confessions
  1. total entries 871
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ability

the devils dictionary
n.
1.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.
2.That rare quality of mind to which monuments are erected by posterity above the bones of paupers.


(also: The Devil's Dictionary)

abdication

the devils dictionary
n.
1.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 scold her:
She wisely left a throne too hot to hold her.
To History she'll be no royal riddle—
Merely a plain parched pea that jumped the griddle.
—G.J.

2.The surrender of a crown for a cowl, in order to compile the shin-bones and toe-nails of saints. The voluntary renunciation of that of which one has previously been deprived by force. The giving up of a throne for the purpose of enjoying the discomfiture of a successor. For these several definitions we are indebted to Spanish history.


(also: The Devil's Dictionary)

abdomen

the devils dictionary
n.
1.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.
2.a shrine enclosing the object.


(also: The Devil's Dictionary)
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