the devils dictionary

To renounce an honor for an advantage. To renounce an advantage for a greater advantage.

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'Twas rumored Leonard Wood had signed
A true renunciation
Of title, rank and every kind
Of military station —
Each honorable station.

By his example fired — inclined
To noble emulation,
The country humbly was resigned
To Leonard's resignation —
His Christian resignation.
—Politian Greame
(also: The Devil's Dictionary)

Unable to leave.
(also: leaving the planet)
(also: The Devil's Dictionary)

A mass for the dead which the minor poets assure us the winds sing o'er the graves of their favorites. Sometimes, by way of providing a varied entertainment, they sing a dirge.
(also: death)
(also: The Devil's Dictionary)

A nation in which, the thing governing and the thing governed being the same, there is only a permitted authority to enforce an optional obedience. In a republic the foundation of public order is the ever lessening habit of submission inherited from ancestors who, being truly governed, submitted because they had to. There are as many kinds of republics as there are gradations between the despotism whence they came and the anarchy whither they lead.
(also: governing people)
(also: The Devil's Dictionary)

In theology, the state of a luckless mortal prenatally damned. The doctrine of reprobation was taught by Calvin, whose joy in it was somewhat marred by the sad sincerity of his conviction that although some are foredoomed to perdition, others are predestined to salvation.
(also: The Devil's Dictionary)

In national politics, a member of the Lower House in this world, and without discernible hope of promotion in the next.
(also: The Devil's Dictionary)

To cease from troubling.
(also: The Devil's Dictionary)

A writer who guesses his way to the truth and dispels it with a tempest of words.

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"More dear than all my bosom knows, O thou
Whose 'lips are sealed' and will not disavow!"
So sang the blithe reporter-man as grew
Beneath his hand the leg-long "interview."
—Barson Maith
(also: report)
(also: The Devil's Dictionary)

A rumor. The sound of a firearm.

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"Why did you not march to my relief, sir?" said General Ewell to the commander of one of his divisions. "Did you not hear the report of my guns?"
"Well, yes, General, I did hear that report, but I did not believe it."
(also: The Devil's Dictionary)

A reproduction of a work of art, by the artist that made the original. It is so called to distinguish it from a "copy," which is made by another artist. When the two are made with equal skill the replica is the more valuable, for it is supposed to be more beautiful than it looks.
(also: The Devil's Dictionary)

The faithful attendant and follower of Punishment. It is usually manifest in a degree of reformation that is not inconsistent with continuity of sin.

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Desirous to avoid the pains of Hell,
You will repent and join the Church, Parnell?
How needless! — Nick will keep you off the coals
And add you to the woes of other souls.
—Jomater Abemy
(also: The Devil's Dictionary)

Prudent insult in retort. Practiced by gentlemen with a constitutional aversion to violence, but a strong disposition to offend. In a war of words, the tactics of the North American Indian.
(also: The Devil's Dictionary)

Satisfaction that is made for a wrong and deducted from the satisfaction felt in committing it.
(also: The Devil's Dictionary)

A degree of distinction between notoriety and fame — a little more supportable than the one and a little more intolerable than the other. Sometimes it is conferred by an unfriendly and inconsiderate hand.

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I touched the harp in every key,
But found no heeding ear;
And then Ithuriel touched me
With a revealing spear.

Not all my genius, great as 'tis,
Could urge me out of night.
I felt the faint appulse of his,
And leapt into the light!
—W.J. Candleton
(also: The Devil's Dictionary)

A receptacle for such sacred objects as pieces of the true cross, short-ribs of the saints, the ears of Balaam's ass, the lung of the cock that called Peter to repentance and so forth. Reliquaries are commonly of metal, and provided with a lock to prevent the contents from coming out and performing miracles at unseasonable times. A feather from the wing of the Angel of the Annunciation once escaped during a sermon in Saint Peter's and so tickled the noses of the congregation that they woke and sneezed with great vehemence three times each. It is related in the Gesta Sanctorum that a sacristan in the Canterbury cathedral surprised the head of Saint Dennis in the library. Reprimanded by its stern custodian, it explained that it was seeking a body of doctrine. This unseemly levity so enraged the diocesan that the offender was publicly anathematized, thrown into the Stour and replaced by another head of Saint Dennis, brought from Rome.
(also: The Devil's Dictionary)

A daughter of Hope and Fear, explaining to Ignorance the nature of the Unknowable.
"What is your religion, my son?" inquired the Archbishop of Rheims.

"Pardon, monseigneur," replied Rochebriant; "I am ashamed of it."

"Then why do you not become an atheist?"

"Impossible! I should be ashamed of atheism."

"In that case, monsieur, you should join the Protestants."
(also: god)
(also: The Devil's Dictionary)

Distinguishing insignia, jewels and costume of such ancient and honorable orders as Knights of Adam; Visionaries of Detectable Bosh; the Ancient Order of Modern Troglodytes; the League of Holy Humbug; the Golden Phalanx of Phalangers; the Genteel Society of Expurgated Hoodlums; the Mystic Alliances of Gorgeous Regalians; Knights and Ladies of the Yellow Dog; the Oriental Order of Sons of the West; the Blatherhood of Insufferable Stuff; Warriors of the Long Bow; Guardians of the Great Horn Spoon; the Band of Brutes; the Impenitent Order of Wife-Beaters; the Sublime Legion of Flamboyant Conspicuants; Worshipers at the Electroplated Shrine; Shining Inaccessibles; Fee-Faw-Fummers of the Inimitable Grip; Jannissaries of the Broad-Blown Peacock; Plumed Increscencies of the Magic Temple; the Grand Cabal of Able-Bodied Sedentarians; Associated Deities of the Butter Trade; the Garden of Galoots; the Affectionate Fraternity of Men Similarly Warted; the Flashing Astonishers; Ladies of Horror; Coöperative Association for Breaking into the Spotlight; Dukes of Eden; Disciples Militant of the Hidden Faith; Knights-Champions of the Domestic Dog; the Holy Gregarians; the Resolute Optimists; the Ancient Sodality of Inhospitable Hogs; Associated Sovereigns of Mendacity; Dukes-Guardian of the Mystic Cess-Pool; the Society for Prevention of Prevalence; Kings of Drink; Polite Federation of Gents-Consequential; the Mysterious Order of the Undecipherable Scroll; Uniformed Rank of Lousy Cats; Monarchs of Worth and Hunger; Sons of the South Star; Prelates of the Tub-and-Sword.
(also: war)
(also: The Devil's Dictionary)

Denial of something desired; as an elderly maiden's hand in marriage, to a rich and handsome suitor; a valuable franchise to a rich corporation, by an alderman; absolution to an impenitent king, by a priest and so forth. Refusals are graded in a descending scale of finality thus: the refusal absolute, the refusal conditional, the refusal tentative and the refusal feminine. The last is called by some casuists the refusal assentive.
(also: The Devil's Dictionary)

Anything assuring protection to one in peril. Moses and Joshua provided six cities of refuge — Bezer, Golan, Ramoth, Kadesh, Schekem and Hebron — to which one who had taken life inadvertently could flee when hunted by relatives of the deceased. This admirable expedient supplied him with wholesome exercise and enabled them to enjoy the pleasures of the chase; whereby the soul of the dead man was appropriately honored by observations akin to the funeral games of early Greece.
(also: The Devil's Dictionary)

A thing that mostly satisfies reformers opposed to reformation.
(also: The Devil's Dictionary)