enough to carry two in fair weather
FROG n. A reptile with edible legs. The first mention of frogs in profane literature is in Homer's narrative of the war between them and the mice. Skeptical persons have doubted Homer's authorship of the work
FRYING-PAN n. One part of the penal apparatus employed in that punitive institution
FUNERAL n. A pageant whereby we attest our respect for the dead by enriching the undertaker
FUTURE n. That period of time in which our affairs prosper
GARGOYLE n. A rain-spout projecting from the eaves of mediaeval buildings
GARTHER n. An elastic band intended to keep a woman from coming out of her stockings and desolating the country.
GENEALOGY n. An account of one's descent from an ancestor who did not particularly care to trace his own.
General H.H. Wotherspoon president of the Army War College
General Wotherspoon did not deign to reply but walked away.
General, said the commander of the delinquent brigadeI am persuaded that any further display of valor by my troops will bring them into collision with the enemy.
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.
GEOGRAPHER n. A chap who can tell you offhand the difference between the outside of the world and the inside.
GEOLOGY n. The science of the earth's crustâto which
GHOST n. The outward and visible sign of an inward fear.
Give me my clothes and I'll return, they rise
Give, give in Charity's name, I pray.
GLUTTON n. A person who escapes the evils of moderation by committing dyspepsia.
GNOME n. In North-European mythology
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
GNU n. An animal of South Africa
Go fetch me a surgeon at once! cried he.
Go get oneâfill it up with fatâ
God keep you, stranger, I exclaimed. "You are
Good!âthen I will undertake to cure you.
GOOSE n. A bird that supplies quills for writing. These
GOUT n. A physician's name for the rheumatism of a rich patient.
GRACES n. Three beautiful goddesses
GRAMMAR n. A system of pitfalls thoughtfully prepared for the feet for the self-made man
GRAPESHOT n. An argument which the future is preparing in answer to the demands of American Socialism.
GRAVE n. A place in which the dead are laid to await the coming of the medical student.
GRAVITATION n. The tendency of all bodies to approach one another with a strength proportion to the quantity of matter they containâ the quantity of matter they contain being ascertained by the strength of their tendency to approach one another. This is a lovely and edifying illustration of how science
Great playing by President Brown.
GUILLOTINE n. A machine which makes a Frenchman shrug his shoulders with good reason.
GUNPOWDER n. An agency employed by civilized nations for the settlement of disputes which might become troublesome if left unadjusted. By most writers the invention of gunpowder is ascribed to the Chinese
HABIT n. A shackle for the free.
HADES n. The lower world; the residence of departed spirits; the place where the dead live.
HAG n. An elderly lady whom you do not happen to like; sometimes called
Hail, holy Ass! the quiring angels sing;
HAND n. A singular instrument worn at the end of the human arm and commonly thrust into somebody's pocket.
HANGMAN n. An officer of the law charged with duties of the highest dignity and utmost gravity
HAPPINESS n. An agreeable sensation arising from contemplating the misery of another.
HARANGUE n. A speech by an opponent
HARBOR n. A place where ships taking shelter from stores are exposed to the fury of the customs.
HARMONISTS n. A sect of Protestants
Has it occurred to you to try
HASH x. There is no definition for this wordânobody knows what hash is.
HATRED n. A sentiment appropriate to the occasion of another's superiority.
Having received an ultimatum from Austria the Turkish Ministry met to consider it.
Having the quality of general expediency.
He cannot hear it blowing!
He seems to be enjoying himself, said the Admiral.
He was a conspirator. There had been a fire the night before: a stable just around the corner had burned and a number of horses had put on their immortality among them a young colt
He's gone afar, he'll come no more,
HEAD-MONEY n. A capitation tax
HEARSE n. Death's baby-carriage.
HEATHEN n. A benighted creature who has the folly to worship something that he can see and feel. According to Professor Howison
HEAVEN n. A place where the wicked cease from troubling you with talk of their personal affairs
HEMP n. A plant from whose fibrous bark is made an article of neckwear which is frequently put on after public speaking in the open air and prevents the wearer from taking cold.
Here's one of an order of cooks, said sheâ
HERMIT n. A person whose vices and follies are not sociable.
HIBERNATE v.i. To pass the winter season in domestic seclusion. There have been many singular popular notions about the hibernation of various animals. Many believe that the bear hibernates during the whole winter and subsists by mechanically sucking its paws. It is admitted that it comes out of its retirement in the spring so lean that it had to try twice before it can cast a shadow. Three or four centuries ago
HIPPOGRIFF n. An animal (now extinct) which was half horse and half griffin. The griffin was itself a compound creature
His care, the gnat saideven the insects follows:
HISTORIAN n. A broad-gauge gossip.
HISTORY n. An account mostly false
Ho, ho! A beggar on horseback, they say,
Ho! cried the cyniclead me to him straightâ
HOG n. A bird remarkable for the catholicity of its appetite and serving to illustrate that of ours. Among the Mahometans and Jews
HOMICIDE n. The slaying of one human being by another. There are four kinds of homocide: felonious
HOMILETICS n. The science of adapting sermons to the spiritual needs
HOMOEOPATHIST n. The humorist of the medical profession.
HOMOEOPATHY n. A school of medicine midway between Allopathy and Christian Science. To the last both the others are distinctly inferior
HONORABLE adj. Afflicted with an impediment in one's reach. In legislative bodies it is customary to mention all members as honorable; as
HOPE n. Desire and expectation rolled into one.
HOSPITALITY n. The virtue which induces us to feed and lodge certain persons who are not in need of food and lodging.
HOSTILITY n. A peculiarly sharp and specially applied sense of the earth's overpopulation. Hostility is classified as active and passive; as (respectively) the feeling of a woman for her female friends
HOURI n. A comely female inhabiting the Mohammedan Paradise to make things cheery for the good Mussulman
HOUSE n. A hollow edifice erected for the habitation of man
HOUSELESS adj. Having paid all taxes on household goods.
HOVEL n. The fruit of a flower called the Palace.
How Providence provides for all His creatures!
How sad, his neighbors saidthat he
HUMANITY n. The human race
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
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. It is also used in the construction of the upper decks of steamboats
HURRY n. The dispatch of bunglers.
HYBRID n. A pooled issue.
HYDRA n. A kind of animal that the ancients catalogued under many heads.
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.
HYPOCHONDRIASIS n. Depression of one's own spirits.
Hypochondriasis. It meant The Dumps.
I am very sorry, sir, replied the critic amiably
I beg your pardon, sir, he said;
I did great service to a man one day
I didn't know 'twas loaded.
I don't hear any band, said Schley.
I dote upon good grub, he cried
I get no time! "What's that you say?"
I had an ovation! the actor man said
I know a trick worth two o' that,
I mean to fall to earth, said he.
I think, said oneand my husband thinks
I was in the drawing-room, enjoying my dinner, said Brillat-Savarin beginning an anecdote. "What!" interrupted Rochebriant; "eating dinner in a drawing-room?" "I must beg you to observe
I will not stay, she said with a pout
I would be, dear, but it is not worth while.
I'll give, holy father, I'll give theeâa ride.
I'll judge you by your diary. Said Hearst:
I'm great, the Kangaroo saidâ"see
I'm great, the Lion saidâ"I reign
I'm greatâno animal has half
ICHOR n. A fluid that serves the gods and goddesses in place of blood.
ICONOCLAST n. A breaker of idols
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
IDLENESS n. A model farm where the devil experiments with seeds of new sins and promotes the growth of staple vices.
If death will do, the King saidlet me reign;
If I were you and you were I
If I'd lived, said hemy humility
If less could have been done for him
If you'll impose upon each head
IGNORAMUS n. A person unacquainted with certain kinds of knowledge familiar to yourself
Ignorance should be more humble.
ILLUMINATI n. A sect of Spanish heretics of the latter part of the sixteenth century; so called because they were light weightsâ cunctationes illuminati.
ILLUSTRIOUS adj. Suitably placed for the shafts of malice
IMAGINATION n. A warehouse of facts
IMBECILITY n. A kind of divine inspiration
IMMIGRANT n. An unenlightened person who thinks one country better than another.
IMMODEST adj. Having a strong sense of one's own merit
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
IMPALE v.t. In popular usage to pierce with any weapon which remains fixed in the wound. This
IMPARTIAL adj. Unable to perceive any promise of personal advantage from espousing either side of a controversy or adopting either of two conflicting opinions.
IMPENITENCE n. A state of mind intermediate in point of time between sin and punishment.
IMPIETY n. Your irreverence toward my deity.
IMPOSITION n. The act of blessing or consecrating by the laying on of handsâa ceremony common to many ecclesiastical systems
Impossible! I should be ashamed of atheism.
IMPOSTOR n. A rival aspirant to public honors.
IMPROVIDENCE n. Provision for the needs of to-day from the revenues of to-morrow.
In Boorioboola-Gha a man is presentable on occasions of ceremony if he have his abdomen painted a bright blue and wear a cow's tail; in New York he may if it please him
In Dr. Johnson's famous dictionary patriotism is defined as the last resort of a scoundrel. With all due respect to an enlightened but inferior lexicographer I beg to submit that it is the first.
In his great work on Divergent Lines of Racial Evolution the learned Professor Brayfugle argues from the prevalence of this gesture âthe shrugâamong Frenchmen
In that case, monsieur, you should join the Protestants.
In the course of human events Mr. Clark went out and there
In the lines following addressed to an Emperor in exile by Father Gassalasca Jape
In the sky my soul is found,
INADMISSIBLE adj. Not competent to be considered. Said of certain kinds of testimony which juries are supposed to be unfit to be entrusted with
INAUSPICIOUSLY adv. In an unpromising manner
INCOME n. The natural and rational gauge and measure of respectability
INCOMPATIBILITY n. In matrimony a similarity of tastes
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
INCUBUS n. One of a race of highly improper demons who
INCUMBENT n. A person of the liveliest interest to the outcumbents.
INDECISION n. The chief element of success; "for whereas
INDIFFERENT adj. Imperfectly sensible to distinctions among things.
Indifferent? he drawled with a slow smile;
INDIGESTION n. A disease which the patient and his friends frequently mistake for deep religious conviction and concern for the salvation of mankind. As the simple Red Man of the western wild put it
INDISCRETION n. The guilt of woman.
INEXPEDIENT adj. Not calculated to advance one's interests.
INFANCY n. The period of our lives when
INFERIAE n. [Latin] Among the Greeks and Romans
INFRALAPSARIAN n. One who ventures to believe that Adam need not have sinned unless he had a mind toâin opposition to the Supralapsarians
INGRATE n. One who receives a benefit from another
INJURY n. An offense next in degree of enormity to a slight.
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.
INK n. A villainous compound of tannogallate of iron
INSCRIPTION n. Something written on another thing. Inscriptions are of many kinds
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.
INSURRECTION n. An unsuccessful revolution. Disaffection's failure to substitute misrule for bad government.
INTENTION n. The mind's sense of the prevalence of one set of influences over another set; an effect whose cause is the imminence
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.
INTERREGNUM n. The period during which a monarchical country is governed by a warm spot on the cushion of the throne. The experiment of letting the spot grow cold has commonly been attended by most unhappy results from the zeal of many worthy persons to make it warm again.
INTIMACY n. A relation into which fools are providentially drawn for their mutual destruction.
INTRODUCTION n. A social ceremony invented by the devil for the gratification of his servants and the plaguing of his enemies. The introduction attains its most malevolent development in this country
INVENTOR n. A person who makes an ingenious arrangement of wheels
IRRELIGION n. The principal one of the great faiths of the world.
It has, the spokesman said: "we sold
It is related of Bismark who had been awarded a medal for gallantly rescuing a drowning person
It is said that in his last illness the poet Arnegriff was attended at different times by seven doctors.
It is your duty, cried the crowd
It should be explained that Mrs. Silcox does not undertake to teach pronunciation of the Greek and Latin tongues. Leonine verses are so called in honor of a poet named Leo whom prosodists appear to find a pleasure in believing to have been the first to discover that a rhyming couplet could be run into a single line.
It were no more than right, said he
It's O for a youth with a football bang
ITCH n. The patriotism of a Scotchman.
JEALOUS adj. Unduly concerned about the preservation of that which can be lost only if not worth keeping.
JESTER n. An officer formerly attached to a king's household
JEWS-HARP n. An unmusical instrument
JOSS-STICKS n. Small sticks burned by the Chinese in their pagan tomfoolery
JUSTICE n. A commodity which is a more or less adulterated condition the State sells to the citizen as a reward for his allegiance
KILL v.t. To create a vacancy without nominating a successor.
KILT n. A costume sometimes worn by Scotchmen in America and Americans in Scotland.
KINDNESS n. A brief preface to ten volumes of exaction.
KING n. A male person commonly known in America as a "crowned head
KING'S EVIL n. A malady that was formerly cured by the touch of the sovereign
Kings of finance denied him recognition
KISS n. A word invented by the poets as a rhyme for "bliss." It is supposed to signify
KLEPTOMANIAC n. A rich thief.
KORAN n. A book which the Mohammedans foolishly believe to have been written by divine inspiration
LAND n. A part of the earth's surface
LANGUAGE n. The music with which we charm the serpents guarding another's treasure.
LAOCOON n. A famous piece of antique scripture representing a priest of that name and his two sons in the folds of two enormous serpents. The skill and diligence with which the old man and lads support the serpents and keep them up to their work have been justly regarded as one of the noblest artistic illustrations of the mastery of human intelligence over brute inertia.
LAP n. One of the most important organs of the female systemâan admirable provision of nature for the repose of infancy
LAST n. A shoemaker's implement
LAUGHTER n. An interior convulsion
LAUREATE adj. Crowned with leaves of the laurel. In England the Poet Laureate is an officer of the sovereign's court
LAWFUL adj. Compatible with the will of a judge having jurisdiction.
LAWYER n. One skilled in circumvention of the law.
LAZINESS n. Unwarranted repose of manner in a person of low degree.
LEAD n. A heavy blue-gray metal much used in giving stability to light loversâparticularly to those who love not wisely but other men's wives. Lead is also of great service as a counterpoise to an argument of such weight that it turns the scale of debate the wrong way. An interesting fact in the chemistry of international controversy is that at the point of contact of two patriotisms lead is precipitated in great quantities.
LEARNING n. The kind of ignorance distinguishing the studious.
LECTURER n. One with his hand in your pocket
LEGACY n. A gift from one who is legging it out of this vale of tears.
LEONINE adj. Unlike a menagerie lion. Leonine verses are those in which a word in the middle of a line rhymes with a word at the end
Let him be brought before me, said the Mikado to an
LETTUCE n. An herb of the genus Lactuca
LEVIATHAN n. An enormous aquatic animal mentioned by Job. Some suppose it to have been the whale
LEXICOGRAPHER n. A pestilent fellow who
LIAR n. A lawyer with a roving commission.
LIBERTY n. One of Imagination's most precious possessions.
LICKSPITTLE n. A useful functionary
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. The question
Life's not worth living, and that's the truth,
LIGHTHOUSE n. A tall building on the seashore in which the government maintains a lamp and the friend of a politician.
LIMB n. The branch of a tree or the leg of an American woman.
LINEN n. "A kind of cloth the making of which
LITIGANT n. A person about to give up his skin for the hope of retaining his bones.
LITIGATION n. A machine which you go into as a pig and come out of as a sausage.
LIVER n. A large red organ thoughtfully provided by nature to be bilious with. The sentiments and emotions which every literary anatomist now knows to haunt the heart were anciently believed to infest the liver; and even Gascoygne
LL.D. Letters indicating the degree Legumptionorum Doctor one learned in laws
Lo! by the laying on of hands,
LOCK-AND-KEY n. The distinguishing device of civilization and enlightenment.
LODGER n. A less popular name for the Second Person of that delectable newspaper Trinity
LOGIC n. The art of thinking and reasoning in strict accordance with the limitations and incapacities of the human misunderstanding. The basic of logic is the syllogism
LOGOMACHY n. A war in which the weapons are words and the wounds punctures in the swim-bladder of self-esteemâa kind of contest in which
LONGANIMITY n. The disposition to endure injury with meek forbearance while maturing a plan of revenge.
LONGEVITY n. Uncommon extension of the fear of death.
LOOKING-GLASS n. A vitreous plane upon which to display a fleeting show for man's disillusion given.
LOQUACITY n. A disorder which renders the sufferer unable to curb his tongue when you wish to talk.
LORD n. In American society
Lord of Cranes and Cherry Blooms, replied the executioner
LORE n. Learningâparticularly that sort which is not derived from a regular course of instruction but comes of the reading of occult books
LOSS n. Privation of that which we had
LOVE n. A temporary insanity curable by marriage or by removal of the patient from the influences under which he incurred the disorder. This disease
LOW-BRED adj. "Raised" instead of brought up.
LUMINARY n. One who throws light upon a subject; as an editor by not writing about it.
LUNARIAN n. An inhabitant of the moon
LYRE n. An ancient instrument of torture. The word is now used in a figurative sense to denote the poetic faculty
MACHINATION n. The method employed by one's opponents in baffling one's open and honorable efforts to do the right thing.
MACROBIAN n. One forgotten of the gods and living to a great age. History is abundantly supplied with examples
MAD adj. Affected with a high degree of intellectual independence; not conforming to standards of thought
MAGDALENE n. An inhabitant of Magdala. Popularly
MAGIC n. An art of converting superstition into coin. There are other arts serving the same high purpose
MAGNET n. Something acted upon by magnetism.
MAGNETISM n. Something acting upon a magnet.
MAGNIFICENT adj. Having a grandeur or splendor superior to that to which the spectator is accustomed
MAGNITUDE n. Size. Magnitude being purely relative
MAGPIE n. A bird whose thievish disposition suggested to someone that it might be taught to talk.
MAIDEN n. A young person of the unfair sex addicted to clewless conduct and views that madden to crime. The genus has a wide geographical distribution
MAJESTY n. The state and title of a king. Regarded with a just contempt by the Most Eminent Grand Masters
Major Premise: Sixty men can do a piece of work sixty times as quickly as one man.
MALE n. A member of the unconsidered
MALEFACTOR n. The chief factor in the progress of the human race.
MALTHUSIAN adj. Pertaining to Malthus and his doctrines. Malthus believed in artificially limiting population
MAMMALIA n.pl. A family of vertebrate animals whose females in a state of nature suckle their young
MAMMON n. The god of the world's leading religion. The chief temple is in the holy city of New York.
MAN n. An animal so lost in rapturous contemplation of what he thinks he is as to overlook what he indubitably ought to be. His chief occupation is extermination of other animals and his own species
Man, I understand, is about to be created. He will need laws.
MANES n. The immortal parts of dead Greeks and Romans. They were in a state of dull discomfort until the bodies from which they had exhaled were buried and burned; and they seem not to have been particularly happy afterward.
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.
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
MARRIAGE n. The state or condition of a community consisting of a master
MARTYR n. One who moves along the line of least reluctance to a desired death.
MATERIAL adj. Having an actual existence
MAUSOLEUM n. The final and funniest folly of the rich.
MAYONNAISE n. One of the sauces which serve the French in place of a state religion.
ME pro. The objectionable case of I. The personal pronoun in English has three cases
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
MEDAL n. A small metal disk given as a reward for virtues
MEDICINE n. A stone flung down the Bowery to kill a dog in Broadway.
MEEKNESS n. Uncommon patience in planning a revenge that is worth while.
MENDACIOUS adj. Addicted to rhetoric.
MERCHANT n. One engaged in a commercial pursuit. A commercial pursuit is one in which the thing pursued is a dollar.
MERCY n. An attribute beloved of detected offenders.
MESMERISM n. Hypnotism before it wore good clothes
METROPOLIS n. A stronghold of provincialism.
MILLENNIUM n. The period of a thousand years when the lid is to be screwed down
MIND n. A mysterious form of matter secreted by the brain. Its chief activity consists in the endeavor to ascertain its own nature
MINE adj. Belonging to me if I can hold or seize it.
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. His principal qualification is a degree of plausible inveracity next below that of an ambassador.
MINOR adj. Less objectionable.
Minor Premise: One man can dig a posthole in sixty seconds; thereforeâ
MINSTREL adj. Formerly a poet
MIRACLE n. An act or event out of the order of nature and unaccountable
MISCREANT n. A person of the highest degree of unworth. Etymologically
MISDEMEANOR n. An infraction of the law having less dignity than a felony and constituting no claim to admittance into the best criminal society.
MISERICORDE n. A dagger which in mediaeval warfare was used by the foot soldier to remind an unhorsed knight that he was mortal.
MISFORTUNE n. The kind of fortune that never misses.
MISS n. The title with which we brand unmarried women to indicate that they are in the market. Miss
MONARCH n. A person engaged in reigning. Formerly the monarch ruled
MONARCHICAL GOVERNMENT n. Government.
MONDAY n. In Christian countries
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.
MONKEY n. An arboreal animal which makes itself at home in genealogical trees.
MONOSYLLABIC adj. Composed of words of one syllable
Monsieur Franqulin, inventor of electricity. This
MONSIGNOR n. A high ecclesiastical title
MONUMENT n. A structure intended to commemorate something which either needs no commemoration or cannot be commemorated.
MORAL adj. Conforming to a local and mutable standard of right.
MORE adj. The comparative degree of too much.
More dear than all my bosom knows, O thou
Moses Mendlessohn having fallen ill sent for a Christian physician who at once diagnosed the philosopher's disorder as trichinosis
MOUSE n. An animal which strews its path with fainting women. As in Rome Christians were thrown to the lions
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.
Mr. Pollard, said hemy book, The Biography of a Dead Cow, is published anonymously, but you can hardly be ignorant of its authorship. Yet in reviewing it you speak of it as the work of the Idiot of the Century. Do you think that fair criticism?
Mr. W.C. Morrow who used to live in San Jose
MUGWUMP n. In politics one afflicted with self-respect and addicted to the vice of independence. A term of contempt.
MULATTO n. A child of two races
MULTITUDE n. A crowd; the source of political wisdom and virtue. In a republic
MUMMY n. An ancient Egyptian
MUSTANG n. An indocile horse of the western plains. In English society
My accountability, bear in mind,
My deadliest drug shall bear my patron's name!
My dear fellow, the journalist replied with a drear autumnal cadence in his speech like the moan of a leaf-laden wind
My friend, you've wandered from your proper track:
My son, forecasting the event
My son, said the priestthis is what we fear.
MYRMIDON n. A follower of Achillesâparticularly when he didn't lead.
MYTHOLOGY n. The body of a primitive people's beliefs concerning its origin
Naught, for a season, shall your comfort mar,
Nay, this child makes no bet. "Great snakes!
NEGRO n. The piece de resistance in the American political problem. Representing him by the letter n
NEIGHBOR n. One whom we are commanded to love as ourselves
NEPOTISM n. Appointing your grandmother to office for the good of the party.
NEWTONIAN adj. Pertaining to a philosophy of the universe invented by Newton
NIHILIST n. A Russian who denies the existence of anything but Tolstoi. The leader of the school is Tolstoi.
NIRVANA n. In the Buddhist religion
No matter, Satan cried; "with speed
No, replied the petitionerI wish you to create something that would justify them.
NOBLEMAN n. Nature's provision for wealthy American minds ambitious to incur social distinction and suffer high life.
NOISE n. A stench in the ear. Undomesticated music. The chief product and authenticating sign of civilization.
NOMINATE v. To designate for the heaviest political assessment. To put forward a suitable person to incur the mudgobbing and deadcatting of the opposition.
NOMINEE n. A modest gentleman shrinking from the distinction of private life and diligently seeking the honorable obscurity of public office.
NON-COMBATANT n. A dead Quaker.
NONSENSE n. The objections that are urged against this excellent dictionary.
NOSE n. The extreme outpost of the face. From the circumstance that great conquerors have great noses
Not soâ'twas Free will, the other maintained
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
NOUMENON n. That which exists
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
NOVEMBER n. The eleventh twelfth of a weariness.
Now lay your bet with mine, nor let
Now righteousness consisteth not merely in a holy state of
Now, broiling is an ancient plan
Now, by these sacred relicsâhere
Now, why is yer wife called a helpmate, Pat?
O bury the hatchet, irascible Red,
O cruel cook, pray grant me some reliefâ
O King of Men, the spokesman said
O noânot at all; I'm a liar myself.
O servant of the Prophet, said the Sheik of the Imperial Chibouk to the Mamoosh of the Invincible Armyhow many unconquerable soldiers have we in arms?
O, he's all right, said Clark lightly; "he's an inveterate smoker."
OBLIVION n. The state or condition in which the wicked cease from struggling and the dreary are at rest. Fame's eternal dumping ground. 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.
OBSERVATORY n. A place where astronomers conjecture away the guesses of their predecessors.
OBSESSED p.p. Vexed by an evil spirit
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
OBSTINATE adj. Inaccessible to the truth as it is manifest in the splendor and stress of our advocacy.
OCCASIONAL adj. Afflicting us with greater or less frequency. That
OCCIDENT n. The part of the world lying west (or east) of the Orient. It is largely inhabited by Christians
OCEAN n. A body of water occupying about two-thirds of a world made for manâwho has no gills.
OFFENSIVE adj. Generating disagreeable emotions or sensations
OLD adj. In that stage of usefulness which is not inconsistent with general inefficiency
Old books? The devil take them! Goby said.
OLYMPIAN adj. Relating to a mountain in Thessaly
OMEN n. A sign that something will happen if nothing happens.
One evening Mr. Rudolph Block of New York
One night, a doctor saidlast fall,
One of the greatest of poets Coleridge was one of the wisest of men
OPERA n. A play representing life in another world
OPIATE n. An unlocked door in the prison of Identity. It leads into the jail yard.
OPPORTUNITY n. A favorable occasion for grasping a disappointment.
OPPOSE v. To assist with obstructions and objections.
OPPOSITION n. In politics the party that prevents the Government from running amuck by hamstringing it.
OPTIMIST n. A proponent of the doctrine that black is white.
ORATORY n. A conspiracy between speech and action to cheat the understanding. A tyranny tempered by stenography.
ORPHAN n. A living person whom death has deprived of the power of filial ingratitudeâa privation appealing with a particular eloquence to all that is sympathetic in human nature. When young the orphan is commonly sent to an asylum
ORTHODOX n. An ox wearing the popular religious yoke.
ORTHOGRAPHY n. The science of spelling by the eye instead of the ear. Advocated with more heat than light by the outmates of every asylum for the insane. They have had to concede a few things since the time of Chaucer
OSTRICH n. A large bird to which (for its sins
OTHERWISE adv. No better.
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.
OUTCOME n. A particular type of disappointment. By the kind of intelligence that sees in an exception a proof of the rule the wisdom of an act is judged by the outcome
OUTDO v.t. To make an enemy.
OVATION n. In ancient Rome
OVERWORK n. A dangerous disorder affecting high public functionaries who want to go fishing.
OWE v. To have (and to hold) a debt. The word formerly signified not indebtedness
PAINTING n. The art of protecting flat surfaces from the weather and exposing them to the critic.
PALACE n. A fine and costly residence
PALM n. A species of tree having several varieties
PALMISTRY n. The 947th method (according to Mimbleshaw's classification) of obtaining money by false pretences. It consists in "reading character" in the wrinkles made by closing the hand. The pretence is not altogether false; character can really be read very accurately in this way
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.
PANTHEISM n. The doctrine that everything is God
PANTOMIME n. A play in which the story is told without violence to the language. The least disagreeable form of dramatic action.
PARDON v. To remit a penalty and restore to the life of crime. To add to the lure of crime the temptation of ingratitude.
Pardon me, please, said Barry moving after him; "I was joking of course. Why
Pardon, monseigneur, replied Rochebriant; "I am ashamed of it."
Pardon; what I have to ask is that he be permitted to make them himself.
PASSPORT n. A document treacherously inflicted upon a citizen going abroad
PAST n. That part of Eternity with some small fraction of which we have a slight and regrettable acquaintance. A moving line called the Present parts it from an imaginary period known as the Future. These two grand divisions of Eternity
PASTIME n. A device for promoting dejection. Gentle exercise for intellectual debility.
PATIENCE n. A minor form of despair
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.
PATRIOTISM n. Combustible rubbish ready to the torch of any one ambitious to illuminate his name.
PEACE n. In international affairs
PEDESTRIAN n. The variable (an audible) part of the roadway for an automobile.
PEDIGREE n. The known part of the route from an arboreal ancestor with a swim bladder to an urban descendant with a cigarette.
PENITENT adj. Undergoing or awaiting punishment.
PERFECTION n. An imaginary state of quality distinguished from the actual by an element known as excellence; an attribute of the critic.
PERIPATETIC adj. Walking about. Relating to the philosophy of Aristotle
PERORATION n. The explosion of an oratorical rocket. It dazzles
PERSEVERANCE n. A lowly virtue whereby mediocrity achieves an inglorious success.
Persevere, persevere! cry the homilists all
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.
PHILANTHROPIST n. A rich (and usually bald) old gentleman who has trained himself to grin while his conscience is picking his pocket.
Philippe of Orleans wishing to appoint one of his favorites a dissolute nobleman
PHILISTINE n. One whose mind is the creature of its environment
PHILOSOPHY n. A route of many roads leading from nowhere to nothing.
PHOENIX n. The classical prototype of the modern "small hot bird."
PHONOGRAPH n. An irritating toy that restores life to dead noises.
PHOTOGRAPH n. A picture painted by the sun without instruction in art. It is a little better than the work of an Apache
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.
PHYSICIAN n. One upon whom we set our hopes when ill and our dogs when well.
PHYSIOGNOMY n. The art of determining the character of another by the resemblances and differences between his face and our own
PIANO n. A parlor utensil for subduing the impenitent visitor. It is operated by depressing the keys of the machine and the spirits of the audience.
PICKANINNY n. The young of the Procyanthropos
PICTURE n. A representation in two dimensions of something wearisome in three.
PIE n. An advance agent of the reaper whose name is Indigestion.
PIETY n. Reverence for the Supreme Being
PIG n. An animal (Porcus omnivorus) closely allied to the human race by the splendor and vivacity of its appetite
PIGMY n. One of a tribe of very small men found by ancient travelers in many parts of the world
PILGRIM n. A traveler that is taken seriously. A Pilgrim Father was one who
PILLORY n. A mechanical device for inflicting personal distinction âprototype of the modern newspaper conducted by persons of austere virtues and blameless lives.
PIRACY n. Commerce without its folly-swaddles
PITIFUL adj. The state of an enemy or opponent after an imaginary encounter with oneself.
PITY n. A failing sense of exemption
PLAGIARISM n. A literary coincidence compounded of a discreditable priority and an honorable subsequence.
PLAGIARIZE v. To take the thought or style of another writer whom one has never
PLAGUE n. In ancient times a general punishment of the innocent for admonition of their ruler
PLAN v.t. To bother about the best method of accomplishing an accidental result.
PLATITUDE n. The fundamental element and special glory of popular literature. A thought that snores in words that smoke. The wisdom of a million fools in the diction of a dullard. A fossil sentiment in artificial rock. A moral without the fable. All that is mortal of a departed truth. A demi-tasse of milk-and-mortality. The Pope's-nose of a featherless peacock. A jelly-fish withering on the shore of the sea of thought. The cackle surviving the egg. A desiccated epigram.
PLATONIC adj. Pertaining to the philosophy of Socrates. Platonic Love is a fool's name for the affection between a disability and a frost.
PLAUDITS n. Coins with which the populace pays those who tickle and devour it.
PLEASE v. To lay the foundation for a superstructure of imposition.
Please with the speech the king commanded that the mirror be conveyed to the courtier's palace; but after
PLEASURE n. The least hateful form of dejection.
PLEBEIAN n. An ancient Roman who in the blood of his country stained nothing but his hands. Distinguished from the Patrician
PLEBISCITE n. A popular vote to ascertain the will of the sovereign.
PLENIPOTENTIARY adj. Having full power. A Minister Plenipotentiary is a diplomatist possessing absolute authority on condition that he never exert it.
PLEONASM n. An army of words escorting a corporal of thought.
PLOW n. An implement that cries aloud for hands accustomed to the pen.
PLUNDER v. To take the property of another without observing the decent and customary reticences of theft. To effect a change of ownership with the candid concomitance of a brass band. To wrest the wealth of A from B and leave C lamenting a vanished opportunity.
POCKET n. The cradle of motive and the grave of conscience. In woman this organ is lacking; so she acts without motive
POETRY n. A form of expression peculiar to the Land beyond the Magazines.
POKER n. A game said to be played with cards for some purpose to this lexicographer unknown.
POLICE n. An armed force for protection and participation.
POLITENESS n. The most acceptable hypocrisy.
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. As compared with the statesman
POLITICS n. A strife of interests masquerading as a contest of principles. The conduct of public affairs for private advantage.
POLYGAMY n. A house of atonement
POPULIST n. A fossil patriot of the early agricultural period
Pork? shrieked the patientâ"pork? Nothing shall induce me to touch it!"
PORTABLE adj. Exposed to a mutable ownership through vicissitudes of possession.
PORTUGUESE n.pl. A species of geese indigenous to Portugal. They are mostly without feathers and imperfectly edible
POSITIVE adj. Mistaken at the top of one's voice.
POSITIVISM n. A philosophy that denies our knowledge of the Real and affirms our ignorance of the Apparent. Its longest exponent is Comte
POSTERITY n. An appellate court which reverses the judgment of a popular author's contemporaries
POTABLE n. Suitable for drinking. Water is said to be potable; indeed
POVERTY n. A file provided for the teeth of the rats of reform. The number of plans for its abolition equals that of the reformers who suffer from it
PRAY v. To ask that the laws of the universe be annulled in behalf of a single petitioner confessedly unworthy.
PRE-ADAMITE n. One of an experimental and apparently unsatisfactory race of antedated Creation and lived under conditions not easily conceived. Melsius believed them to have inhabited "the Void" and to have been something intermediate between fishes and birds. Little its known of them beyond the fact that they supplied Cain with a wife and theologians with a controversy.
PRE-EXISTENCE n. An unnoted factor in creation.
PRECIPITATE adj. Anteprandial.
PREDESTINATION n. The doctrine that all things occur according to programme. This doctrine should not be confused with that of foreordination
PREDICAMENT n. The wage of consistency.
PREDILECTION n. The preparatory stage of disillusion.
PREFERENCE n. A sentiment
PREHISTORIC adj. Belonging to an early period and a museum. Antedating the art and practice of perpetuating falsehood.
PREJUDICE n. A vagrant opinion without visible means of support.
PRELATE n. A church officer having a superior degree of holiness and a fat preferment. One of Heaven's aristocracy. A gentleman of God.
PREROGATIVE n. A sovereign's right to do wrong.
PRESBYTERIAN n. One who holds the conviction that the government authorities of the Church should be called presbyters.
PRESCRIPTION n. A physician's guess at what will best prolong the situation with least harm to the patient.
PRESENT n. That part of eternity dividing the domain of disappointment from the realm of hope.
PRESENTABLE adj. Hideously appareled after the manner of the time and place.
PRESIDE v. To guide the action of a deliberative body to a desirable result. In Journalese
PRESIDENCY n. The greased pig in the field game of American politics.
PRESIDENT n. The leading figure in a small group of men of whomâ and of whom onlyâit is positively known that immense numbers of their countrymen did not want any of them for President.
PREVARICATOR n. A liar in the caterpillar state.
Priest of Unreason, and of Discords King!
PRIMATE n. The head of a church
PRISON n. A place of punishments and rewards. The poet assures us thatâ
PRIVATE n. A military gentleman with a field-marshal's baton in his knapsack and an impediment in his hope.
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.
PROJECTILE n. The final arbiter in international disputes. Formerly these disputes were settled by physical contact of the disputants
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.
PROOF-READER n. A malefactor who atones for making your writing nonsense by permitting the compositor to make it unintelligible.
PROPERTY n. Any material thing
PROPHECY n. The art and practice of selling one's credibility for future delivery.
PROVIDENTIAL adj. Unexpectedly and conspicuously beneficial to the person so describing it.
PRUDE n. A bawd hiding behind the back of her demeanor.
PUBLISH n. In literary affairs
PUSH n. One of the two things mainly conducive to success
PYRRHONISM n. An ancient philosophy
QUILL n. An implement of torture yielded by a goose and commonly wielded by an ass. This use of the quill is now obsolete
QUIVER n. A portable sheath in which the ancient statesman and the aboriginal lawyer carried their lighter arguments.
QUIXOTIC adj. Absurdly chivalric
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 United States Senate a quorum consists of the chairman of the Committee on Finance and a messenger from the White House; in the House of Representatives
QUOTATION n. The act of repeating erroneously the words of another. The words erroneously repeated.
QUOTIENT n. A number showing how many times a sum of money belonging to one person is contained in the pocket of anotherâusually about as many times as it can be got there.
R.I.P. A careless abbreviation of requiescat in pace attesting an indolent goodwill to the dead. According to the learned Dr. Drigge
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
RADICALISM n. The conservatism of to-morrow injected into the affairs of to-day.
RADIUM n. A mineral that gives off heat and stimulates the organ that a scientist is a fool with.
RAILROAD n. The chief of many mechanical devices enabling us to get away from where we are to where we are no better off. For this purpose the railroad is held in highest favor by the optimist
RAMSHACKLE adj. Pertaining to a certain order of architecture
RANK n. Relative elevation in the scale of human worth.
RANSOM n. The purchase of that which neither belongs to the seller
RAPACITY n. Providence without industry. The thrift of power.
RAREBIT n. A Welsh rabbit
RASCAL n. A fool considered under another aspect.
RASCALITY n. Stupidity militant. The activity of a clouded intellect.
RASH adj. Insensible to the value of our advice.
RATIONAL adj. Devoid of all delusions save those of observation
RATTLESNAKE n. Our prostrate brother
RAZOR n. An instrument used by the Caucasian to enhance his beauty
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.
READING n. The general body of what one reads. In our country it consists
REALISM n. The art of depicting nature as it is seen by toads. The charm suffusing a landscape painted by a mole
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.
REAR n. In American military matters
Rear-Admiral Schley and Representative Charles F. Joy were standing near the Peace Monument in Washington
REASON v.i. To weigh probabilities in the scales of desire.
REASON n. Propensitate of prejudice.
REASONABLE adj. Accessible to the infection of our own opinions. Hospitable to persuasion
REBEL n. A proponent of a new misrule who has failed to establish it.
RECOLLECT v. To recall with additions something not previously known.
RECONCILIATION n. A suspension of hostilities. An armed truce for the purpose of digging up the dead.
RECONSIDER v. To seek a justification for a decision already made.
RECOUNT n. In American politics
RECREATION n. A particular kind of dejection to relieve a general fatigue.
RECRUIT n. A person distinguishable from a civilian by his uniform and from a soldier by his gait.
RECTOR n. In the Church of England
RED-SKIN n. A North American Indian
REDEMPTION n. Deliverance of sinners from the penalty of their sin
REDRESS n. Reparation without satisfaction.
REDUNDANT adj. Superfluous; needless; de trop.
REFERENDUM n. A law for submission of proposed legislation to a popular vote to learn the nonsensus of public opinion.
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.
REFORM v. A thing that mostly satisfies reformers opposed to reformation.
REFUGE n. Anything assuring protection to one in peril. Moses and Joshua provided six cities of refugeâBezer
REFUSAL n. Denial of something desired; as an elderly maiden's hand in marriage
RELIGION n. A daughter of Hope and Fear
RELIQUARY n. A receptacle for such sacred objects as pieces of the true cross
Remember how on earth I pardoned all
Remember the fable of tortoise and hareâ
RENOWN n. A degree of distinction between notoriety and fameâa little more supportable than the one and a little more intolerable than the other. Sometimes it is conferred by an unfriendly and inconsiderate hand.
REPARATION n. Satisfaction that is made for a wrong and deducted from the satisfaction felt in committing it.
REPARTEE n. Prudent insult in retort. Practiced by gentlemen with a constitutional aversion to violence
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.
REPLICA n. A reproduction of a work of art
REPORTER n. A writer who guesses his way to the truth and dispels it with a tempest of words.
REPOSE v.i. To cease from troubling.
REPRESENTATIVE n. In national politics
REPROBATION n. In theology
REPUBLIC n. A nation in which
REQUIEM n. A mass for the dead which the minor poets assure us the winds sing o'er the graves of their favorites. Sometimes
RESIDENT adj. Unable to leave.
RESIGN v.t. To renounce an honor for an advantage. To renounce an advantage for a greater advantage.
RESOLUTE adj. Obstinate in a course that we approve.
Resolved, they said continuing
RESPECTABILITY n. The offspring of a liaison between a bald head and a bank account.
RESPIRATOR n. An apparatus fitted over the nose and mouth of an inhabitant of London
RESPITE n. A suspension of hostilities against a sentenced assassin
RESPLENDENT adj. Like a simple American citizen beduking himself in his lodge
RESPOND v.i. To make answer
RESPONSIBILITY n. A detachable burden easily shifted to the shoulders of God
RESTITUTION n. The founding or endowing of universities and public libraries by gift or bequest.
RESTITUTOR n. Benefactor; philanthropist.
RETALIATION n. The natural rock upon which is reared the Temple of Law.
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.
REVEILLE n. A signal to sleeping soldiers to dream of battlefields no more
REVELATION n. A famous book in which St. John the Divine concealed all that he knew. The revealing is done by the commentators
REVERENCE n. The spiritual attitude of a man to a god and a dog to a man.
REVOLUTION n. In politics
RHADOMANCER n. One who uses a divining-rod in prospecting for precious metals in the pocket of a fool.
RIBALDRY n. Censorious language by another concerning oneself.
RIBROASTER n. Censorious language by oneself concerning another. The word is of classical refinement
RICE-WATER n. A mystic beverage secretly used by our most popular novelists and poets to regulate the imagination and narcotize the conscience. It is said to be rich in both obtundite and lethargine
RICH adj. Holding in trust and subject to an accounting the property of the indolent
Richard Haymon, of Heaven. Fell to Earth Jan. 20, 1807, and had
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. It may be graphic
RIGHT n. Legitimate authority to be
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
RIME n. Agreeing sounds in the terminals of verse
RIMER n. A poet regarded with indifference or disesteem.
RIOT n. A popular entertainment given to the military by innocent bystanders.
RITE n. A religious or semi-religious ceremony fixed by law
RITUALISM n. A Dutch Garden of God where He may walk in rectilinear freedom
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.
ROBBER n. A candid man of affairs.
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
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. It has been largely superseded by a more complex electrical device worn upon another part of the person; and this is rapidly giving place to an apparatus known as the preachment.
ROUNDHEAD n. A member of the Parliamentarian party in the English civil warâso called from his habit of wearing his hair short
RUBBISH n. Worthless matter
RUIN v. To destroy. Specifically
RUMOR n. A favorite weapon of the assassins of character.
RUSSIAN n. A person with a Caucasian body and a Mongolian soul. A Tartar Emetic.
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.
SACRAMENT n. A solemn religious ceremony to which several degrees of authority and significance are attached. Rome has seven sacraments
SACRED adj. Dedicated to some religious purpose; having a divine character; inspiring solemn thoughts or emotions; as
Sacred to the memory of Jeremiah Tree. Cut down May 9th, 1862,
SAFETY-CLUTCH n. A mechanical device acting automatically to prevent the fall of an elevator
SAINT n. A dead sinner revised and edited.
SALACITY n. A certain literary quality frequently observed in popular novels
SALAMANDER n. Originally a reptile inhabiting fire; later
SANDLOTTER n. A vertebrate mammal holding the political views of Denis Kearney
SARCOPHAGUS n. Among the Greeks a coffin which being made of a certain kind of carnivorous stone
SATAN n. One of the Creator's lamentable mistakes
SATIETY n. The feeling that one has for the plate after he has eaten its contents
SATIRE n. An obsolete kind of literary composition in which the vices and follies of the author's enemies were expounded with imperfect tenderness. In this country satire never had more than a sickly and uncertain existence
SATYR n. One of the few characters of the Grecian mythology accorded recognition in the Hebrew. (Leviticus
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.
SAW n. A trite popular saying
SCARABAEUS n. The sacred beetle of the ancient Egyptians
SCARABEE n. The same as scarabaeus.
SCARIFICATION n. A form of penance practised by the mediaeval pious. The rite was performed
SCEPTER n. A king's staff of office
SCIMITAR n. A curved sword of exceeding keenness
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. One of these egotists was addressed in the lines following
SCRIBBLER n. A professional writer whose views are antagonistic to one's own.
SCRIPTURES n. The sacred books of our holy religion
SEAL n. A mark impressed upon certain kinds of documents to attest their authenticity and authority. Sometimes it is stamped upon wax
Secretary Wilson became interested in gunpowder through an event that occurred on the Government experimental farm in the District of Columbia. One day several years ago
See meâI'm ready to divide
See, cries the chorus of admiring preachers
SEINE n. A kind of net for effecting an involuntary change of environment. For fish it is made strong and coarse
SELF-ESTEEM n. An erroneous appraisement.
SELF-EVIDENT adj. Evident to one's self and to nobody else.
SELFISH adj. Devoid of consideration for the selfishness of others.
SENATE n. A body of elderly gentlemen charged with high duties and misdemeanors.
SERIAL n. A literary work
Seventeen hundred impossible dragons! shouted the enraged
Several kinds of spike-tailed brass lions! he cried; "I am a
SEVERALTY n. Separateness
SHERIFF n. In America the chief executive officer of a county
Shocked by the horrid act, we made
SIREN n. One of several musical prodigies famous for a vain attempt to dissuade Odysseus from a life on the ocean wave. Figuratively
SLANG n. The grunt of the human hog (Pignoramus intolerabilis) with an audible memory. The speech of one who utters with his tongue what he thinks with his ear
So I am, so I am, said the scapegrace caughtâ
So the Minister had the bodies of his Majesty's Opposition embalmed and stuffed with straw put back into the seats of power and nailed there. Forty votes were recorded against every bill and the nation prospered. But one day a bill imposing a tax on warts was defeatedâthe members of the Government party had not been nailed to their seats! This so enraged the King that the Prime Minister was put to death
Some Bavarian peasants having caught a wolf one evening tied it to a post by the tail and went to bed. The next morning nothing was there! Greatly perplexed
some purposes is still unsettled but experiment has already proved
Son of a thousand illustrious deities, answered the
SOPHISTRY n. The controversial method of an opponent
SORCERY n. The ancient prototype and forerunner of political influence. It was
SOUL n. A spiritual entity concerning which there hath been brave disputation. Plato held that those souls which in a previous state of existence (antedating Athens) had obtained the clearest glimpses of eternal truth entered into the bodies of persons who became philosophers. Plato himself was a philosopher. The souls that had least contemplated divine truth animated the bodies of usurpers and despots. Dionysius I
Splendor of the universe, replied the Prime Ministerit is true these dogs of darkness have no longer their credentials, but all is not lost. Leave the matter to this worm of the dust.
SPOOKER n. A writer whose imagination concerns itself with supernatural phenomena
Spoon, old man, when leaving you last evening I forgot to ask you about those excellent cigars. Where did you get them?
Stone walls do not a prison make,
SUCCESS n. The one unpardonable sin against one's fellows. In literature
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
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.
SYLLOGISM n. A logical formula consisting of a major and a minor assumption and an inconsequent. (See LOGIC.)
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
SYMBOL n. Something that is supposed to typify or stand for something else. Many symbols are mere "survivals"âthings which having no longer any utility continue to exist because we have inherited the tendency to make them; as funereal urns carved on memorial monuments. They were once real urns holding the ashes of the dead. We cannot stop making them
SYMBOLIC adj. Pertaining to symbols and the use and interpretation of symbols.
TABLE D'HOTE n. A caterer's thrifty concession to the universal passion for irresponsibility.
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. Excepting in its foetal state
TALK v.t. To commit an indiscretion without temptation
TARIFF n. A scale of taxes on imports
TECHNICALITY n. In an English court a man named Home was tried for slander in having accused his neighbor of murder. His exact words were: "Sir Thomas Holt hath taken a cleaver and stricken his cook upon the head
TEETOTALER n. One who abstains from strong drink
TELEPHONE n. An invention of the devil which abrogates some of the advantages of making a disagreeable person keep his distance.
TELESCOPE n. A device having a relation to the eye similar to that of the telephone to the ear
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. The following illustrative lines were written of a Californian gentleman in high political preferment
Thank you; 'twill show you I am Saint the Firstâ
That Badman John must cease this thing
That I should get my fuel free.
that it will propel a street car better than a gas jet and give more
That pipe's a lovely white, they say
That sin, indeed, is awful:
That's true of yer Riverence [sic], Patrick replies
That's what I very gladly would have done,
The Biographical Alphabet
The cabbage is so called from Cabagius a prince who on ascending the throne issued a decree appointing a High Council of Empire consisting of the members of his predecessor's Ministry and the cabbages in the royal garden. When any of his Majesty's measures of state policy miscarried conspicuously it was gravely announced that several members of the High Council had been beheaded
The clay that rests beneath this stone
The Devil on Earth (London 1712)
The Duchess of Orleans relates that the irreverent old calumniator Marshal Villeroi
the dust brushed off him Oct. 3 1874."
The editor of an English magazine having received a letter pointing out the erroneous nature of his views and style and signed "Perfection
The Hebrews are heathens! says Howison. He's
The illustrious statesman Champ Clark
The King of Manchuria had a magic looking-glass whereon whoso looked saw
The late James F. Bowman was writing a serial tale for a weekly paper in collaboration with a genius whose name has not come down to us. They wrote not jointly but alternately
The Mad Philosopher, 1697
The man was in such deep distress,
The music was very uncommonly grandâ
The neighbor took a lemonade but shook his head and repeated that it was not right.
The popular type and exponent of obstinacy is the mule a most intelligent animal.
The reason, Sire, that you would thrive,
The superstition that maladies can be cured by royal taction is dead but like many a departed conviction it has left a monument of custom to keep its memory green. The practice of forming a line and shaking the President's hand had no other origin
The two definitions immediately foregoing are condensed from the works of one thousand eminent scientists who have illuminated the subject with a great white light
The world is all created, said Godbut you have overlooked somethingâthe mortality of the optimist.
Then why do you not become an atheist?
THEOSOPHY n. An ancient faith having all the certitude of religion and all the mystery of science. The modern Theosophist holds
There is no art, says Shakespeare foolish man
There is nothing, assented Joy thoughtfully
There is one insuperable obstacle to a belief in ghosts. A ghost never comes naked: he appears either in a winding-sheet or "in his habit as he lived." To believe in him then
there was a Farmer-General of the Revenues." Saying nothing more he
This boot, I'm sure, is too high to endure,
This is the end, the sick man said
This may be called the syllogism arithmetical in which
Thomas M. and Mary Frazer
Thou bastard son of a three-legged hunchback without thumbs!
thousand have already been slain and the question is still unsettled.
TIGHTS n. An habiliment of the stage designed to reinforce the general acclamation of the press agent with a particular publicity. Public attention was once somewhat diverted from this garment to Miss Lillian Russell's refusal to wear it
To hear my character lied about!
To read the mind's construction in the face.
To the gallant Ninety-eight Hundred and Thirty-seventhâI
To these excellent definitions the inspired lexicographer feels that he can add nothing of value.
to what it was that they ate. In this controversy some five hundred
To what regiment of executioners does the black-boweled
To-day the books are to be tried
TOMB n. The House of Indifference. Tombs are now by common consent invested with a certain sanctity
Too true, I said; "alas too trueâ
TORTOISE n. A creature thoughtfully created to supply occasion for the following lines by the illustrious Ambat Delaso:
TREE n. A tall vegetable intended by nature to serve as a penal apparatus
TRIAL n. A formal inquiry designed to prove and put upon record the blameless characters of judges
TRICHINOSIS n. The pig's reply to proponents of porcophagy.
TRINITY n. In the multiplex theism of certain Christian churches
TROGLODYTE n. Specifically
TRUST n. In American politics
TRUTH n. An ingenious compound of desirability and appearance. Discovery of truth is the sole purpose of philosophy
TRUTHFUL adj. Dumb and illiterate.
TURKEY n. A large bird whose flesh when eaten on certain religious anniversaries has the peculiar property of attesting piety and gratitude. Incidentally
TWICE adv. Once too often.
TYPE n. Pestilent bits of metal suspected of destroying civilization and enlightenment
TZETZE (or TSETSE) FLY n. An African insect (Glossina morsitans) whose bite is commonly regarded as nature's most efficacious remedy for insomnia
UGLINESS n. A gift of the gods to certain women
ULTIMATUM n. In diplomacy
Uncle of the Full Moon, was the replydeign to know that they are as the waves of the ocean, the sands of the desert and the stars of Heaven!
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
Unhappy soul! for that alone you squirm
UNITARIAN n. One who denies the divinity of a Trinitarian.
UNIVERSALIST n. One who forgoes the advantage of a Hell for persons of another faith.
Upholder of the Faith, that dignitary replied after examining his memorandathey are in numbers as the leaves of the forest!
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
USAGE n. The First Person of the literary Trinity
UXORIOUSNESS n. A perverted affection that has strayed to one's own wife.
VANITY n. The tribute of a fool to the worth of the nearest ass.
Victor Hugo relates that in the Channel Islands Satan himselfâ tempted more than elsewhere by the beauty of the women doubtlessâ sometimes plays at incubus
VIRTUES n.pl. Certain abstentions.
VOTE n. The instrument and symbol of a freeman's power to make a fool of himself and a wreck of his country.
WALL STREET n. A symbol of 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. Even the great and good Andrew Carnegie has made his profession of faith in the matter.
was encouraged to continue. "That he said, is the story."
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.
We consecrate your cash and lands
We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are
We'll tie his red right hand until
WEAKNESSES n.pl. Certain primal powers of Tyrant Woman wherewith she holds dominion over the male of her species
WEDDING n. A ceremony at which two persons undertake to become one
Well, I wouldn't tremble badly,
Well, mister, wot is that to you?â
Were the enemy's tactics offensive? the king asked. "I should say so!" replied the unsuccessful general. "The blackguard wouldn't come out of his works!"
WEREWOLF n. A wolf that was once
WHANGDEPOOTENAWAH n. In the Ojibwa tongue
What do you want? the Lord asked bending down.
What is your religion my son? inquired the Archbishop of Rheims.
What shall we do now? the King asked. "Liberal institutions cannot be maintained without a party of Opposition."
What, wretch! you his appointed adversary, charged from the dawn of eternity with hatred of his soulâyou ask for the right to make his laws?
What! I a Christian? No, indeed! I'm Christ.
What! what! cried oneare you not amazed
WHEAT n. A cereal from which a tolerably good whisky can with some difficulty be made
When Zeno was told that one of his enemies was no more he was observed to be deeply moved. "What!" said one of his disciplesyou weep at the death of an enemy? "Ah
Which led him to choose what the Lord had ordained.
While the Admiral was digesting this hasty meal of philosophy General Miles passed in review a spectacle of impressive dignity. When the tail of the seeming procession had passed and the two observers had recovered from the transient blindness caused by its effulgenceâ
While waiting for the moon to sink
Why have you halted? roared the commander of a division and Chickamauga who had ordered a charge; "move forward
Why, Owen, said onewhat brings you here on such a night as this? You told me that this is one of Vasquez' favorite haunts! And you are a believer. Aren't you afraid to be out?
WIDOW n. A pathetic figure that the Christian world has agreed to take humorously
WINE n. Fermented grape-juice known to the Women's Christian Union as "liquor
WIT n. The salt with which the American humorist spoils his intellectual cookery by leaving it out.
WITCH n. (1) Any ugly and repulsive old woman
WITTICISM n. A sharp and clever remark
WORMS'-MEAT n. The finished product of which we are the raw material. The contents of the Taj Mahal
WORSHIP n. Homo Creator's testimony to the sound construction and fine finish of Deus Creatus. A popular form of abjection
WRATH n. Anger of a superior quality and degree
Ye tree is not nowe in fruite, but in his seasonne you shall
YEAR n. A period of three hundred and sixty-five disappointments.
Yes, General; but for Heaven's sake don't reprimand me: I disobeyed the coin.
Yes, interposed Clarkthat animal has the best nose in Missouri. But if he doesn't mind, you shouldn't.
Yes, sir, answered the victorious subordinateit is a great thing to know exactly what to do in an emergency. When in doubt whether to attack or retreat I never hesitate a momentâI toss up a copper.
YESTERDAY n. The infancy of youth
Yet, for I pity your uneasy state,
You confounded remote ancestor! thundered the great strategistwhat do you mean by being out of bed after naps?âand with my coat on!
You have, sir, all the time there is.
You sue in forma pauperis, I see, Eve cried;
You tiresome man! cried Indolentio's wife
You're in your table d'hotage.
You've grown indifferent to all in life.
Your position's so surprisin'
Your prompt decision to attack, said General Grant on a certain occasion to General Gordon Grangerwas admirable; you had but five minutes to make up your mind in.
Your state is desperate, no question;
Your status?âdevil seize you!
YOUTH n. The Period of Possibility
ZANZIBARI n. An inhabitant of the Sultanate of Zanzibar
ZEAL n. A certain nervous disorder afflicting the young and inexperienced. A passion that goeth before a sprawl.
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
ZEUS n. The chief of Grecian gods
ZIGZAG v.t. To move forward uncertainly
ZOOLOGY n. The science and history of the animal kingdom
