THE DEVIL'S DICTIONARY 

Ambrose Bierce

T-U-V-W-X-Y-Z

 

Telephone - An invention of the devil which abrogates some of the advantages of making a disagreeable person keep his distance

 

Truth - An ingenious compound of desirability and appearance

 

Twice - Once too often

 

Ultimatum - In diplomacy, a last demand before resorting to concessions

 

Virtues - Certain abstentions

 

War - A by-product of the arts of peace

 

Weather -  A permanent topic of conversation among persons whom it does not interest, but who have inherited the tendency to chatter about it from naked arboreal ancestors whom it keenly concerned

X - A needless letter serving only to make spelling more difficult

 

Year - A period of three hundred and sixty-five disappointments 

Yesterday - The infancy of youth, the youth of manhood, the entire past of age

 

Yoke - A word that defines the matrimonial situation with precision, point, and poignancy 

Youth - The period of Possibility

 

 Zeal - A certain nervous disorder afflicting the young and inexperienced

 

 

THE DEVIL'S DICTIONARY 

Ambrose Bierce

 

S 

 

Saint - A dead sinner revised and edited

Scriptures - The sacred books of one's religion, as distinguished from the false writings on which other faiths are based

Self-esteem - An erroneous appraisement

Self-evident - Evident to one's self and to nobody else

Selfish - Devoid of consideration for the selfishness of others

Sorcery - The ancient prototype and forerunner of political influence

Story - A narrative, commonly untrue

Success - The one unpardonable sin against one's fellows

THE DEVIL'S DICTIONARY

Ambrose Bierce

 

Q - R 

 

Quorum - A sufficient number of members of a deliberative body to have their own way

Quotation - The act of repeating erroneously the words of another

Rascal - A fool considered under another aspect

Reality - The dream of a mad philosopher

Really - Apparently 

Reason - To weigh probabilities on the scales of desire

Reasonable - Accessible to the infection of our own opinions

Reconsider - To seek a justification for a decision already made

Resolute - Obstinate in a course that we approve

Responsibility - A detachable burden easily shifted to the shoulders of God, Fate, Fortune, Luck, or one's neighbor

Road - A strip of land along which one may pass from where it is too tiresome to be and to where it is futile to go

Rumor - A favorite weapon of the assassins of character

THE DEVIL'S DICTIONARY

Ambrose Bierce

P

 

Pain -  An uncomfortable frame of mind that may have a physical basis,  or may be purely mental, caused by the good fortune of another.

Patience - A minor form of despair, disguised as a virtue.

Peace - In international affairs, a period of cheating between two periods of fighting.

Penitent - Undergoing or awaiting punishment

Perseverance - A lowly virtue whereby mediocrity achieves an inglorious success

Philosophy - A route of many words leading from nowhere to nothing

Picture - A representation in two dimensions of something wearisome in three

Please - A word to lay the foundation for a superstructure of imposition

Pleasure - The least hateful form of dejection

Pleonasm - An army of words escorting corporal of thought

Politeness - The most acceptable hypocrisy

Politics - The conduct of public affairs for private advantage

Positive - Mistaken at the top of one's voice

Pray - To ask the laws of the universe to be annulled in behalf of a single petitioner confessedly unworthy

Predicament - The wage of consistency

Preference - A sentiment or frame of mind induced by the erroneous belief that one thing is better than another

 

Prejudice -  A vagrant opinion without visible means of support

 

Prerogative - A sovereign's right to do wrong 

Prescription - A physician's guess at what will best prolong the situation with least harm to the patient

Present - That part of eternity dividing the domain of disappointment from the realm of hope

Presidency - The greased pig in the field game of American politics

Providential - Unexpectedly and conspicuously beneficial to the person so describing it

 

 

THE DEVIL'S DICTIONARY

Ambrose Bierce

N - O

 

Neighgor - One whom we are commanded to love as ourselves, and who does all he knows how to make us disobedient. 

Noise - The chief product  and authenticating sign of civilization

Nonchalance - The ability to look like an owl when you have behaved like an ass

 

Occasional - Afflicting us with greater or lesser  frequency

Ocean - A body of water occupying about two-thirds of a world made for man - who has no gills

Once - Enough

Opportunity - A favorable occasion for grasping a disappointment

Oratory - A conspiracy between speech and action to cheat the understanding

Otherwise - No better

Outdo - To make an enemy

Out-of-doors - The part of one's environment upon which no government has been able to collect taxes

Overeat - To dine

THE DEVIL'S DICTIONARY

Ambrose Bierce

 

M

 

Male - A member of the unconsidered, or negligible sex.

 

Marriage - The state or condition of a community consisting  of a master, a mistress, and two slaves, making in all, two.

 

Mausoleum - The final and funniest folly of the rich

 

Meekness - Uncommon patience in planning a revenge that is worth while

 

Mercy - An attribute beloved of detected offenders

 

Monday - In Christian countries, the day after the baseball game

 

Money -  A  blessing that is of no advantage to us excepting when we part with it

 

Mouth - In man, the gateway to the soul; in woman, the outlet of the heart

 

 

THE DEVIL'S DICTIONARY

Ambrose Bierce 

L

 

Labor - One of the processes by which A acquires property for B

Language - The music with which we charm the serpents guarding another's treasure

Laughter - An interior convulsion, producing a distortion of the features and accompanied by inarticulate noises. It is infectious and, though intermittent, incurable.

Lawyer - One skilled in circumvention of the law

Laziness - Unwarranted repose of manner in a person of low degree

Learning - The kind of ignorance distinguishing the studious

Legacy - A gift from one who is legging it out vale of tears

Liar - A lawyer with a roving commission

Liberty - One of Imagination's most precious possessions

Love - A temporary insanity curable by marriage or by removal of the patient from the influences under which he incurred the disorder

THE DEVIL'S DICTIONARY

Ambrose Bierce

 

J and K 

 

Jealous - Unduly concerned about the preservation of that which can be lost only if not worth keeping

Kill - To create a vacancy without nominating a successor

Kindness - A brief pause to ten volumes of exaction

Kiss - A word invented by poets as a rhyme for "bliss"

THE DEVIL'S DICTIONARY 

Ambrose Bierce 

I

 

Ignoramus - A person unacquainted with certain kinds of knowledge familiar to yourself, and having other kinds that you know nothing about

Imagination - A warehouse of facts, with poet and liar in joint ownership

Impartial - Unable to perceive any promise of personal advantage from espousing either side of a controversy or adopting either of two conflicting opinions

Impiety - Your irreverence toward my deity

 

Impunity - Wealth 

Infidel - In New York, one who does not believe in the Christian religion; in Constantinople, one who does.

Intimacy - A relation into which fools are providentially drawn for their mutual destruction

THE DEVIL'S DICTIONARY

Ambrose Bierce 

G and H

 

Ghost - The outward and visible sign of an inward fear

 

Grave - A place in which the dead are laid to await the coming of the medical student

Habit - A shackle for the free

Happiness  - An agreeable sensation arising from contemplating the misery of another

Hatred - A sentiment appropriate to the occasion of another's superiority

 

Hope - Desire and expectation rolled into one

Hurry - The dispatch of bunglers

Hypocrite - One who, professing virtues that he does not respect, secures the advantage of seeming to be what he despises

THE DEVIL'S DICTIONARY 

Ambrose Bierce

 

E and F

 

Education - That which discloses to the wise and disguises from the foolish their lack of understanding

 

Egotist - A person of low taste, more interested in  himself than in me.

 

Envy - Emulation adapted to the meanest capacity

 

Experience - The wisdom that enable us to recognize as an undesirable old acquaintance the folly that we have already embraced

 

Famous - Conspicuously miserable 

 

Fashion - A despot whom the wise ridicule and obey

 

Friendship - A ship big enough to carry two in fair weather, but only one in foul

 

Future - That period of time in which our affairs prosper, our friends are true, and our happiness is assured 

THE DEVIL'S DICTIONARY

Ambrose Bierce 

D

 

Day - A period of twenty-four hours, mostly misspent

Debt - An ingenious substitute for the chain and whip of the slave-driver

 

Destiny - A tyrant's authority for crime and a fool's excuse for failure

Dictator - The chief of a nation that prefers the pestilence of despotism to the plague of anarchy

Dictionary - A malevolent literary device for cramping the growth of language

Diplomacy - The patriotic art of lying for one's country

Disobedience - The silver lining to the cloud of servitude

Distress - A disease incurred by exposure to the prosperity of a friend

THE DEVIL'S DICTIONARY

Ambrose  Bierce 

B and C

 

Backbite - To speak of a man as you find him before he can find you

Belladonna - In Italian, a beautiful lady; In English, a deadly poison. A striking example of the essential identity of the two tongues

 

Bigot - One who is obstinately and zealously attached to an opinion that you do not entertain

Birth - The first and direst of all disasters

Bore - A person who talks when you wish him to listen

Bride - A woman with a fine prospect of happiness behind her

Childhood - The period of human life intermediate between the idiocy of infancy and the folly of youth - two removed from the sin of manhood and three from the remorse of age

 

Congratulations - The civility of envy

 

Conservative - A statesman who is enamored of existing evils, as distinguished from the Liberal, who wishes to replace them with others 

Consolation - The knowledge that a better man is more unfortunate than yourself

 

Contempt -  The feeling of a prudent man for an enemy who is too formidable to be safely opposed

Corporation - An ingenious device for obtaining individual profit without individual responsibility

THE DEVIL'S DICTIONARY

Ambrose Bierce

A 

Absurdity - A statement of belief manifestly inconsistent with one's own opinion

 

Academe - An ancient school where morality and philosophy were taught

 

Academy - A modern school where football is taught

 

Accountability - The mother of caution 

 

Accuse - To affirm another guilt or unworth; most commonly as a justification of ourselves  for having wronged him

 

Achievement -  The death of endeavor and the birth of disgust

Acquaintance - A person we know well enough to borrow from, but not well enough to lend to

Adherent - A follower who has not yet obtained all that he expects to get

Admiration - Our polite recognition of another's resemblance to ourselves

Alone - In bad company

Apologize - To lay the foundation for a future offense

 

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

Applause - The echo of a platitude

Art - This word has no definition