The Devil's Dictionary

Said Tom, “that I could do no less

Than give him good advice.” Said Jim:

“If less could have been done for him

I know you well enough, my son,

To know that’s what you would have done.”

Jebel Jocordy

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.

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.

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

“Cheer up! Have you no aim in life?”

She tenderly inquired.

“An aim? Well, no, I haven’t, wife;

The fact is — I have fired.”

G.J.

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.

ALLAH, n. The Mahometan Supreme Being, as distinguished from the Christian, Jewish, and so forth.

Allah’s good laws I faithfully have kept,

And ever for the sins of man have wept;

And sometimes kneeling in the temple I

Have reverently crossed my hands and slept.

Junker Barlow

ALLEGIANCE, n.

This thing Allegiance, as I suppose,

Is a ring fitted in the subject’s nose,

Whereby that organ is kept rightly pointed

To smell the sweetness of the Lord’s anointed.

G.J.

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

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! the flint and steel,

By spark and flame, the thought reveal

That he the metal, she the stone,

Had cherished secretly alone.

Booley Fito

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, except with reference to the sacrifice of their liberty and peace by a male and a female tool.

They stood before the altar and supplied

The fire themselves in which their fat was fried.

In vain the sacrifice! — no god will claim

An offering burnt with an unholy flame.

M.P. Nopput

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.

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

ANOINT, v.t. 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.

Judibras

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

APHORISM, n. Predigested wisdom.

The flabby wine-skin of his brain

Yields to some pathologic strain,

And voids from its unstored abysm

The driblet of an aphorism.

“The Mad Philosopher,” 1697

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

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

APOTHECARY, n. The physician’s accomplice, undertaker’s benefactor and grave worm’s provider.

When Jove sent blessings to all men that are,

And Mercury conveyed them in a jar,

That friend of tricksters introduced by stealth

Disease for the apothecary’s health,

Whose gratitude impelled him to proclaim:

“My deadliest drug shall bear my patron’s name!”

G.J.

APPEAL, v.t. In law, to put the dice into the box for another throw.

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.

If I were a jolly archbishop,

On Fridays I’d eat all the fish up —

Salmon and flounders and smelts;

On other days everything else.

Jodo Rem

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

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

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

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 shirts — guilty of education and suspected of bank accounts.

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