A. The first letter in every properly constructed alphabet. It is the first natural utterance of the human vocal organs, and is variously sounded, according to the pleasure and convenience of the speaker. In logic, A asserts and B denies. Assertions being proverbially untrue, the presumption would be in favor of B’s innocence were it not that denials are notoriously false. In grammar, A is called the indefinite article, probably because, denoting a definite number, it is so obviously a numeral adjective.
Ambrose Bierce, The Devil’s DictionaryABACOT, n. A cap of state wrought into the shape of two crowns, formerly worn by kings. Very pretty monarchs had it made in the form of three crowns.
Ambrose Bierce, The Devil’s DictionaryABACTOR, n. One who steals a whole herd of cattle, as distinguished from the inferior actor who steals one animal at a time—a superior stock actor, as it were.
Ambrose Bierce, The Devil’s DictionaryABACUS, n. In architecture, the upper part of a column, upon which, in all good architecture, sits the thoughtful stork pondering unutterable things.
Ambrose Bierce, The Devil’s DictionaryABADA, n. An African animal having three horns, two on the head and on on the nape of the neck by which to hang up the carcass after the head has been removed. In those varieties that are not hunted by man, this third horn is imperfectly developed or wholly wanting.
Ambrose Bierce, The Devil’s DictionaryABADDON, n. [1.] A certain person who is much in society, but whom one does not meet. A bad one. [2.] The Adversary of Souls, considered under one of his many charming aspects.
Ambrose Bierce, The Devil’s DictionaryABANDON, v.t. [1.] To correct an erring friend or admonish a needy one. Of women the word abandoned is used in the sense of indiscreet. [2.] To confer the advantage of being rid of you. To recant.
Ambrose Bierce, The Devil’s DictionaryABASEMENT, n. A decent and customary mental attitude in the presence of wealth of power. Peculiarly appropriate in an employee when addressing an employer.
Ambrose Bierce, The Devil’s DictionaryABATIS, n. Rubbish in front of a fort, to prevent the rubbish outside from molesting the rubbish inside.
Ambrose Bierce, The Devil’s DictionaryABDICATION, n. An act whereby a sovereign attests his sense of the high temperature of the throne.
Ambrose Bierce, The Devil’s DictionaryABDOMEN, n. The temple of the god Stomach, in whose worship, with sacrificial rights, all true men engage. From women this ancient faith commands but a stammering assent. They sometimes minister at the altar in a half-hearted and ineffective way, but true reverence for the one deity that men really adore they know not. If woman had a free hand in the world’s marketing the race would become graminivorous.
Ambrose Bierce, The Devil’s DictionaryABILITY, n. The natural equipment to accomplish some small part of the meaner ambitions distinguishing able men from dead ones. In the last analysis ability is commonly found to consist mainly in a high degree of solemnity. Perhaps, however, this impressive quality is rightly appraised; it is no easy task to be solemn.
Ambrose Bierce, The Devil’s DictionaryABNORMAL, adj. Not conforming to standard. In matters of thought and conduct, to be independent is to be abnormal, to be abnormal is to be detested. Wherefore the lexicographer adviseth a striving toward the straiter [sic] resemblance of the Average Man than he hath to himself. Whoso attaineth thereto shall have peace, the prospect of death and the hope of Hell.
Ambrose Bierce, The Devil’s DictionaryABORIGINIES, n. Persons of little worth found cumbering the soil of a newly discovered country. They soon cease to cumber; they fertilize.
Ambrose Bierce, The Devil’s Dictionary- ABRACADABRA (The Devil’s Dictionary)
ABRIDGE, v.t. To shorten.
Ambrose Bierce, The Devil’s DictionarySudden, without ceremony, like the arrival of a cannon- shot and the departure of the soldier whose interests are most affected by it. Dr. Samuel Johnson beautifully said of another author’s ideas that they were “concatenated without abruption.”
Ambrose Bierce, The Devil’s Dictionaryv.i. To “move in a mysterious way,” commonly with the property of another.
Ambrose Bierce, The Devil’s DictionaryABSENT, adj. Peculiarly exposed to the tooth of detraction; vilifed; hopelessly in the wrong; superseded in the consideration and affection of another.
Ambrose Bierce, The Devil’s DictionaryABSENTEE, n. A person with an income who has had the forethought to remove himself from the sphere of exaction.
Ambrose Bierce, The Devil’s DictionaryABSOLUTE, adj. Independent, irresponsible. An absolute monarchy is one in which the sovereign does as he pleases so long as he pleases the assassins. Not many absolute monarchies are left, most of them having been replaced by limited monarchies, where the sovereign’s power for evil (and for good) is greatly curtailed, and by republics, which are governed by chance.
Ambrose Bierce, The Devil’s DictionaryABSTAINER, 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.
Ambrose Bierce, The Devil’s DictionaryABSURDITY, n. A statement or belief manifestly inconsistent with one’s own opinion.
Ambrose Bierce, The Devil’s DictionaryACADEME, n. An ancient school where morality and philosophy were taught.
Ambrose Bierce, The Devil’s DictionaryACADEMY, n. from ACADEME A modern school where football is taught.
Ambrose Bierce, The Devil’s DictionaryACCIDENT, n. An inevitable occurrence due to the action of immutable natural laws.
Ambrose Bierce, The Devil’s DictionaryACCOMPLICE, 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 hitherto commanded the assent of attorneys, no one having offered them a fee for assenting.
Ambrose Bierce, The Devil’s DictionaryACCORD, n. Harmony.
Ambrose Bierce, The Devil’s DictionaryACCORDION, n. An instrument in harmony with the sentiments of an assassin.
Ambrose Bierce, The Devil’s DictionaryACCOUNTABILITY, n. The mother of caution.
Ambrose Bierce, The Devil’s DictionaryACCUSE, v.t. To affirm another’s guilt or unworth; most commonly as a justification of ourselves for having wronged him.
Ambrose Bierce, The Devil’s DictionaryACEPHALOUS, adj. In the surprising condition of the Crusader who absently pulled at his forelock some hours after a Saracen scimitar had, unconsciously to him, passed through his neck, as related by de Joinville.
Ambrose Bierce, The Devil’s DictionaryACHIEVEMENT, n. The death of endeavor and the birth of disgust.
Ambrose Bierce, The Devil’s DictionaryACKNOWLEDGE, v.t. To confess. Acknowledgement of one another’s faults is the highest duty imposed by our love of truth.
Ambrose Bierce, The Devil’s DictionaryACQUAINTANCE, n. A person whom we know well enough to borrow from, but not well enough to lend to. A degree of friendship called slight when its object is poor or obscure, and intimate when he is rich or famous.
Ambrose Bierce, The Devil’s DictionaryACTUALLY, adv. Perhaps; possibly.
Ambrose Bierce, The Devil’s DictionaryADAGE, n. Boned wisdom for weak teeth.
Ambrose Bierce, The Devil’s DictionaryADAMANT, n. A mineral frequently found beneath a corset. Soluble in solicitate of gold.
Ambrose Bierce, The Devil’s DictionaryADDER, n. A species of snake. So called from its habit of adding funeral outlays to the other expenses of living.
Ambrose Bierce, The Devil’s DictionaryADHERENT, n. A follower who has not yet obtained all that he expects to get.
Ambrose Bierce, The Devil’s DictionaryADMINISTRATION, n. An ingenious abstraction in politics, designed to receive the kicks and cuffs due to the premier or president. A man of straw, proof against bad-egging and dead-catting.
Ambrose Bierce, The Devil’s DictionaryADMIRAL, n. That part of a war-ship which does the talking while the figure-head does the thinking.
Ambrose Bierce, The Devil’s DictionaryADMIRATION, n. Our polite recognition of another’s resemblance to ourselves.
Ambrose Bierce, The Devil’s DictionaryADMONITION, n. Gentle reproof, as with a meat-axe. Friendly warning.
Ambrose Bierce, The Devil’s DictionaryADORE, v.t. To venerate expectantly.
Ambrose Bierce, The Devil’s DictionaryADVICE, n. The smallest current coin.
Ambrose Bierce, The Devil’s DictionaryAFFIANCED, pp. Fitted with an ankle-ring for the ball-and-chain.
Ambrose Bierce, The Devil’s DictionaryAFFLICTION, n. An acclimatizing process preparing the soul for another and bitter world.
Ambrose Bierce, The Devil’s DictionaryAFRICAN, n. A nigger that votes our way.
Ambrose Bierce, The Devil’s DictionaryAGE, n. That period of life in which we compound for the vices that we still cherish by reviling those that we have no longer the enterprise to commit.
Ambrose Bierce, The Devil’s DictionaryAGITATOR, n. A statesman who shakes the fruit trees of his neighbors – to dislodge the worms.
Ambrose Bierce, The Devil’s DictionaryAIM, n. The task we set our wishes to.
Ambrose Bierce, The Devil’s DictionaryAIR, n. A nutritious substance supplied by a bountiful Providence for the fattening of the poor.
Ambrose Bierce, The Devil’s DictionaryALDERMAN, n. An ingenious criminal who covers his secret thieving with a pretence of open marauding.
Ambrose Bierce, The Devil’s DictionaryALIEN, n. An American sovereign in his probationary state.
Ambrose Bierce, The Devil’s DictionaryALLAH, n. The Mahometan Supreme Being, as distinguished from the Christian, Jewish, and so forth.
Ambrose Bierce, The Devil’s DictionaryALLEGIANCE, n.
Ambrose Bierce, The Devil’s DictionaryALLIANCE, n. In international politics, the union of two thieves who have their hands so deeply inserted in each other’s pockets that they cannot separately plunder a third.
Ambrose Bierce, The Devil’s DictionaryALLIGATOR, n. The crocodile of America, superior in every detail to the crocodile of the effete monarchies of the Old World. Herodotus says the Indus is, with one exception, the only river that produces crocodiles, but they appear to have gone West and grown up with the other rivers. From the notches on his back the alligator is called a sawrian.
Ambrose Bierce, The Devil’s DictionaryALONE, adj. In bad company.
Ambrose Bierce, The Devil’s DictionaryALTAR, n. The place whereupon the priest formerly raveled out the small intestine of the sacrificial victim for purposes of divination and cooked its flesh for the gods. The word is now seldom used, except with reference to the sacrifice of their liberty and peace by a male and a female tool.
Ambrose Bierce, The Devil’s DictionaryAMBIDEXTROUS, adj. Able to pick with equal skill a right-hand pocket or a left.
Ambrose Bierce, The Devil’s DictionaryAMBITION, n. An overmastering desire to be vilified by enemies while living and made ridiculous by friends when dead.
Ambrose Bierce, The Devil’s DictionaryAMNESTY, n. The state’s magnanimity to those offenders whom it would be too expensive to punish.
Ambrose Bierce, The Devil’s DictionaryANOINT, v.t. To grease a king or other great functionary already sufficiently slippery.
Ambrose Bierce, The Devil’s DictionaryANTIPATHY, n. The sentiment inspired by one’s friend’s friend.
Ambrose Bierce, The Devil’s DictionaryAPHORISM, n. Predigested wisdom.
Ambrose Bierce, The Devil’s DictionaryAPOLOGIZE, v.i. To lay the foundation for a future offence.
Ambrose Bierce, The Devil’s DictionaryAPOSTATE, n. A leech who, having penetrated the shell of a turtle only to find that the creature has long been dead, deems it expedient to form a new attachment to a fresh turtle.
Ambrose Bierce, The Devil’s DictionaryAPOTHECARY, n. The physician’s accomplice, undertaker’s benefactor and grave worm’s provider.
Ambrose Bierce, The Devil’s DictionaryAPPEAL, v.t. In law, to put the dice into the box for another throw.
Ambrose Bierce, The Devil’s DictionaryAPPETITE, n. An instinct thoughtfully implanted by Providence as a solution to the labor question.
Ambrose Bierce, The Devil’s DictionaryAPPLAUSE, n. The echo of a platitude.
Ambrose Bierce, The Devil’s DictionaryAPRIL FOOL, n. The March fool with another month added to his folly.
Ambrose Bierce, The Devil’s DictionaryARCHBISHOP, n. An ecclesiastical dignitary one point holier than a bishop.
Ambrose Bierce, The Devil’s DictionaryARCHITECT, n. One who drafts a plan of your house, and plans a draft of your money.
Ambrose Bierce, The Devil’s DictionaryARDOR, n. The quality that distinguishes love without knowledge.
Ambrose Bierce, The Devil’s DictionaryARENA, n. In politics, an imaginary rat-pit in which the statesman wrestles with his record.
Ambrose Bierce, The Devil’s DictionaryARISTOCRACY, 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 accounts.
Ambrose Bierce, The Devil’s DictionaryARMOR, n. The kind of clothing worn by a man whose tailor is a blacksmith.
Ambrose Bierce, The Devil’s DictionaryARRAYED, pp. Drawn up and given an orderly disposition, as a rioter hanged to a lamppost.
Ambrose Bierce, The Devil’s DictionaryARREST, v.t. Formally to detain one accused of unusualness.
Ambrose Bierce, The Devil’s DictionaryARSENIC, n. A kind of cosmetic greatly affected by the ladies, whom it greatly affects in turn.
Ambrose Bierce, The Devil’s DictionaryART, n. This word has no definition. Its origin is related as follows by the ingenious Father Gassalasca Jape, S.J.
Ambrose Bierce, The Devil’s DictionaryARTLESSNESS, n. A certain engaging quality to which women attain by long study and severe practice upon the admiring male, who is pleased to fancy it resembles the candid simplicity of his young.
Ambrose Bierce, The Devil’s DictionaryASPERSE, v.t. Maliciously to ascribe to another vicious actions which one has not had the temptation and opportunity to commit.
Ambrose Bierce, The Devil’s DictionaryASS, n. A public singer with a good voice but no ear. In Virginia City, Nevada, he is called the Washoe Canary, in Dakota, the Senator, and everywhere the Donkey. The animal is widely and variously celebrated in the literature, art and religion of every age and country; no other so engages and fires the human imagination as this noble vertebrate. Indeed, it is doubted by some (Ramasilus, lib. II., De Clem., and C. Stantatus, De Temperamente) if it is not a god; and as such we know it was worshiped by the Etruscans, and, if we may believe Macrobious, by the Cupasians also. Of the only two animals admitted into the Mahometan Paradise along with the souls of men, the ass that carried Balaam is one, the dog of the Seven Sleepers the other. This is no small distinction. From what has been written about this beast might be compiled a library of great splendor and magnitude, rivalling that of the Shakespearean cult, and that which clusters about the Bible. It may be said, generally, that all literature is more or less Asinine.
Ambrose Bierce, The Devil’s DictionaryAUCTIONEER, n. The man who proclaims with a hammer that he has picked a pocket with his tongue.
Ambrose Bierce, The Devil’s DictionaryAUSTRALIA, n. A country lying in the South Sea, whose industrial and commercial development has been unspeakably retarded by an unfortunate dispute among geographers as to whether it is a continent or an island.
Ambrose Bierce, The Devil’s DictionaryAVERNUS, n. The lake by which the ancients entered the infernal regions. The fact that access to the infernal regions was obtained by a lake is believed by the learned Marcus Ansello Scrutator to have suggested the Christian rite of baptism by immersion. This, however, has been shown by Lactantius to be an error.
Ambrose Bierce, The Devil’s DictionaryMEEKNESS, n. Uncommon patience in planning a revenge that is worth while.
Ambrose Bierce, The Devil’s Dictionary
- Torah (Wikipedia)
The Torah (/ˈtɔːrə, ˈtoʊrə/; Biblical Hebrew: תּוֹרָה, romanized: tōrā, lit. “instruction”, “teaching”, or “law”) is the compilation of the first five books of the Hebrew Bible, namely the books of Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy. The Torah is also known as the Pentateuch (/ˈpɛntəˌt(j)uːk/) or the Five Books of Moses. In Rabbinical Jewish tradition it is also known as the Written Torah (תּוֹרָה שֶׁבִּכְתָב, Tōrā šebbīḵṯāv). If meant for liturgic purposes, it takes the form of a Torah scroll (Hebrew: ספר תורה Sefer Torah). If in bound book form, it is called Chumash, and is usually printed with the rabbinic commentaries (perushim).
- The Devil’s Dictionary (Wikipedia)
The Devil’s Dictionary is a satirical dictionary written by American journalist Ambrose Bierce, consisting of common words followed by humorous and satirical definitions. The lexicon was written over three decades as a series of installments for magazines and newspapers. Bierce’s witty definitions were imitated and plagiarized for years before he gathered them into books, first as The Cynic’s Word Book in 1906 and then in a more complete version as The Devil’s Dictionary in 1911.