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

PICKANINNY, n. The young of the _Procyanthropos_, or _Americanus dominans_. It is small, black and charged with political fatalities.

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

IMPALE, v.t. In popular usage to pierce with any weapon which remains fixed in the wound. This, however, is inaccurate; to imaple is, properly, to put to death by thrusting an upright sharp stake into...

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, omniscience, omnipotent. He it was who invented letters, printing, the...

PLEASURE, n. The least hateful form of dejection.

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.

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...

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, as in this famous passage from Bella Peeler...

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

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,...

SATAN, n. One of the Creator’s lamentable mistakes, repented in sashcloth and axes. Being instated as an archangel, Satan made himself multifariously objectionable and was finally expelled from Heaven. Halfway in his descent he paused,...

The most affectionate creature in the world is a wet dog

GRACES, n. 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...

Meekness: Uncommon patience in planning a revenge that is worth while.

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

SACRED, adj. Dedicated to some religious purpose; having a divine character; inspiring solemn thoughts or emotions; as, the Dalai Lama of Thibet; the Moogum of M’bwango; the temple of Apes in Ceylon; the Cow in...

TRICHINOSIS, n. The pig’s reply to proponents of porcophagy. Moses Mendlessohn having fallen ill sent for a Christian physician, who at once diagnosed the philosopher’s disorder as trichinosis, but tactfully gave it another name. “”You...

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.

GENTEEL, adj. Refined, after the fashion of a gent.Observe with care, my son, the distinction I reveal: A gentleman is gentle and a gent genteel. Heed not the definitions your “”Unabridged”” presents, For dictionary makers...

J is a consonant in English, but some nations use it as a vowel –than which nothing could be more absurd. Its original form, which has been but slightly modified, was that of the tail...

Treat things divine with marked respect – don’t have anything to do with them

An inventor is a person who makes an ingenious arrangement of wheels, levers and springs, and believes it civilization.

HOURI, n. A comely female inhabiting the Mohammedan Paradise to make things cheery for the good Mussulman, whose belief in her existence marks a noble discontent with his earthly spouse, whom he denies a soul....

To apologize is to lay the foundation for a future offense.

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, and feels the pride of a...

EPAULET, n. An ornamented badge, serving to distinguish a military officer from the enemy –that is to say, from the officer of lower rank to whom his death would give promotion.

Patriotism. Combustible rubbish ready to the torch of any one ambitious to illuminate his name.

Mythology: the body of a primitive people’s beliefs, concerning its origin, early history, heroes, deities and so forth, as distinguished from the true accounts which it invents later

BACCHUS, n. A convenient deity invented by the ancients as an excuse for getting drunk.Is public worship, then, a sin, That for devotions paid to Bacchus The lictors dare to run us in, And resolutely...

ACTUALLY, adv. Perhaps; possibly.

Enthusiasm. A distemper of youth, curable by small doses of repentance in connection with outward applications of experience.

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

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

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...

HYBRID, n. A pooled issue.

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

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

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

MONUMENT, n. A structure intended to commemorate something which either needs no commemoration or cannot be commemorated.The bones of Agammemnon are a show, And ruined is his royal monument, but Agammemnon’s fame suffers no diminution...

Adore, v.: To venerate expectantly.

REGALIA, n. Distinguishing insignia, jewels and costume of such ancient and honorable orders as Knights of Adam; Visionaries of Detectable Bosh; the Ancient Order of Modern Troglodytes; the League of Holy Humbug; the Golden Phalanx...

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.

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

HURRY, n. The dispatch of bunglers.

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

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

PHYSIOGNOMY, n. The art of determining the character of another by the resemblances and differences between his face and our own, which is the standard of excellence.””There is no art,”” says Shakespeare, foolish man,””To read...

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

Marriage is the state or condition of a community consisting of a master, a mistress and two slaves, making in all, two.