The Devil’s Dictionary was begun in a weekly paper in 1881, and was continued in a desultory way at long intervals until 1906. In that year a large part of it was published in covers with the title Th...

A is the first letter in every properly constructed alphabet. It is the first natural utterance of the human vocal organs, and is variously sounded, according to the pleasure and convenience of the sp...

An old deity formerly much worshiped under various names. As Baal he was popular with the Phoenicians; as Belus or Bel he had the honor to be served by the priest Berosus, who wrote the famous account...

A large stone presented by the archangel Gabriel to the patriarch Abraham, and preserved at Mecca. The patriarch had perhaps asked the archangel for bread. A familiar kitchen-garden vegetable about as...

A word formerly much used by the Paphlagonians, the meaning of which is lost. By the learned Dr. Dolabelly Gak it is believed to have been a term of satisfaction, implying the highest possible degree ...

To perform successively (and successfully) the functions of mastication, humectation, and deglutition. “I was in the drawing-room, enjoying my dinner,” said Brillat-Savarin, beginning an anecdote. “Wh...

A creature, variously fashioned and endowed, that formerly inhabited the meadows and forests. It was nocturnal in its habits, and somewhat addicted to dancing and the theft of children. The fairies ar...

A stage for the performance of miracle plays, in which the leading actor is translated to heaven. In this country the gallows is chiefly remarkable for the number of persons who escape it. Whether on ...

A writ by which a man may be taken out of jail when confined for the wrong crime. A shackle for the free. The lower world; the residence of departed spirits; the place where the dead live. Among the a...

I is the first letter of the alphabet, the first word of the language, the first thought of the mind, the first object of affection. In grammar it is a pronoun of the first person and singular number....

J is a consonant in English, but some nations use it as a vowel⁠—than which nothing could be more absurd. Its original form, which has been but slightly modified, was that of the tail of a subdued dog...

K is a consonant that we get from the Greeks, but it can be traced away back beyond them to the Cerathians, a small commercial nation inhabiting the peninsula of Smero. In their tongue it was called K...

One of the processes by which A acquires property for B. A part of the earth’s surface, considered as property. The theory that land is property subject to private ownership and control is the foundat...

A staff of office signifying authority. Its form, that of a heavy club, indicates its original purpose and use in dissuading from dissent. The method employed by one’s opponents in baffling one’s open...

A drink served at banquets of the Olympian deities. The secret of its preparation is lost, but the modern Kentuckians believe that they come pretty near to a knowledge of its chief ingredient. Juno dr...

In law, a solemn appeal to the Deity, made binding upon the conscience by a penalty for perjury. The state or condition in which the wicked cease from struggling and the dreary are at rest. Fame’s ete...

An uncomfortable frame of mind that may have a physical basis in something that is being done to the body, or may be purely mental, caused by the good fortune of another. The art of protecting flat su...

A woman by whom the realm is ruled when there is a king, and through whom it is ruled when there is not. An implement of torture yielded by a goose and commonly wielded by an ass. This use of the quil...

In a republic, those who exercise a supreme authority tempered by fraudulent elections. The rabble is like the sacred Simurgh, of Arabian fable⁠—omnipotent on condition that it do nothing. (The word i...

A weekly festival having its origin in the fact that God made the world in six days and was arrested on the seventh. Among the Jews observance of the day was enforced by a Commandment of which this is...

T, the twentieth letter of the English alphabet, was by the Greeks absurdly called tau. In the alphabet whence ours comes it had the form of the rude corkscrew of the period, and when it stood alone (...

The gift or power of being in all places at one time, but not in all places at all times, which is omnipresence, an attribute of God and the luminiferous ether only. This important distinction between...

A soldierly compound of vanity, duty and the gambler’s hope. “Why have you halted?” roared the commander of a division and Chickamauga, who had ordered a charge; “move forward, sir, at once.” “General...

W (double U) has, of all the letters in our alphabet, the only cumbrous name, the names of the others being monosyllabic. This advantage of the Roman alphabet over the Grecian is the more valued after...

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...

In Europe, an American. In the Northern States of our Union, a New Englander. In the Southern States the word is unknown. (See damnyank.) A period of three hundred and sixty-five disappointments. The ...

A popular character in old Italian plays, who imitated with ludicrous incompetence the buffone, or clown, and was therefore the ape of an ape; for the clown himself imitated the serious characters of ...