The Devil’s Dictionary · A (2/2)

> “Cheer up! Have you no aim in life?”
>   
> She tenderly inquired.
>   
> “An aim? Well, no, I haven’t, wife;
>   
> The fact is⁠—I have fired.”
>
> —⁠G. J.

Air : A nutritious substance supplied by a bountiful Providence for the fattening of the poor.

Alderman : An ingenious criminal who covers his secret thieving with a pretence of open marauding.

Alien : An American sovereign in his probationary state.

Allah : The Muslim Supreme Being, as distinguished from the Christian, Jewish, and so forth.

> Allah’s good laws I faithfully have kept,
>   
> And ever for the sins of man have wept;
>   
> And sometimes kneeling in the temple I
>   
> Have reverently crossed my hands and slept.
>
> —⁠Junker Barlow

Allegiance : > This thing Allegiance, as I suppose, >
> Is a ring fitted in the subject’s nose, >
> Whereby that organ is kept rightly pointed >
> To smell the sweetness of the Lord’s anointed. > > —⁠G. J.

Alliance : In international politics, the union of two thieves who have their hands so deeply inserted in each other’s pockets that they cannot separately plunder a third.

Alligator : The crocodile of America, superior in every detail to the crocodile of the effete monarchies of the Old World. Herodotus says the Indus is, with one exception, the only river that produces crocodiles, but they appear to have gone West and grown up with the other rivers. From the notches on his back the alligator is called a sawrian.

Alone : In bad company.

> In contact, lo! the flint and steel,
>   
> By spark and flame, the thought reveal
>   
> That he the metal, she the stone,
>   
> Had cherished secretly alone.
>
> —⁠Booley Fito

Altar : The place whereupon the priest formerly raveled out the small intestine of the sacrificial victim for purposes of divination and cooked its flesh for the gods. The word is now seldom used, except with reference to the sacrifice of their liberty and peace by a male and a female fool.

> They stood before the altar and supplied
>   
> The fire themselves in which their fat was fried.
>   
> In vain the sacrifice!⁠—no god will claim
>   
> An offering burnt with an unholy flame.
>
> —⁠M. P. Nopput

Ambidextrous : Able to pick with equal skill a right-hand pocket or a left.

Ambition : An overmastering desire to be vilified by enemies while living and made ridiculous by friends when dead.

Amnesty : The state’s magnanimity to those offenders whom it would be too expensive to punish.

Anoint : To grease a king or other great functionary already sufficiently slippery.

> As sovereigns are anointed by the priesthood,
>   
> So pigs to lead the populace are greased good.
>
> —⁠Judibras

Antipathy : The sentiment inspired by one’s friend’s friend.

Aphorism : Predigested wisdom.

> The flabby wineskin of his brain
>   
> Yields to some pathologic strain,
>   
> And voids from its unstored abysm
>   
> The driblet of an aphorism.
>
> —⁠“The Mad Philosopher,” 1697

Apologize : To lay the foundation for a future offence.

Apostate : A leech who, having penetrated the shell of a turtle only to find that the creature has long been dead, deems it expedient to form a new attachment to a fresh turtle.

Apothecary : The physician’s accomplice, undertaker’s benefactor and grave worm’s provider.

> When Jove sent blessings to all men that are,
>   
> And Mercury conveyed them in a jar,
>   
> That friend of tricksters introduced by stealth
>   
> Disease for the apothecary’s health,
>   
> Whose gratitude impelled him to proclaim:
>   
> “My deadliest drug shall bear my patron’s name!”
>
> —⁠G. J.

Appeal : In law, to put the dice into the box for another throw.

Appetite : An instinct thoughtfully implanted by Providence as a solution to the labor question.

Applause : The echo of a platitude.

April Fool : The March fool with another month added to his folly.

Archbishop : An ecclesiastical dignitary one point holier than a bishop.

> If I were a jolly archbishop,
>   
> On Fridays I’d eat all the fish up⁠—
>   
> Salmon and flounders and smelts;
>   
> On other days everything else.
>
> —⁠Jodo Rem

Architect : One who drafts a plan of your house, and plans a draft of your money.

Ardor : The quality that distinguishes love without knowledge.

Arena : In politics, an imaginary rat-pit in which the statesman wrestles with his record.

Aristocracy : Government by the best men. (In this sense the word is obsolete; so is that kind of government.) Fellows that wear downy hats and clean shirts⁠—guilty of education and suspected of bank accounts.

Armor : The kind of clothing worn by a man whose tailor is a blacksmith.

Arrayed : Drawn up and given an orderly disposition, as a rioter hanged to a lamppost.

Arrest : Formally to detain one accused of unusualness.

> God made the world in six days and was arrested on the seventh.
>
> —⁠The Unauthorized Version

Arsenic : A kind of cosmetic greatly affected by the ladies, whom it greatly affects in turn.

> “Eat arsenic? Yes, all you get,”
>   
> Consenting, he did speak up;
>   
> “ ’Tis better you should eat it, pet,
>   
> Than put it in my teacup.”
>
> —⁠Joel Huck

Art : This word has no definition. Its origin is related as follows by the ingenious Father Gassalasca Jape, S.J.

> One day a wag⁠—what would the wretch be at?⁠—
>   
> Shifted a letter of the cipher **rat**,
>   
> And said it was a god’s name! Straight arose
>   
> Fantastic priests and postulants (with shows,
>   
> And mysteries, and mummeries, and hymns,
>   
> And disputations dire that lamed their limbs)
>   
> To serve his temple and maintain the fires,
>   
> Expound the law, manipulate the wires.
>   
> Amazed, the populace that rites attend,
>   
> Believe whate’er they cannot comprehend,
>   
> And, inly edified to learn that two
>   
> Half-hairs joined so and so (as Art can do)
>   
> Have sweeter values and a grace more fit
>   
> Than Nature’s hairs that never have been split,
>   
> Bring cates and wines for sacrificial feasts,
>   
> And sell their garments to support the priests.

Artlessness : A certain engaging quality to which women attain by long study and severe practice upon the admiring male, who is pleased to fancy it resembles the candid simplicity of his young.

Asperse : Maliciously to ascribe to another vicious actions which one has not had the temptation and opportunity to commit.

Ass : A public singer with a good voice but no ear. In Virginia City, Nevada, he is called the Washoe Canary, in Dakota, the Senator, and everywhere the Donkey. The animal is widely and variously celebrated in the literature, art and religion of every age and country; no other so engages and fires the human imagination as this noble vertebrate. Indeed, it is doubted by some (Ramasilus, lib. II, De Clem., and C. Stantatus, De Temperamente) if it is not a god; and as such we know it was worshiped by the Etruscans, and, if we may believe Macrobious, by the Cupasians also. Of the only two animals admitted into the Muslim Paradise along with the souls of men, the ass that carried Balaam is one, the dog of the Seven Sleepers the other. This is no small distinction. From what has been written about this beast might be compiled a library of great splendor and magnitude, rivalling that of the Shakespearean cult, and that which clusters about the Bible. It may be said, generally, that all literature is more or less Asinine.

> “Hail, holy Ass!” the quiring angels sing;
>   
> “Priest of Unreason, and of Discords King!
>   
> Great co-Creator, let Thy glory shine:
>   
> God made all else, the Mule, the Mule is thine!”
>
> —⁠G. J.

Auctioneer : The man who proclaims with a hammer that he has picked a pocket with his tongue.

Australia : A country lying in the South Sea, whose industrial and commercial development has been unspeakably retarded by an unfortunate dispute among geographers as to whether it is a continent or an island.

Avernus : The lake by which the ancients entered the infernal regions. The fact that access to the infernal regions was obtained by a lake is believed by the learned Marcus Ansello Scrutator to have suggested the Christian rite of baptism by immersion. This, however, has been shown by Lactantius to be an error.

> *Facilis descensus Averni*,
>   
> The poet remarks; and the sense
>   
> Of it is that when downhill I turn I
>   
> Will get more of punches than pence.
>
> —⁠Jehal Dai Lupe