Something given in expectation of something better. Today's payment for to-morrow's service.
(also: The Devil's Dictionary)
that part of eternity dividing the domain of disappointment from the realm of hope.
A physician's guess at what will best prolong the situation with least harm to the patient.
One who holds the conviction that the governing authorities of the Church should be called presbyters.
(also: The Devil's Dictionary)
(also: The Devil's Dictionary)
A sovereign's right to do wrong.
(also: The Devil's Dictionary)
(also: The Devil's Dictionary)
A church officer having a superior degree of holiness and a fat preferment. One of Heaven's aristocracy. A gentleman of God.
(also: The Devil's Dictionary)
(also: The Devil's Dictionary)
A vagrant opinion without visible means of support.
(also: The Devil's Dictionary)
(also: The Devil's Dictionary)
Belonging to an early period and a museum. Antedating the art and practice of perpetuating falsehood.
He lived in a period prehistoric,
When all was absurd and phantasmagoric.
Born later, when Clio, celestial recorder,
Set down great events in succession and order,
He surely had seen nothing droll or fortuitous
In anything here but the lies that she threw at us.
—Orpheus Bowen
(also: The Devil's Dictionary)
He lived in a period prehistoric,
When all was absurd and phantasmagoric.
Born later, when Clio, celestial recorder,
Set down great events in succession and order,
He surely had seen nothing droll or fortuitous
In anything here but the lies that she threw at us.
—Orpheus Bowen
(also: The Devil's Dictionary)
A sentiment, or frame of mind, induced by the erroneous belief that one thing is better than another.
An ancient philosopher, expounding his conviction that life is no better than death, was asked by a disciple why, then, he did not die. "Because," he replied, "death is no better than life." It is longer.
(also: feedom)
(also: The Devil's Dictionary)
An ancient philosopher, expounding his conviction that life is no better than death, was asked by a disciple why, then, he did not die. "Because," he replied, "death is no better than life." It is longer.
(also: feedom)
(also: The Devil's Dictionary)
One of an experimental and apparently unsatisfactory race that antedated Creation and lived under conditions not easily conceived. Melsius believed them to have inhabited "the Void" and to have been something intermediate between fishes and birds. Little is known of them beyond the fact that they supplied Cain with a wife and theologians with a controversy.
(also: The Devil's Dictionary)
(also: The Devil's Dictionary)
To ask that the laws of the universe be annulled in behalf of a single petitioner confessedly unworthy.
(also: the universe)
(also: The Devil's Dictionary)
(also: the universe)
(also: The Devil's Dictionary)
The literary sloven's word for "virtually."
(also: The Devil's Dictionary)
(also: The Devil's Dictionary)
A file provided for the teeth of the rats of reform. The number of plans for its abolition equals that of the reformers who suffer from it, plus that of the philosophers who know nothing about it. Its victims are distinguished by possession of all the virtues and by their faith in leaders seeking to conduct them into a prosperity where they believe these to be unknown.
(also: leaving the planet)
(also: The Devil's Dictionary)
(also: leaving the planet)
(also: The Devil's Dictionary)
Suitable for drinking. Water is said to be potable; indeed, some declare it our natural beverage, although even they find it palatable only when suffering from the recurrent disorder known as thirst, for which it is a medicine. Upon nothing has so great and diligent ingenuity been brought to bear in all ages and in all countries, except the most uncivilized, as upon the invention of substitutes for water. To hold that this general aversion to that liquid has no basis in the preservative instinct of the race is to be unscientific — and without science we are as the snakes and toads.
(also: The Devil's Dictionary)
(also: The Devil's Dictionary)
An appellate court which reverses the judgment of a popular author's contemporaries, the appellant being his obscure competitor.
(also: The Devil's Dictionary)
(also: The Devil's Dictionary)
An advantage that accrues to A by denial of the right of B to take the property of C.
(also: The Devil's Dictionary)
(also: The Devil's Dictionary)
A philosophy that denies our knowledge of the Real and affirms our ignorance of the Apparent. Its longest exponent is Comte, its broadest Mill and its thickest Spencer.
(also: The Devil's Dictionary)
(also: The Devil's Dictionary)
A species of geese indigenous to Portugal. They are mostly without feathers and imperfectly edible, even when stuffed with garlic.
(also: spain)
(also: The Devil's Dictionary)
(also: spain)
(also: The Devil's Dictionary)
A part — in the loose locution of the letterless unworthy. "Part" means a fraction or piece of the whole, but "portion" means a share and implies an allotment. By reverent observance of this distinction great public disaster may be averted.
(also: fat)
(also: The Devil's Dictionary)
(also: fat)
(also: The Devil's Dictionary)
sign-up or face the consequences!
“"observers" must obey the call.”
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