One of several musical prodigies famous for a vain attempt to dissuade Odysseus from a life on the ocean wave. Figuratively, any lady of splendid promise, dissembled purpose and disappointing performance.
(also: war)

(also: The Devil's Dictionary)

c. 3000 BC Egyptian pharaoh who united Upper and Lower Egypt to found the First Dynasty.
(also: 100 most influential people in the world)
(also: menes quotes)

“Be the change that you wish to see in the world.”
― Mahatma Gandhi
(also: Gandhi)

Common; customary. In the Southwestern States of the Union this word is pronounced ornery and means ugly — a striking testimony to the prevalence of the disagreeable.

to stand on one's knees, shins, and hyperextended toes

The macabre altar used by capable comedians of all sort to display their priestly talent for reciting masses. The beneficiaries pay nothing less than 100% humiliation.

adj. Belonging to me if I can hold or seize it.
(also: The Devil's Dictionary)

A body of elderly gentlemen charged with high duties and misdemeanors.
(also: gentlewomen)

(also: The Devil's Dictionary)

An animal (Porcus omnivorus) closely allied to the human race by the splendor and vivacity of its appetite, which, however, is inferior in scope, for it sticks at pig.
(also: The Devil's Dictionary)

(n.) an outdoor party venue where attendees generally wear their best clothes; although quiet, they remain very popular. most people will visit at least once a lifetime and even so many are simply dying to get in.

(n.) one who tosses; a wanker.

(also: wanker)

(n.) also known as whole water.
step one if your beloved has been cut to pieces in a fairytale: assemble the pieces and pour this special water over the wounds. stay strong, you are not done yet. do not drink the dead water. do not get distracted. your beloved's life is on the line!

https://nicholaskotar.com/2018/10/05/living-and-dead-water/

(also: living water)
(also: magical water)
(also: slavic folktales)

A famous book in which St. John the Divine concealed all that he knew. The revealing is done by the commentators, who know nothing.
(also: The Devil's Dictionary)

One who denies the divinity of a Trinitarian.
(also: The Devil's Dictionary)

(v.) cheating at money

(v.) Conducting disputes over minor marginal issues, while overlooking more serious ones.
Derived from the scenario of people arguing over what color to paint the bicycle shed while the house is not finished.

(also: pedantry)
(also: law of triviality)
(also: peter's principle)

(also: grammar nazi)

n. A part of the earth's surface, considered as property. The theory that land is property subject to private ownership and control is the foundation of modern society, and is eminently worthy of the superstructure. Carried to its logical conclusion, it means that some have the right to prevent others from living; for the right to own implies the right exclusively to occupy; and in fact laws of trespass are enacted wherever property in land is recognized. It follows that if the whole area of terra firma is owned by A, B and C, there will be no place for D, E, F and G to be born, or, born as trespassers, to exist.

---

A life on the ocean wave,
A home on the rolling deep,
For the spark that nature gave
I have there the right to keep.

They give me the cat-o'-nine
Whenever I go ashore.
Then ho! for the flashing brine —
I'm a natural commodore!
—Dodle

(also: The Devil's Dictionary)

A copy of a drawing, map, or design made by tracing it. Most of the time its used for practice, But some little kids post it and claim that its their artwork, Most of the time on deviantart

A military gentleman with a field-marshal's baton in his knapsack and an impediment in his hope.

(also: The Devil's Dictionary)

n. An animal which strews its path with fainting women. As in Rome Christians were thrown to the lions, so centuries earlier in Otumwee, the most ancient and famous city of the world, female heretics were thrown to the mice. Jakak-Zotp, the historian, the only Otumwump whose writings have descended to us, says that these martyrs met their death with little dignity and much exertion. He even attempts to exculpate the mice (such is the malice of bigotry) by declaring that the unfortunate women perished, some from exhaustion, some of broken necks from falling over their own feet and some from lack of restoratives. The (also: mice), he avers, enjoyed the pleasures of the chase with composure. But if "Roman history is nine-tenths lying," we can hardly expect a smaller proportion of that rhetorical figure in the annals of a people capable of so incredible cruelty to lovely woman; for a hard heart has a false tongue.

(also: mice)
(also: The Devil's Dictionary)