HOSTILITY, n. A peculiarly sharp and specially applied sense of the earth’s overpopulation. Hostility is classified as active and passive; as (respectively) the feeling of a woman for her female friends, and that which she...

PRESIDE, v. To guide the action of a deliberative body to a desirable result. In Journalese, to perform upon a musical instrument; as, “He presided at the piccolo.”The Headliner, holding the copy in hand, Read...

OVEREAT, v. To dine.Hail, Gastronome, Apostle of Excess, Well skilled to overeat without distress! Thy great invention, the unfatal feast, Shows Man’s superiority to Beast. –John Boop

RESIGN, v.t. To renounce an honor for an advantage. To renounce an advantage for a greater advantage.’Twas rumored Leonard Wood had signed A true renunciation Of title, rank and every kind Of military station —...

Once, adv.: Enough.

REPLICA, n. A reproduction of a work of art, by the artist that made the original. It is so called to distinguish it from a “copy,” which is made by another artist. When the two...

LODGER, n. A less popular name for the Second Person of that delectable newspaper Trinity, the Roomer, the Bedder, and the Mealer.

RECREATION, n. A particular kind of dejection to relieve a general fatigue.

X in our alphabet being a needless letter has an added invincibility to the attacks of the spelling reformers, and like them, will doubtless last as long as the language. X is the sacred symbol...

COMPROMISE, n. Such an adjustment of conflicting interests as gives each adversary the satisfaction of thinking he has got what he ought not to have, and is deprived of nothing except what was justly his...

It has been observed that one’s nose is never so happy as when it is thrust into the affairs of another, from which some physiologists have drawn the inference that the nose is devoid of...

T, the twentieth letter of the English alphabet, was by the Greeks absurdly called _tau_. In the alphabet whence ours comes it had the form of the rude corkscrew of the period, and when it...

IMMODEST, adj. Having a strong sense of one’s own merit, coupled with a feeble conception of worth in others.There was once a man in Ispahan Ever and ever so long ago, And he had a...

ILLUMINATI, n. A sect of Spanish heretics of the latter part of the sixteenth century; so called because they were light weights –_cunctationes illuminati_.

WINE, n. Fermented grape-juice known to the Women’s Christian Union as “liquor,” sometimes as “rum.” Wine, madam, is God’s next best gift to man.

Kleptomaniac, n.: A rich thief.

PHOTOGRAPH, n. A picture painted by the sun without instruction in art. It is a little better than the work of an Apache, but not quite so good as that of a Cheyenne.

PRISON, n. A place of punishments and rewards. The poet assures us that –“”Stone walls do not a prison make,””

INJURY, n. An offense next in degree of enormity to a slight.

INDECISION, n. The chief element of success; “”for whereas,”” saith Sir Thomas Brewbold, “”there is but one way to do nothing and divers way to do something, whereof, to a surety, only one is the...

You are not permitted to kill a woman who has injured you, but nothing forbids you to reflect that she is growing older every minute. You are avenged 1440 times a day.

IDIOT, n. A member of a large and powerful tribe whose influence in human affairs has always been dominant and controlling. The Idiot’s activity is not confined to any special field of thought or action,...

ADMIRAL, n. That part of a war-ship which does the talking while the figure-head does the thinking.

CAVILER, n. A critic of our own work.

CORPORATION, n. An ingenious device for obtaining individual profit

Belladonna, n.: In Italian a beautiful lady; in English a deadly poison. A striking example of the essential identity of the two tongues.

What is a democrat? One who believes that the republicans have ruined the country. What is a republican? One who believes that the democrats would ruin the country.

READING, n. The general body of what one reads. In our country it consists, as a rule, of Indiana novels, short stories in “dialect” and humor in slang.We know by one’s reading His learning and...

RICE-WATER, n. A mystic beverage secretly used by our most popular novelists and poets to regulate the imagination and narcotize the conscience. It is said to be rich in both obtundite and lethargine, and is...

MERCHANT, n. One engaged in a commercial pursuit. A commercial pursuit is one in which the thing pursued is a dollar.

ABRIDGE, v.t. To shorten.

DEPENDENT, adj. Reliant upon another’s generosity for the support which you are not in a position to exact from his fears.

POKER, n. A game said to be played with cards for some purpose to this lexicographer unknown.

DEINOTHERIUM, n. An extinct pachyderm that flourished when the Pterodactyl was in fashion. The latter was a native of Ireland, its name being pronounced Terry Dactyl or Peter O’Dactyl, as the man pronouncing it may...

LAZINESS, n. Unwarranted repose of manner in a person of low degree.

Insurance: An ingenious modern game of chance in which the player is permitted to enjoy the comfortable conviction that he is beating the man who keeps the table.

BACKBITE, v.t. To speak of a man as you find him when he can’t find you.

PASSPORT, n. A document treacherously inflicted upon a citizen going abroad, exposing him as an alien and pointing him out for special reprobation and outrage.

A wedding is a ceremony at which two persons undertake to become one, one undertakes to become nothing, and nothing undertakes to become supportable.

PEDESTRIAN, n. The variable (an audible) part of the roadway for an automobile.

DIGESTION, n. The conversion of victuals into virtues. When the process is imperfect, vices are evolved instead –a circumstance from which that wicked writer, Dr. Jeremiah Blenn, infers that the ladies are the greater sufferers...

ALIEN, n. An American sovereign in his probationary state.

MONAD, n. The ultimate, indivisible unit of matter. (See _Molecule_.) According to Leibnitz, as nearly as he seems willing to be understood, the monad has body without bulk, and mind without manifestation –Leibnitz knows him...

ABDICATION, n. An act whereby a sovereign attests his sense of the high temperature of the throne.Poor Isabella’s Dead, whose abdication Set all tongues wagging in the Spanish nation. For that performance ’twere unfair to...

DANGER, n.A savage beast which, when it sleeps, Man girds at and despises, But takes himself away by leaps And bounds when it arises. –Ambat Delaso

CARNIVOROUS, adj. Addicted to the cruelty of devouring the timorous vegetarian, his heirs and assigns.

OBLIVION, n. The state or condition in which the wicked cease from struggling and the dreary are at rest. Fame’s eternal dumping ground. Cold storage for high hopes. A place where ambitious authors meet their...

Friendship is a ship big enough to carry two in fair weather, but only one in foul.

RIME, n. Agreeing sounds in the terminals of verse, mostly bad. The verses themselves, as distinguished from prose, mostly dull. Usually (and wickedly) spelled “”rhyme.””

IMPARTIAL, adj. Unable to perceive any promise of personal advantage from espousing either side of a controversy or adopting either of two conflicting opinions.