CANNIBAL, n. A gastronome of the old school who preserves the simple tastes and adheres to the natural diet of the pre-pork period.

INGRATE, n. One who receives a benefit from another, or is otherwise an object of charity.””All men are ingrates,”” sneered the cynic. “”Nay,”” The good philanthropist replied;””I did great service to a man one day...

Who never doubted, never half believed. Where doubt is, there truth is – it is her shadow.

Clairvoyant, n.: A person, commonly a woman, who has the power of seeing that which is invisible to her patron – namely, that he is a blockhead.

PHOENIX, n. The classical prototype of the modern “small hot bird.”

MINOR, adj. Less objectionable.

ENTHUSIASM, n. A distemper of youth, curable by small doses of repentance in connection with outward applications of experience. Byron, who recovered long enough to call it “entuzy-muzy,” had a relapse, which carried him off...

MAGIC, n. An art of converting superstition into coin. There are other arts serving the same high purpose, but the discreet lexicographer does not name them.

It is evident that skepticism, while it makes no actual change in man, always makes him feel better.

ETHNOLOGY, n. The science that treats of the various tribes of Man, as robbers, thieves, swindlers, dunces, lunatics, idiots and ethnologists.

Revolution is an abrupt change in the form of misgovernment.

ENVY, n. Emulation adapted to the meanest capacity.

INSURRECTION, n. An unsuccessful revolution. Disaffection’s failure to substitute misrule for bad government.

OPIATE, n. An unlocked door in the prison of Identity. It leads into the jail yard.

IMAGINATION, n. A warehouse of facts, with poet and liar in joint ownership.

RETRIBUTION, n. A rain of fire-and-brimstone that falls alike upon the just and such of the unjust as have not procured shelter by evicting them. In the lines following, addressed to an Emperor in exile...

SABBATH, n. A weekly festival having its origin in the fact that God made the world in six days and was arrested on the seventh. Among the Jews observance of the day was enforced by...

BENEFACTOR, n. One who makes heavy purchases of ingratitude, without, however, materially affecting the price, which is still within the means of all.

CLERGYMAN, n. A man who undertakes the management of our spiritual affairs as a method of better his temporal ones.

To bother about the best method of accomplishing an accidental result.

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...

PRE-ADAMITE, n. One of an experimental and apparently unsatisfactory race of antedated Creation and lived under conditions not easily conceived. Melsius believed them to have inhabited “the Void” and to have been something intermediate between...

REVIEW, v.t.To set your wisdom (holding not a doubt of it, Although in truth there’s neither bone nor skin to it) At work upon a book, and so read out of it The qualities that...

PHRENOLOGY, n. The science of picking the pocket through the scalp. It consists in locating and exploiting the organ that one is a dupe with.

ZIGZAG, v.t. To move forward uncertainly, from side to side, as one carrying the white man’s burden. (From _zed_, _z_, and _jag_, an Icelandic word of unknown meaning.)He zedjagged so uncomen wyde Thet non coude...

RAMSHACKLE, adj. Pertaining to a certain order of architecture, otherwise known as the Normal American. Most of the public buildings of the United States are of the Ramshackle order, though some of our earlier architects...

Aborigines, n.: Persons of little worth found cumbering the soil of a newly discovered country. They soon cease to cumber; they fertilize.

ELEGY, n. A composition in verse, in which, without employing any of the methods of humor, the writer aims to produce in the reader’s mind the dampest kind of dejection. The most famous English example...

DISTANCE, n. The only thing that the rich are willing for the poor to call theirs, and keep.

Genealogy, n. An account of one’s descent from a man who did not particularly care to trace his own.

Learning, n. The kind of ignorance distinguishing the studious.

PEDIGREE, n. The known part of the route from an arboreal ancestor with a swim bladder to an urban descendant with a cigarette.

WITCH, n. (1) Any ugly and repulsive old woman, in a wicked league with the devil. (2) A beautiful and attractive young woman, in wickedness a league beyond the devil.

Politeness is the most acceptable hypocrisy

Admiration, n. Our polite recognition of another’s resemblance to ourselves.

DIPLOMACY, n. The patriotic art of lying for one’s country.

There is nothing new under the sun but there are lots of old things we don’t know

MACHINATION, n. The method employed by one’s opponents in baffling one’s open and honorable efforts to do the right thing.So plain the advantages of machination It constitutes a moral obligation, And honest wolves who think...

DAY, n. A period of twenty-four hours, mostly misspent. This period is divided into two parts, the day proper and the night, or day improper –the former devoted to sins of business, the latter consecrated...

OCCIDENT, n. The part of the world lying west (or east) of the Orient. It is largely inhabited by Christians, a powerful subtribe of the Hypocrites, whose principal industries are murder and cheating, which they...

PESSIMISM, n. A philosophy forced upon the convictions of the observer by the disheartening prevalence of the optimist with his scarecrow hope and his unsightly smile.

ACCORDION, n. An instrument in harmony with the sentiments of an assassin.

PREDESTINATION, n. The doctrine that all things occur according to programme. This doctrine should not be confused with that of foreordination, which means that all things are programmed, but does not affirm their occurrence, that...

SUCCESS, n. The one unpardonable sin against one’s fellows. In literature, and particularly in poetry, the elements of success are exceedingly simple, and are admirably set forth in the following lines by the reverend Father...

Debt, n. An ingenious substitute for the chain and whip of the slavedriver.

SYMBOLIC, adj. Pertaining to symbols and the use and interpretation of symbols.They say ’tis conscience feels compunction; I hold that that’s the stomach’s function, For of the sinner I have noted That when he’s sinned...

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 and vacant lots in London –“”Rubbish may be...

BODY-SNATCHER, n. A robber of grave-worms. One who supplies the young physicians with that with which the old physicians have supplied the undertaker. The hyena.””One night,”” a doctor said, “”last fall, I and my comrades,...

DEJEUNER, n. The breakfast of an American who has been in Paris. Variously pronounced.

DICTIONARY, n. A malevolent literary device for cramping the growth of a language and making it hard and inelastic. This dictionary, however, is a most useful work.