AUCTIONEER, n. The man who proclaims with a hammer that he has picked a pocket with his tongue.

WHANGDEPOOTENAWAH, n. In the Ojibwa tongue, disaster; an unexpected affliction that strikes hard.Should you ask me whence this laughter, Whence this audible big-smiling, With its labial extension, With its maxillar distortion And its diaphragmic rhythmus...

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.Said...

Opportunity is a favorable occasion for grasping a disappointment.

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...

FASHION, n. A despot whom the wise ridicule and obey.

MIND, n. A mysterious form of matter secreted by the brain. Its chief activity consists in the endeavor to ascertain its own nature, the futility of the attempt being due to the fact that it...

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...

LOCK-AND-KEY, n. The distinguishing device of civilization and enlightenment.

The fact that boys are allowed to exist at all is evidence of a remarkable Christian forbearance among men

PROOF-READER, n. A malefactor who atones for making your writing nonsense by permitting the compositor to make it unintelligible.

PRESIDENT, n. The leading figure in a small group of men of whom –and of whom only –it is positively known that immense numbers of their countrymen did not want any of them for President.If...

KNIGHT, n.Once a warrior gentle of birth, Then a person of civic worth, Now a fellow to move our mirth. Warrior, person, and fellow –no more: We must knight our dogs to get any lower....

POSTERITY, n. An appellate court which reverses the judgment of a popular author’s contemporaries, the appellant being his obscure competitor.

Dog – a kind of additional or subsidiary Deity designed to catch the overflow and surplus of the world’s worship.

PAINTING, n. The art of protecting flat surfaces from the weather and exposing them to the critic.

LANGUAGE, n. The music with which we charm the serpents guarding another’s treasure.

EXCESS, n. In morals, an indulgence that enforces by appropriate penalties the law of moderation.Hail, high Excess –especially in wine, To thee in worship do I bend the knee Who preach abstemiousness unto me —...

Trial. A formal inquiry designed to prove and put upon record the blameless characters of judges, advocates and jurors.

Doubt, indulged and cherished, is in danger of becoming denial; but if honest, and bent on thorough investigation, it may soon lead to full establishment of the truth.

WITTICISM, n. A sharp and clever remark, usually quoted, and seldom noted; what the Philistine is pleased to call a “joke.”

The gambling known as business looks with austere disfavor upon the business known as gambling.

Politeness, n: The most acceptable hypocrisy.

PLEASE, v. To lay the foundation for a superstructure of imposition.

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...

GHOST, n. The outward and visible sign of an inward fear.He saw a ghost. It occupied –that dismal thing! — The path that he was following. Before he’d time to stop and fly, An earthquake...

INFALAPSARIAN, n. One who ventures to believe that Adam need not have sinned unless he had a mind to –in opposition to the Supralapsarians, who hold that that luckless person’s fall was decreed from the...

ACCUSE, v.t. To affirm another’s guilt or unworth; most commonly as a justification of ourselves for having wronged him.

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

GOUT, n. A physician’s name for the rheumatism of a rich patient.

INCUBUS, n. One of a race of highly improper demons who, though probably not wholly extinct, may be said to have seen their best nights. For a complete account of _incubi_ and _succubi_, including _incubae_...

LAWFUL, adj. Compatible with the will of a judge having jurisdiction.

Experience is a revelation in the light of which we renounce our errors of youth for those of age.

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.

GRAVITATION, n. 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...

Dentist, n.: A Prestidigitator who, putting metal in one’s mouth, pulls coins out of one’s pockets.

SCEPTER, n. A king’s staff of office, the sign and symbol of his authority. It was originally a mace with which the sovereign admonished his jester and vetoed ministerial measures by breaking the bones of...

EAVESDROP, v.i. Secretly to overhear a catalogue of the crimes and vices of another or yourself.A lady with one of her ears applied To an open keyhole heard, inside, Two female gossips in converse free...

PLEBISCITE, n. A popular vote to ascertain the will of the sovereign.

RESPLENDENT, adj. Like a simple American citizen beduking himself in his lodge, or affirming his consequence in the Scheme of Things as an elemental unit of a parade.The Knights of Dominion were so resplendent in...

Peace, n.: In international affairs, a period of cheating between two periods of fighting.

PIGMY, n. One of a tribe of very small men found by ancient travelers in many parts of the world, but by modern in Central Africa only. The Pigmies are so called to distinguish them...

PREDILECTION, n. The preparatory stage of disillusion.

HERMIT, n. A person whose vices and follies are not sociable.

MINE, adj. Belonging to me if I can hold or seize it.

Eulogy. Praise of a person who has either the advantages of wealth and power, or the consideration to be dead.

COMMERCE, n. A kind of transaction in which A plunders from B the goods of C, and for compensation B picks the pocket of D of money belonging to E.

PORTUGUESE, n.pl. A species of geese indigenous to Portugal. They are mostly without feathers and imperfectly edible, even when stuffed with garlic.

PRESENT, n. That part of eternity dividing the domain of disappointment from the realm of hope.

PIRACY, n. Commerce without its folly-swaddles, just as God made it.