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...

Self-denial is indulgence of a propensity to forego

Electricity is the power that causes all natural phenomena not known to be caused by something else.

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

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

ACCOMPLICE, n. One associated with another in a crime, having guilty knowledge and complicity, as an attorney who defends a criminal, knowing him guilty. This view of the attorney’s position in the matter has not...

INSCRIPTION, n. Something written on another thing. Inscriptions are of many kinds, but mostly memorial, intended to commemorate the fame of some illustrious person and hand down to distant ages the record of his services...

BONDSMAN, n. A fool who, having property of his own, undertakes to become responsible for that entrusted to another to a third. Philippe of Orleans wishing to appoint one of his favorites, a dissolute nobleman,...

CAMEL, n. A quadruped (the _Splaypes humpidorsus_) of great value to the show business. There are two kinds of camels –the camel proper and the camel improper. It is the latter that is always exhibited.

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

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

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, the Egyptians made their once fertile...

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

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

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

Capital Punishment, a penalty regarding the justice and expediency of which many worthy persons – including all the assassins – entertain grave misgivings

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...

QUOTATION, n. The act of repeating erroneously the words of another. The words erroneously repeated.Intent on making his quotation truer, He sought the page infallible of Brewer, Then made a solemn vow that we would...

EAT, v.i. To perform successively (and successfully) the functions of mastication, humectation, and deglutition.””I was in the drawing-room, enjoying my dinner,”” said Brillat- Savarin, beginning an anecdote. “”What!”” interrupted Rochebriant; “”eating dinner in a drawing-room?””...

ADOLESCENCE The stage between puberty and adultery.

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

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...

PRIMATE, n. The head of a church, especially a State church supported by involuntary contributions. The Primate of England is the Archbishop of Canterbury, an amiable old gentleman, who occupies Lambeth Palace when living and...

RESPONSIBILITY, n. A detachable burden easily shifted to the shoulders of God, Fate, Fortune, Luck or one’s neighbor. In the days of astrology it was customary to unload it upon a star.Alas, things ain’t what...

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

DAWN, n. The time when men of reason go to bed. Certain old men prefer to rise at about that time, taking a cold bath and a long walk with an empty stomach, and otherwise...

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

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

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

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

HOG, n. A bird remarkable for the catholicity of its appetite and serving to illustrate that of ours. Among the Mahometans and Jews, the hog is not in favor as an article of diet, but...

ENVELOPE, n. The coffin of a document; the scabbard of a bill; the husk of a remittance; the bed-gown of a love-letter.

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

JESTER, n. An officer formerly attached to a king’s household, whose business it was to amuse the court by ludicrous actions and utterances, the absurdity being attested by his motley costume. The king himself being...

PIETY, n. Reverence for the Supreme Being, based upon His supposed resemblance to man.The pig is taught by sermons and epistles To think the God of Swine has snout and bristles. –Judibras

Valor is a soldierly compound of vanity, duty and the gambler’s hope.

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

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

BILLINGSGATE, n. The invective of an opponent.

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.

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

INDISCRETION, n. The guilt of woman.

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, but if...

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.

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

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

PENITENT, adj. Undergoing or awaiting punishment.

Suffrage, noun. Expression of opinion by means of a ballot. The right of suffrage (which is held to be both a privilege and a duty) means, as commonly interpreted, the right to vote for the...

SAINT, n. A dead sinner revised and edited. The Duchess of Orleans relates that the irreverent old calumniator, Marshal Villeroi, who in his youth had known St. Francis de Sales, said, on hearing him called...

GEOLOGY, n. 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...