n. A lawyer with a roving commission.


(also: The Devil's Dictionary)

To speak quietly enough so as not to be heard, yet loudly enough so as to make the people on the adjacent table aware they are being complained about.

Not to be confused with "shoomble", which refers to black markets exclusively trading in niche items.

Ex. "I swear they stole our wine menus," she shumbled from Table 7. "I'm going to steal them back when they're not looking."
"I swear they stole our wine menus," he shumbled from Table 5. "That's why I stole them back when they weren't looking."
"Fools", shumbled the waiter from the foyer. "With all these wine menus, I could start a shoomble."

Certain primal powers of Tyrant Woman wherewith she holds dominion over the male of her species, binding him to the service of her will and paralyzing his rebellious energies.
(also: The Devil's Dictionary)
(also: weakness)

title used for royal lawyer-knights

In the Church of England, the Third Person of the parochial Trinity, the Curate and the Vicar being the other two.
(also: university)
(also: The Devil's Dictionary)

(adj.) first, you have people creating something, exploring it, shaping it, embracing it. and then, someone comes and declares that it's some rule- and etiquette-bound contest. someone wants to be a middleman and get a cut of the cultural profit (also: cred) for doing not much of anything, by drawing and upholding such lines. keep the highbrow-clean-safe-technical-predictable in, and keep the inspired-shocking-crumbling-developing out. the judgment-perversion sneaks its foothold in, and then some next generation grows up thinking *the lines* are the whole of the importance of the thing!
strange how it comes about, eh?..

not (also: original)
not (also: authentic)
(also: gatekeeping)
(also: middlemen)
(also: social games)
(also: excuses to not live)

X in our alphabet being a needless letter has an added invincibility to the attacks of the spelling reformers, and like them, will doubtless last as long as the language. X is the sacred symbol of ten dollars, and in such words as Xmas, Xn, etc., stands for Christ, not, as is popularly supposed, because it represents a cross, but because the corresponding letter in the Greek alphabet is the initial of his name — Xristos. If it represented a cross it would stand for St. Andrew, who "testified" upon one of that shape. In the algebra of psychology x stands for Woman's mind. Words beginning with X are Grecian and will not be defined in this standard English dictionary
(also: xbox)
(also: The Devil's Dictionary)

(noun) A spicy candy that dares you to eat more than one, tempting fate with each fiery bite. The preferred snack of daredevils and masochists.

(n.) a fruit hailing from southeast asia and oceania, known for its beguilingly-elongated, whimsically-curved shape, and the ease with which its rind can be removed. actually neither of those qualities exists within natural, grown-in-the-wild bananas; both were engineered into the fruit by godless human meddling.

common cartoon knowledge holds the banana to be a favorite repast of the monkey.

(n.) a deep story, which, when measured against literal-mindedness, seems a lie (hence the popular use of the term 'myth' to indicate a falsehood). a story children will ask to hear again and again, not because they are stupid or have low standards, but because they are absorbing cultural and existential patterns.

hear my vow,
I reclaim this term 'myth',
here and now!

(also: vow)
(also: oath)

(also: stake-claiming flag)
(also: flag on the moon)

(noun): A sticky substance that transforms a leisurely stroll into a flailing dance of desperation.

a system in which people are defined by points based on how they live life, and that it can affect their daily life, such as flying out of the country, decisions in court. a lot like the credit score for bank cards.

(n.) a really big fat rock that floats around in space, but is stuck orbiting around another bigger and fatter rock.

(also: planet)

A country in the middle of europe with a, for lack of a better term, troubled history during the 20th century.
It also is a founding member of the European Union.

(also: European Union)

n. The end of night and dawn of dejection. The morning was discovered by a Chaldean astronomer, who, finding his observation of the stars unaccountably interrupted, diligently sought the cause and found it. After several centuries of disputation, morning was generally accepted by the scientific as a reasonable cause of the interruption and a constantly recurrent natural phenomenon.

(also: The Devil's Dictionary)

(adj.) surpassing the surly bonds of our own mundane experiences in its singular excellence; nonexistent.

The radius of action of the human hand. The area within which it is possible (and customary) to gratify directly the propensity to provide.

---

This is a truth, as old as the hills,
That life and experience teach:
The poor man suffers that keenest of ills,
An impediment in his reach.
—G.J.
(also: The Devil's Dictionary)

(n.) a city in the southeast of the north american continent, which exists mostly as a place for suicidal people to kill themselves through pleasant means like drunkenness and grotesque overeating

(also: bacchanalia)

(n.) the knowledge that something inadvisable would be enjoyable, generally meant to be resisted to avoid consequences

The place where the most people in the world talk trash about the military, but also the place where the most people in the world are married to military members, or professional affiliates.

(also: divorce rate)