The unabridged devils dictionary free download

The ancient philosophies were of two kinds,— exoteric , those that the philosophers themselves could partly understand, and esoteric , those that nobody could understand. It is the latter that have most profoundly affected modern thought and found greatest acceptance in our time. The science that treats of the various tribes of Man, as robbers, thieves, swindlers, dunces, lunatics, idiots and ethnologists. Praise of a person who has either the advantages of wealth and power, or the consideration to be dead.

A bearer of good tidings, particularly in a religious sense such as assure us of our own salvation and the damnation of our neighbors. Lasting forever. It is with no small diffidence that I venture to offer this brief and elementary definition, for I am not unaware of the existence of a bulky volume by a sometime Bishop of Worcester, entitled, A Partial Definition of the Word "Everlasting," as Used in the Authorized Version of the Holy Scriptures.

His book was once esteemed of great authority in the Anglican Church, and is still, I understand, studied with pleasure to the mind and profit of the soul. A thing which takes the liberty to differ from other things of its class, as an honest man, a truthful woman, etc.

In the Latin, " Exceptio probat regulam " means that the exception tests the rule, puts it to the proof, not confirms it. The malefactor who drew the meaning from this excellent dictum and substituted a contrary one of his own exerted an evil power which appears to be immortal.

In morals, an indulgence that enforces by appropriate penalties the law of moderation. An officer of the Government, whose duty it is to enforce the wishes of the legislative power until such time as the judicial department shall be pleased to pronounce them invalid and of no effect. In religious affairs, to put the conscience of another upon the spit and roast it to a nut-brown discomfort. EXILE, n. One who serves his country by residing abroad, yet is not an ambassador.

An English sea-captain being asked if he had read "The Exile of Erin," replied: "No, sir, but I should like to anchor on it. The wisdom that enables us to recognize as an undesirable old acquaintance the folly that we have already embraced. One of the many methods by which fools prefer to lose their friends. FAIRY, n. A creature, variously fashioned and endowed, that formerly inhabited the meadows and forests.

It was nocturnal in its habits, and somewhat addicted to dancing and the theft of children. The fairies are now believed by naturalists to be extinct, though a clergyman of the Church of England saw three near Colchester as lately as , while passing through a park after dining with the lord of the manor.

The sight greatly staggered him, and he was so affected that his account of it was incoherent. In the year a troop of fairies visited a wood near Aix and carried off the daughter of a peasant, who had been seen to enter it with a bundle of clothing. The son of a wealthy bourgeois disappeared about the same time, but afterward returned. He had seen the abduction and been in pursuit of the fairies.

Justinian Gaux, a writer of the fourteenth century, avers that so great is the fairies' power of transformation that he saw one change itself into two opposing armies and fight a battle with great slaughter, and that the next day, after it had resumed its original shape and gone away, there were seven hundred bodies of the slain which the villagers had to bury.

He does not say if any of the wounded recovered. In the time of Henry III, of England, a law was made which prescribed the death penalty for "Kyllynge, wowndynge, or mamynge" a fairy, and it was universally respected. FAITH, n. Belief without evidence in what is told by one who speaks without knowledge, of things without parallel. FEAST, n.

A festival. A religious celebration usually signalized by gluttony and drunkenness, frequently in honor of some holy person distinguished for abstemiousness. In the Roman Catholic Church feasts are "movable" and "immovable," but the celebrants are uniformly immovable until they are full. In their earliest development these entertainments took the form of feasts for the dead; such were held by the Greeks, under the name Nemeseia , by the Aztecs and Peruvians, as in modern times they are popular with the Chinese; though it is believed that the ancient dead, like the modern, were light eaters.

Among the many feasts of the Romans was the Novemdiale , which was held, according to Livy, whenever stones fell from heaven. FELON, n. A person of greater enterprise than discretion, who in embracing an opportunity has formed an unfortunate attachment. FIB, n. A lie that has not cut its teeth. An habitual liar's nearest approach to truth: the perigee of his eccentric orbit. An instrument to tickle human ears by friction of a horse's tail on the entrails of a cat.

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. 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 London—"Rubbish may be shot here.

FLOP, v. Suddenly to change one's opinions and go over to another party. The most notable flop on record was that of Saul of Tarsus, who has been severely criticised as a turn-coat by some of our partisan journals. 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, which have always been distinguished for a neighborly and companionable familiarity with authors, liberally or niggardly embellish the manuscripts in process of growth under the pen, according to their bodily habit, bringing out the sense of the work by a species of interpretation superior to, and independent of, the writer's powers. The "old masters" of literature—that is to say, the early writers whose work is so esteemed by later scribes and critics in the same language—never punctuated at all, but worked right along free-handed, without that abruption of the thought which comes from the use of points.

We observe the same thing in children to-day, whose usage in this particular is a striking and beautiful instance of the law that the infancy of individuals reproduces the methods and stages of development characterizing the infancy of races. In the work of these primitive scribes all the punctuation is found, by the modern investigator with his optical instruments and chemical tests, to have been inserted by the writers' ingenious and serviceable collaborator, the common house-fly— Musca maledicta.

In transcribing these ancient MSS, for the purpose of either making the work their own or preserving what they naturally regard as divine revelations, later writers reverently and accurately copy whatever marks they find upon the papyrus or parchment, to the unspeakable enhancement of the lucidity of the thought and value of the work.

Writers contemporary with the copyists naturally avail themselves of the obvious advantages of these marks in their own work, and with such assistance as the flies of their own household may be willing to grant, frequently rival and sometimes surpass the older compositions, in respect at least of punctuation, which is no small glory. Fully to understand the important services that flies perform to literature it is only necessary to lay a page of some popular novelist alongside a saucer of cream-and-molasses in a sunny room and observe "how the wit brightens and the style refines" in accurate proportion to the duration of exposure.

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

FOOL, n. A person who pervades the domain of intellectual speculation and diffuses himself through the channels of moral activity. He is omnific, omniform, omnipercipient, omniscient, omnipotent. He it was who invented letters, printing, the railroad, the steamboat, the telegraph, the platitude and the circle of the sciences.

He created patriotism and taught the nations war—founded theology, philosophy, law, medicine and Chicago. He established monarchical and republican government. He is from everlasting to everlasting—such as creation's dawn beheld he fooleth now. In the morning of time he sang upon primitive hills, and in the noonday of existence headed the procession of being. His grandmotherly hand was warmly tucked-in the set sun of civilization, and in the twilight he prepares Man's evening meal of milk-and-morality and turns down the covers of the universal grave.

And after the rest of us shall have retired for the night of eternal oblivion he will sit up to write a history of human civilization. This looks like an easy word to define, but when I consider that pious and learned theologians have spent long lives in explaining it, and written libraries to explain their explanations; when I remember that nations have been divided and bloody battles caused by the difference between foreordination and predestination, and that millions of treasure have been expended in the effort to prove and disprove its compatibility with freedom of the will and the efficacy of prayer, praise, and a religious life,—recalling these awful facts in the history of the word, I stand appalled before the mighty problem of its signification, abase my spiritual eyes, fearing to contemplate its portentous magnitude, reverently uncover and humbly refer it to His Eminence Cardinal Gibbons and His Grace Bishop Potter.

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, and by many worthy persons is still thought to have many advantages over the other tool, which, however, they do not altogether reject, but use to assist in charging the knife. The immunity of these persons from swift and awful death is one of the most striking proofs of God's mercy to those that hate Him.

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, and once when Henry VIII of England sent an officer to confiscate certain vast possessions which a fraternity of monks held by frankalmoigne, "What! A conqueror in a small way of business, whose annexations lack of the sanctifying merit of magnitude.

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.

The distinction between freedom and liberty is not accurately known; naturalists have never been able to find a living specimen of either. An order with secret rites, grotesque ceremonies and fantastic costumes, which, originating in the reign of Charles II, among working artisans of London, has been joined successively by the dead of past centuries in unbroken retrogression until now it embraces all the generations of man on the hither side of Adam and is drumming up distinguished recruits among the pre-Creational inhabitants of Chaos and Formless Void.

Its emblems and symbols have been found in the Catacombs of Paris and Rome, on the stones of the Parthenon and the Chinese Great Wall, among the temples of Karnak and Palmyra and in the Egyptian Pyramids—always by a Freemason. Having no favors to bestow. Destitute of fortune. Addicted to utterance of truth and common sense.

A ship big enough to carry two in fair weather, but only one in foul. 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, but the learned, ingenious and industrious Dr. Schliemann has set the question forever at rest by uncovering the bones of the slain frogs. One of the forms of moral suasion by which Pharaoh was besought to favor the Israelities was a plague of frogs, but Pharaoh, who liked them fricasees , remarked, with truly oriental stoicism, that he could stand it as long as the frogs and the Jews could; so the programme was changed.

The frog is a diligent songster, having a good voice but no ear. The libretto of his favorite opera, as written by Aristophanes, is brief, simple and effective—"brekekex-koax"; the music is apparently by that eminent composer, Richard Wagner. Horses have a frog in each hoof—a thoughtful provision of nature, enabling them to shine in a hurdle race. One part of the penal apparatus employed in that punitive institution, a woman's kitchen.

The frying-pan was invented by Calvin, and by him used in cooking span-long infants that had died without baptism; and observing one day the horrible torment of a tramp who had incautiously pulled a fried babe from the waste-dump and devoured it, it occurred to the great divine to rob death of its terrors by introducing the frying-pan into every household in Geneva. Thence it spread to all corners of the world, and has been of invaluable assistance in the propagation of his sombre faith.

The following lines said to be from the pen of his Grace Bishop Potter seem to imply that the usefulness of this utensil is not limited to this world; but as the consequences of its employment in this life reach over into the life to come, so also itself may be found on the other side, rewarding its devotees:. A pageant whereby we attest our respect for the dead by enriching the undertaker, and strengthen our grief by an expenditure that deepens our groans and doubles our tears.

That period of time in which our affairs prosper, our friends are true and our happiness is assured. A stage for the performance of miracle plays, in which the leading actor is translated to heaven. In this country the gallows is chiefly remarkable for the number of persons who escape it.

A rain-spout projecting from the eaves of mediaeval buildings, commonly fashioned into a grotesque caricature of some personal enemy of the architect or owner of the building.

This was especially the case in churches and ecclesiastical structures generally, in which the gargoyles presented a perfect rogues' gallery of local heretics and controversialists. Sometimes when a new dean and chapter were installed the old gargoyles were removed and others substituted having a closer relation to the private animosities of the new incumbents. An elastic band intended to keep a woman from coming out of her stockings and desolating the country.

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. An account of one's descent from an ancestor who did not particularly care to trace his own. A chap who can tell you offhand the difference between the outside of the world and the inside. The science of the earth's crust—to which, doubtless, will be added that of its interior whenever a man shall come up garrulous out of a well.

The geological formations of the globe already noted are catalogued thus: The Primary, or lower one, consists of rocks, bones or mired mules, gas-pipes, miners' tools, antique statues minus the nose, Spanish doubloons and ancestors. The Secondary is largely made up of red worms and moles. The Tertiary comprises railway tracks, patent pavements, grass, snakes, mouldy boots, beer bottles, tomato cans, intoxicated citizens, garbage, anarchists, snap-dogs and fools.

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, if I may judge from such tables of comparative speed as I am able to compile from memories of my own experience. 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. Supposing the products of the loom to have this ability, what object would they have in exercising it?

And why does not the apparition of a suit of clothes sometimes walk abroad without a ghost in it? These be riddles of significance. They reach away down and get a convulsive grip on the very tap-root of this flourishing faith. GHOUL, n. A demon addicted to the reprehensible habit of devouring the dead. The existence of ghouls has been disputed by that class of controversialists who are more concerned to deprive the world of comforting beliefs than to give it anything good in their place.

In Father Secchi saw one in a cemetery near Florence and frightened it away with the sign of the cross. He describes it as gifted with many heads and an uncommon allowance of limbs, and he saw it in more than one place at a time. The good man was coming away from dinner at the time and explains that if he had not been "heavy with eating" he would have seized the demon at all hazards.

Atholston relates that a ghoul was caught by some sturdy peasants in a churchyard at Sudbury and ducked in a horsepond. He appears to think that so distinguished a criminal should have been ducked in a tank of rosewater.

The water turned at once to blood "and so contynues unto ys daye. As late as the beginning of the fourteenth century a ghoul was cornered in the crypt of the cathedral at Amiens and the whole population surrounded the place.

Twenty armed men with a priest at their head, bearing a crucifix, entered and captured the ghoul, which, thinking to escape by the stratagem, had transformed itself to the semblance of a well known citizen, but was nevertheless hanged, drawn and quartered in the midst of hideous popular orgies.

The citizen whose shape the demon had assumed was so affected by the sinister occurrence that he never again showed himself in Amiens and his fate remains a mystery. GNOME, n. In North-European mythology, a dwarfish imp inhabiting the interior parts of the earth and having special custody of mineral treasures.

Bjorsen, who died in , says gnomes were common enough in the southern parts of Sweden in his boyhood, and he frequently saw them scampering on the hills in the evening twilight.

Ludwig Binkerhoof saw three as recently as , in the Black Forest, and Sneddeker avers that in they drove a party of miners out of a Silesian mine. Basing our computations upon data supplied by these statements, we find that the gnomes were probably extinct as early as A sect of philosophers who tried to engineer a fusion between the early Christians and the Platonists.

The former would not go into the caucus and the combination failed, greatly to the chagrin of the fusion managers. GNU, n. An animal of South Africa, which in its domesticated state resembles a horse, a buffalo and a stag. In its wild condition it is something like a thunderbolt, an earthquake and a cyclone. GOOD, adj.

Sensible, madam, to the worth of this present writer. Alive, sir, to the advantages of letting him alone. GOOSE, n. A bird that supplies quills for writing. These, by some occult process of nature, are penetrated and suffused with various degrees of the bird's intellectual energies and emotional character, so that when inked and drawn mechanically across paper by a person called an "author," there results a very fair and accurate transcript of the fowl's thought and feeling.

The difference in geese, as discovered by this ingenious method, is considerable: many are found to have only trivial and insignificant powers, but some are seen to be very great geese indeed.

Three beautiful goddesses, Aglaia, Thalia and Euphrosyne, who attended upon Venus, serving without salary. They were at no expense for board and clothing, for they ate nothing to speak of and dressed according to the weather, wearing whatever breeze happened to be blowing. A system of pitfalls thoughtfully prepared for the feet for the self-made man, along the path by which he advances to distinction.

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. The tendency of all bodies to approach one another with a strength proportion to the quantity of matter they contain— 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, having made A the proof of B, makes B the proof of A.

A machine which makes a Frenchman shrug his shoulders with good reason. In his great work on Divergent Lines of Racial Evolution , the learned Professor Brayfugle argues from the prevalence of this gesture —the shrug—among Frenchmen, that they are descended from turtles and it is simply a survival of the habit of retracting the head inside the shell.

It is with reluctance that I differ with so eminent an authority, but in my judgment as more elaborately set forth and enforced in my work entitled Hereditary Emotions —lib. II, c. XI the shrug is a poor foundation upon which to build so important a theory, for previously to the Revolution the gesture was unknown. I have not a doubt that it is directly referable to the terror inspired by the guillotine during the period of that instrument's activity.

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, but not upon very convincing evidence. Milton says it was invented by the devil to dispel angels with, and this opinion seems to derive some support from the scarcity of angels.

Moreover, it has the hearty concurrence of the Hon. James Wilson, Secretary of Agriculture. 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, a rogue imperfectly reverent of the Secretary's profound attainments and personal character presented him with a sack of gunpowder, representing it as the seed of the Flashawful flabbergastor , a Patagonian cereal of great commercial value, admirably adapted to this climate.

The good Secretary was instructed to spill it along in a furrow and afterward inhume it with soil. This he at once proceeded to do, and had made a continuous line of it all the way across a ten-acre field, when he was made to look backward by a shout from the generous donor, who at once dropped a lighted match into the furrow at the starting-point.

Contact with the earth had somewhat dampened the powder, but the startled functionary saw himself pursued by a tall moving pillar of fire and smoke and fierce evolution. He stood for a moment paralyzed and speechless, then he recollected an engagement and, dropping all, absented himself thence with such surprising celerity that to the eyes of spectators along the route selected he appeared like a long, dim streak prolonging itself with inconceivable rapidity through seven villages, and audibly refusing to be comforted.

A writ by which a man may be taken out of jail when confined for the wrong crime. HADES, n. The lower world; the residence of departed spirits; the place where the dead live. 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, the Elysian Fields themselves were a part of Hades, though they have since been removed to Paris.

When the Jacobean version of the New Testament was in process of evolution the pious and learned men engaged in the work insisted by a majority vote on translating the Greek word "Aides" as "Hell"; but a conscientious minority member secretly possessed himself of the record and struck out the objectional word wherever he could find it.

At the next meeting, the Bishop of Salisbury, looking over the work, suddenly sprang to his feet and said with considerable excitement: "Gentlemen, somebody has been razing 'Hell' here!

HAG, n. An elderly lady whom you do not happen to like; sometimes called, also, a hen, or cat. Old witches, sorceresses, etc. At one time hag was not a word of reproach: Drayton speaks of a "beautiful hag, all smiles," much as Shakespeare said, "sweet wench.

HALF, n. One of two equal parts into which a thing may be divided, or considered as divided. In the fourteenth century a heated discussion arose among theologists and philosophers as to whether Omniscience could part an object into three halves; and the pious Father Aldrovinus publicly prayed in the cathedral at Rouen that God would demonstrate the affirmative of the proposition in some signal and unmistakable way, and particularly if it should please Him upon the body of that hardy blasphemer, Manutius Procinus, who maintained the negative.

Procinus, however, was spared to die of the bite of a viper. HALO, n. Properly, a luminous ring encircling an astronomical body, but not infrequently confounded with "aureola," or "nimbus," a somewhat similar phenomenon worn as a head-dress by divinities and saints. The halo is a purely optical illusion, produced by moisture in the air, in the manner of a rainbow; but the aureola is conferred as a sign of superior sanctity, in the same way as a bishop's mitre, or the Pope's tiara.

In the painting of the Nativity, by Szedgkin, a pious artist of Pesth, not only do the Virgin and the Child wear the nimbus, but an ass nibbling hay from the sacred manger is similarly decorated and, to his lasting honor be it said, appears to bear his unaccustomed dignity with a truly saintly grace. HAND, n. A singular instrument worn at the end of the human arm and commonly thrust into somebody's pocket. A small square of silk or linen, used in various ignoble offices about the face and especially serviceable at funerals to conceal the lack of tears.

The handkerchief is of recent invention; our ancestors knew nothing of it and intrusted its duties to the sleeve. Shakespeare's introducing it into the play of "Othello" is an anachronism: Desdemona dried her nose with her skirt, as Dr. Mary Walker and other reformers have done with their coattails in our own day—an evidence that revolutions sometimes go backward. An officer of the law charged with duties of the highest dignity and utmost gravity, and held in hereditary disesteem by a populace having a criminal ancestry.

In some of the American States his functions are now performed by an electrician, as in New Jersey, where executions by electricity have recently been ordered—the first instance known to this lexicographer of anybody questioning the expediency of hanging Jerseymen. An agreeable sensation arising from contemplating the misery of another. A place where ships taking shelter from stores are exposed to the fury of the customs.

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

HEART, n. An automatic, muscular blood-pump. Figuratively, this useful organ is said to be the seat of emotions and sentiments—a very pretty fancy which, however, is nothing but a survival of a once universal belief. It is now known that the sentiments and emotions reside in the stomach, being evolved from food by chemical action of the gastric fluid. The exact process by which a beefsteak becomes a feeling—tender or not, according to the age of the animal from which it was cut; the successive stages of elaboration through which a caviar sandwich is transmuted to a quaint fancy and reappears as a pungent epigram; the marvelous functional methods of converting a hard-boiled egg into religious contrition, or a cream-puff into a sigh of sensibility—these things have been patiently ascertained by M.

Pasteur, and by him expounded with convincing lucidity. In a scientific work entitled, I believe, Delectatio Demonorum John Camden Hotton, London, this view of the sentiments receives a striking illustration; and for further light consult Professor Dam's famous treatise on Love as a Product of Alimentary Maceration. Abide, v. Ability, n. In the last analysis ability is commonly found to consist mainly in a high degree of solemnity. Perhaps, however, this impressive quality is rightly appraised; it is no easy task to be solemn.

Abject, adj. Innocent of income; without estate; devoid of good clothing. Abjectly, adv. In the manner of a poor but honest person. Abjure, v. To take the preliminary step toward resumption. Ablative, adj. A certain case of Latin nouns. The ablative absolute is an ancient form of grammatical error much admired by modern scholars. Abnegation, n. Renunciation of unprofitable pleasures or painful gains. Abnormal, adj. Not conforming to standard. In matters of thought and conduct, to be independent is to be abnormal, to be abnormal is to be detested.

Wherefore the lexicographer adviseth a striving toward a straiter resemblance to the Average Man than he hath to himself. Whoso attaineth thereto shall have peace, the prospect of death and the hope of Hell. Abominable, adj. Aborigines, n. They soon cease to cumber; they fertilize. By Abracadabra we signify An infinite number of things. And Whence? Of an ancient man the tale is told That he lived to be ten centuries old, In a cave on a mountain side. True, he finally died.

Mighty big books were these, In number, as leaves of trees; In learning, remarkable—very! In Abracadabra it solemnly rings, Like an ancient bell that forever swings.

Jamrach Holobom. Abridge, v. To shorten. When in the course of human events it becomes necessary for a people to abridge their king, a decent respect for the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

Abridgement, n. Abroad, adj. At war with savages and idiots. To be a Frenchman abroad is to be miserable; to be an American abroad is to make others miserable. Abrupt, adj. Sudden, without ceremony, like the arrival of a cannon-shot and the departure of the soldier whose interests are most affected by it.

Abscond, v. Spring beckons! All things to the call respond; The trees are leaving and cashiers abscond. Phela Orm. Absence, n. Absence of mind is the cerebral condition essential to success in popular preaching. It is sometimes termed lack of sense. Absent, adj. To men a man is but a mind. Who cares What face he carries or what form he wears? O, Stay thou, my sweetheart, and do never go, But heed the warning words the sage hath said: A woman absent is a woman dead. Jogo Tyree. Absentee, n. A person with an income who has had the forethought to remove himself from the sphere of exaction.

Absolute, adj. An absolute monarchy is one in which the sovereign does as he pleases so long as he pleases the assassins.

Absolute certainty is one of the possible degrees of probability. Absolute monarchy is a form of government in which the chief power is vested in a gentleman who is near his end. Abstainer, n. A weak person who yields to the temptation of denying himself a pleasure. A total abstainer is one who abstains from everything but abstention, and especially from inactivity in the affairs of others. Abstemious, adj. Abstruseness, n. The bait of a bare hook. Absurdity, n.

A belief in which one has not had the misfortune to be instructed. Abundance, n. A means, under Providence, of withholding alms from the destitute.

Abuse, n. Abuse of power is the exercise of authority in a manner unpleasant to ourselves. Academe, n. An ancient school where morality and philosophy were taught. Academy, n. Accept, v. In Courtship to reap the whirlwind after sowing the wind. To accept office is to take with decent reluctance the reward of immodest avidity. To accept a challenge is to become a sincere believer in the sanctity of human life. Accident, n.

An inevitable occurrence due to the action of immutable natural laws. Acclimated, pp. Secured against endemic diseases through having died of one.

To oblige; to lay the foundation of future exactions. Accomplice, n. Accord, n. Accordion, n. An instrument in harmony with the sentiments of an assassin. Accoucheur, n. Accountability, n. The mother of caution. Accountable, adj. Liable to an abatement of pleasure, profit or advantage; exposed to the peril of a penalty. Accuracy, n. A certain uninteresting quality carefully excluded from human statements.

Accuse, v. Accuser, n. Ace, n. The one-fourth part of the Hand of Fate. Aceldama, n. A piece of real estate near Jerusalem, in which the broker, Judas Iscariot, invested the money he made by selling short and escaping a corner. Acephalous, adj. In the surprising condition of the Crusader who absently pulled at his forelock some hours after a Saracen scimitar had, unconsciously to him, passed through his neck, as related by de Joinville.

Acerbity, n. The quality which distinguishes the disposition of Deacon Fitch from a crabapple. Ache, v. To act like the tomb of a cucumber. Achievement, n. The death of endeavor and the birth of disgust. Acknowledge, v. To confess. Acorn, n. It makes tyranny tremble.

Acquaintance, n. A person whom we know well enough to borrow from, but not well enough to lend to. A degree of friendship called slight when its object is poor or obscure, and intimate when he is rich or famous. Acquit, v. To render judgment in a murder case in San Francisco.

A muscular, wellconditioned fellow. A man who breaks his back to fill his belly. Acrostic, n. A severe trial to the feelings. Commonly inflicted by a fool. Actor, n. One who peddles ready-made emotion, and who, despising us for the qualities upon which he feeds, is by us despised for the unwholesome character of his diet. See Stick. Actress, n. A woman whose good name is commonly tainted from being so much in our mouths. Actually, adv. Perhaps; possibly.

Adage, n. Adamant, n. A mineral frequently found beneath a corset. Soluble in solicitate of gold. A protuberance on the throat of a man, thoughtfully provided by Nature to keep the rope in place. Adder, n. A species of snake. So called from its habit of adding funeral outlays to the other expenses of living. Address, n. A formal discourse, usually delivered to a person who has something by a person who wants something that he has.

The place at which one receives the delicate attentions of creditors. Adherent, n. A follower who has not yet obtained all that he expects to get.

Adipose, adj. Fat, ragged and saucy. Adjutant, n. In military affairs, a bustling officer of inferior rank, whose function it is to divert attention from the commander.

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

Admirability, n. My kind of ability, as distinguished from your kind of ability. Admiral, n. That part of a war-ship which does the talking while the figure-head does the thinking. Admiration, n. Admonition, n. Gentle reproof, as with a meat-axe. Friendly warning.

Consigned, by way of admonition, His soul forever to perdition. Adolescent, adj. Recovering from boyhood. Adonis, n. A comely youth, remembered chiefly for his unkindness to Venus. He has been unjustly censured by those who forget that in his time goddesses were only ten cents a bunch.

Advice, n. The smallest current coin. The most unpleasant ticks afflicting the race. Worse than woodticks. Affection, n. In morals, a sentiment; in medicine, a disease.

To a young woman an affection of the heart means love; to a doctor it may mean fatty degeneration. The difference is one of nomenclature merely. Affectionate, adj. Addicted to being a nuisance. The most affectionate creature in the world is a wet dog.

Affianced, pp. Fitted with an ankle-ring for the ball-and-chain. Affirm, v. To declare with suspicious gravity when one is not compelled to wholly discredit himself with an oath. Affliction, n. An acclimatizing process preparing the soul for another and bitter world. Afraid, adj. Civilly willing that things should be other than they seem. 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.

Agitator, n. A statesman who shakes the fruit trees of his neighbors—to dislodge the worms. Agony, n. A superior degree of bodily disgust. A politician who carries his real estate under his nails.

Aim, n. The task we set our wishes to. Have you no aim in life? Air, n. A nutritious substance supplied by a bountiful Providence for the fattening of the poor.

Alcohol, n. Arabic al kohl, a paint for the eyes. The essential principle of all such liquids as give a man a black eye. 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, n. Every single cent—except what you have kept out for yourself. Allah, n. Junker Barlow. Allegiance, n. Allegory, n.

A metaphor in three volumes and a tiger. Alliance, n. Alligator, n. The crocodile of America, superior in every detail to the crocodile of the effete monarchies of the Old World.

Herodotus says the Indus is, with one exception, the only river that produces crocodiles, but they appear to have gone West and grown up with the other rivers. From the notches on his back the alligator is called a sawrian. Alone, adj. In bad company. In contact, lo! Booley Fito. Altar, n. The place whereon 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, except with reference to the sacrifice of their liberty and peace by a male and a female fool. In vain the sacrifice! Amateur, n. A public nuisance who mistakes taste for skill, and confounds his ambition with his ability. Amatory, adj. We should blush to murmur it.

Amazon, n. Their thoughtless habit of twisting the necks of the males has unfortunately resulted in the extinction of their kind. 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.

Ambrosia, n. The diet of the gods—the modern peanut. A Mensa et Thoro. Amnesty, n. Animal, n. An organism which, requiring a great number of other animals for its sustenance, illustrates in a marked way the bounty of Providence in preserving the lives of his creatures. Animalism, n. To grease a king or other great functionary already sufficiently slippery. As sovereigns are anointed by the priesthood, So pigs to lead the populace are greased good.

Antagonist, n. Ante-chamber, n. An apartment in which one does penance in advance for the sin of asking for a postoffice. Antipathy, n. Antiquity, n. A kind of leather, probably. Beated and chopped with tanned antiquity. Apathetic, adj. Six weeks married. Aphorism, n. Lexical database provided by Merriam-Webster Inc. Full Specifications. What's new in version 6. Release August 15, Date Added August 15, Version 6. Operating Systems. Additional Requirements None. Total Downloads 6, Downloads Last Week Report Software.

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