the devils dictionary

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 brewed in a midnight fog by a fat witch of the Dismal Swamp.
(also: The Devil's Dictionary)

Censorious language by oneself concerning another. The word is of classical refinement, and is even said to have been used in a fable by Georgius Coadjutor, one of the most fastidious writers of the fifteenth century — commonly, indeed, regarded as the founder of the Fastidiotic School.
(also: The Devil's Dictionary)

Censorious language by another concerning oneself.
(also: The Devil's Dictionary)

One who uses a divining-rod in prospecting for precious metals in the pocket of a fool.
(also: The Devil's Dictionary)

In politics, an abrupt change in the form of misgovernment. Specifically, in American history, the substitution of the rule of an Administration for that of a Ministry, whereby the welfare and happiness of the people were advanced a full half-inch. Revolutions are usually accompanied by a considerable effusion of blood, but are accounted worth it — this appraisement being made by beneficiaries whose blood had not the mischance to be shed. The French revolution is of incalculable value to the Socialist of to-day; when he pulls the string actuating its bones its gestures are inexpressibly terrifying to gory tyrants suspected of fomenting law and order.
(also: governing people)
(also: The Devil's Dictionary)

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To set your wisdom (holding not a doubt of it,
Although in truth there's neither bone nor skin to it)
At work upon a book, and so read out of it
The qualities that you have first read into it.
(also: The Devil's Dictionary)

The spiritual attitude of a man to a god and a dog to a man.
(also: The Devil's Dictionary)

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)

A signal to sleeping soldiers to dream of battlefields no more, but get up and have their blue noses counted. In the American army it is ingeniously called "rev-e-lee," and to that pronunciation our countrymen have pledged their lives, their misfortunes and their sacred dishonor.
(also: The Devil's Dictionary)

A rain of fire-and-brimstone that falls alike upon the just and such of the unjust as have not procured shelter by evicting them.
In the lines following, addressed to an Emperor in exile by Father Gassalasca Jape, the reverend poet appears to hint his sense of the imprudence of turning about to face Retribution when it is taking exercise:

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What, what! Dom Pedro, you desire to go
Back to Brazil to end your days in quiet?
Why, what assurance have you 'twould be so?
'Tis not so long since you were in a riot,
And your dear subjects showed a will to fly at
Your throat and shake you like a rat. You know
That empires are ungrateful; are you certain
Republics are less handy to get hurt in?
(also: The Devil's Dictionary)

The natural rock upon which is reared the Temple of Law.
(also: humans)
(also: The Devil's Dictionary)

Benefactor; philanthropist.
(also: The Devil's Dictionary)

The founding or endowing of universities and public libraries by gift or bequest.
(also: The Devil's Dictionary)

A detachable burden easily shifted to the shoulders of God, Fate, Fortune, Luck or one's neighbor. In the days of astrology it was customary to unload it upon a star.
Alas, things ain't what we should see
If Eve had let that apple be;
And many a feller which had ought
To set with monarchses of thought,
Or play some rosy little game
With battle-chaps on fields of fame,
Is downed by his unlucky star,
And hollers: "Peanuts! — here you are!"
—"The Sturdy Beggar"
(also: The Devil's Dictionary)

To make answer, or disclose otherwise a consciousness of having inspired an interest in what Herbert Spencer calls "external coexistences," as Satan "squat like a toad" at the ear of Eve, responded to the touch of the angel's spear. To respond in damages is to contribute to the maintenance of the plaintiff's attorney and, incidentally, to the gratification of the plaintiff.
(also: The Devil's Dictionary)

Like a simple American citizen beduking himself in his lodge, or affirming his consequence in the Scheme of Things as an elemental unit of a parade.

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The Knights of Dominion were so resplendent in their velvet-and-gold that their masters would hardly have known them.
—"Chronicles of the Classes"
(also: The Devil's Dictionary)

A suspension of hostilities against a sentenced assassin, to enable the Executive to determine whether the murder may not have been done by the prosecuting attorney. Any break in the continuity of a disagreeable expectation.

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Altgeld upon his incandescent bed
Lay, an attendant demon at his head.

"O cruel cook, pray grant me some relief —
Some respite from the roast, however brief."

"Remember how on earth I pardoned all
Your friends in Illinois when held in thrall."

"Unhappy soul! for that alone you squirm
O'er fire unquenched, a never-dying worm.

"Yet, for I pity your uneasy state,
Your doom I'll mollify and pains abate.

"Naught, for a season, shall your comfort mar,
Not even the memory of who you are."

Throughout eternal space dread silence fell;
Heaven trembled as Compassion entered Hell.

"As long, sweet demon, let my respite be
As, governing down here, I'd respite thee."

"As long, poor soul, as any of the pack
You thrust from jail consumed in getting back."

A genial chill affected Altgeld's hide
While they were turning him on t'other side.
—Joel Spate Woop
(also: The Devil's Dictionary)

An apparatus fitted over the nose and mouth of an inhabitant of London, whereby to filter the visible universe in its passage to the lungs.
(also: The Devil's Dictionary)

The offspring of a liaison between a bald head and a bank account.
(also: The Devil's Dictionary)

Obstinate in a course that we approve.
(also: The Devil's Dictionary)