A conqueror in a small way of business, whose annexations lack of the sanctifying merit of magnitude. A political condition that every nation supposes itself to enjoy in virtual monopoly. The distinction between freedom and liberty is not accurately known; naturalists have never been able to find a living specimen of either. An order with secret rites, grotesque ceremonies and fantastic costumes, which, originating in the reign of Charles II, among working artisans of London, has been joined successively by the dead of past centuries in unbroken retrogression until now it embraces all the generations of man on the hither side of Adam and is drumming up distinguished recruits among the pre-Creational inhabitants of Chaos and Formless Void.
Its emblems and symbols have been found in the Catacombs of Paris and Rome, on the stones of the Parthenon and the Chinese Great Wall, among the temples of Karnak and Palmyra and in the Egyptian Pyramids — always by a Freemason. Having no favors to bestow. Addicted to utterance of truth and common sense. A reptile with edible legs. Schliemann has set the question forever at rest by uncovering the bones of the slain frogs. One of the forms of moral suasion by which Pharaoh was besought to favor the Israelities was a plague of frogs, but Pharaoh, who liked them fricasees , remarked, with truly oriental stoicism, that he could stand it as long as the frogs and the Jews could; so the programme was changed.
The frog is a diligent songster, having a good voice but no ear. Horses have a frog in each hoof — a thoughtful provision of nature, enabling them to shine in a hurdle race. The frying-pan was invented by Calvin, and by him used in cooking span-long infants that had died without baptism; and observing one day the horrible torment of a tramp who had incautiously pulled a fried babe from the waste-dump and devoured it, it occurred to the great divine to rob death of its terrors by introducing the frying-pan into every household in Geneva.
Thence it spread to all corners of the world, and has been of invaluable assistance in the propagation of his sombre faith. The following lines said to be from the pen of his Grace Bishop Potter seem to imply that the usefulness of this utensil is not limited to this world; but as the consequences of its employment in this life reach over into the life to come, so also itself may be found on the other side, rewarding its devotees:.
A pageant whereby we attest our respect for the dead by enriching the undertaker, and strengthen our grief by an expenditure that deepens our groans and doubles our tears. That period of time in which our affairs prosper, our friends are true and our happiness is assured. 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.
A rain-spout projecting from the eaves of mediaeval buildings, commonly fashioned into a grotesque caricature of some personal enemy of the architect or owner of the building. Sometimes when a new dean and chapter were installed the old gargoyles were removed and others substituted having a closer relation to the private animosities of the new incumbents. An elastic band intended to keep a woman from coming out of her stockings and desolating the country.
Originally this word meant noble by birth and was rightly applied to a great multitude of persons. It now means noble by nature and is taking a bit of a rest. A chap who can tell you offhand the difference between the outside of the world and the inside. The geological formations of the globe already noted are catalogued thus: The Secondary is largely made up of red worms and moles. The Tertiary comprises railway tracks, patent pavements, grass, snakes, mouldy boots, beer bottles, tomato cans, intoxicated citizens, garbage, anarchists, snap-dogs and fools.
Not quite, if I may judge from such tables of comparative speed as I am able to compile from memories of my own experience. There is one insuperable obstacle to a belief in ghosts. A ghost never comes naked: Supposing the products of the loom to have this ability, what object would they have in exercising it? And why does not the apparition of a suit of clothes sometimes walk abroad without a ghost in it?
These be riddles of significance. They reach away down and get a convulsive grip on the very tap-root of this flourishing faith. A demon addicted to the reprehensible habit of devouring the dead. The existence of ghouls has been disputed by that class of controversialists who are more concerned to deprive the world of comforting beliefs than to give it anything good in their place. In Father Secchi saw one in a cemetery near Florence and frightened it away with the sign of the cross.
He describes it as gifted with many heads an an uncommon allowance of limbs, and he saw it in more than one place at a time. Atholston relates that a ghoul was caught by some sturdy peasants in a churchyard at Sudbury and ducked in a horsepond. He appears to think that so distinguished a criminal should have been ducked in a tank of rosewater.
As late as the beginning of the fourteenth century a ghoul was cornered in the crypt of the cathedral at Amiens and the whole population surrounded the place.
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Twenty armed men with a priest at their head, bearing a crucifix, entered and captured the ghoul, which, thinking to escape by the stratagem, had transformed itself to the semblance of a well known citizen, but was nevertheless hanged, drawn and quartered in the midst of hideous popular orgies. The citizen whose shape the demon had assumed was so affected by the sinister occurrence that he never again showed himself in Amiens and his fate remains a mystery. In North—European mythology, a dwarfish imp inhabiting the interior parts of the earth and having special custody of mineral treasures.
Bjorsen, who died in , says gnomes were common enough in the southern parts of Sweden in his boyhood, and he frequently saw them scampering on the hills in the evening twilight. Ludwig Binkerhoof saw three as recently as , in the Black Forest, and Sneddeker avers that in they drove a party of miners out of a Silesian mine. Basing our computations upon data supplied by these statements, we find that the gnomes were probably extinct as early as A sect of philosophers who tried to engineer a fusion between the early Christians and the Platonists. The former would not go into the caucus and the combination failed, greatly to the chagrin of the fusion managers.
An animal of South Africa, which in its domesticated state resembles a horse, a buffalo and a stag. In its wild condition it is something like a thunderbolt, an earthquake and a cyclone. Sensible, madam, to the worth of this present writer. Alive, sir, to the advantages of letting him alone. A bird that supplies quills for writing. The difference in geese, as discovered by this ingenious method, is considerable: Three beautiful goddesses, Aglaia, Thalia and Euphrosyne, who attended upon Venus, serving without salary.
They were at no expense for board and clothing, for they ate nothing to speak of and dressed according to the weather, wearing whatever breeze happened to be blowing. A system of pitfalls thoughtfully prepared for the feet for the self-made man, along the path by which he advances to distinction. An argument which the future is preparing in answer to the demands of American Socialism. The tendency of all bodies to approach one another with a strength proportion to the quantity of matter they contain — the quantity of matter they contain being ascertained by the strength of their tendency to approach one another.
This is a lovely and edifying illustration of how science, having made A the proof of B, makes B the proof of A. In his great work on Divergent Lines of Racial Evolution , the learned Professor Brayfugle argues from the prevalence of this gesture — the shrug — among Frenchmen, that they are descended from turtles and it is simply a survival of the habit of retracing the head inside the shell.
It is with reluctance that I differ with so eminent an authority, but in my judgment as more elaborately set forth and enforced in my work entitled Hereditary Emotions — lib. XI the shrug is a poor foundation upon which to build so important a theory, for previously to the Revolution the gesture was unknown.
An agency employed by civilized nations for the settlement of disputes which might become troublesome if left unadjusted. By most writers the invention of gunpowder is ascribed to the Chinese, but not upon very convincing evidence. Milton says it was invented by the devil to dispel angels with, and this opinion seems to derive some support from the scarcity of angels. Moreover, it has the hearty concurrence of the Hon.
James Wilson, Secretary of Agriculture. Secretary Wilson became interested in gunpowder through an event that occurred on the Government experimental farm in the District of Columbia. The good Secretary was instructed to spill it along in a furrow and afterward inhume it with soil. This he at once proceeded to do, and had made a continuous line of it all the way across a ten-acre field, when he was made to look backward by a shout from the generous donor, who at once dropped a lighted match into the furrow at the starting-point.
Contact with the earth had somewhat dampened the powder, but the startled functionary saw himself pursued by a tall moving pillar of fire and smoke and fierce evolution. He stood for a moment paralyzed and speechless, then he recollected an engagement and, dropping all, absented himself thence with such surprising celerity that to the eyes of spectators along the route selected he appeared like a long, dim streak prolonging itself with inconceivable rapidity through seven villages, and audibly refusing to be comforted.
Among the ancients the idea of Hades was not synonymous with our Hell, many of the most respectable men of antiquity residing there in a very comfortable kind of way. Indeed, the Elysian Fields themselves were a part of Hades, though they have since been removed to Paris. At the next meeting, the Bishop of Salisbury, looking over the work, suddenly sprang to his feet and said with considerable excitement: An elderly lady whom you do not happen to like; sometimes called, also, a hen, or cat.
Old witches, sorceresses, etc. At one time hag was not a word of reproach: One of two equal parts into which a thing may be divided, or considered as divided. In the fourteenth century a heated discussion arose among theologists and philosophers as to whether Omniscience could part an object into three halves; and the pious Father Aldrovinus publicly prayed in the cathedral at Rouen that God would demonstrate the affirmative of the proposition in some signal and unmistakable way, and particularly if it should please Him upon the body of that hardy blasphemer, Manutius Procinus, who maintained the negative.
Procinus, however, was spared to die of the bite of a viper. In the painting of the Nativity, by Szedgkin, a pious artist of Pesth, not only do the Virgin and the Child wear the nimbus, but an ass nibbling hay from the sacred manger is similarly decorated and, to his lasting honor be it said, appears to bear his unaccustomed dignity with a truly saintly grace.
A small square of silk or linen, used in various ignoble offices about the face and especially serviceable at funerals to conceal the lack of tears. The handkerchief is of recent invention; our ancestors knew nothing of it and intrusted its duties to the sleeve. Desdemona dried her nose with her skirt, as Dr. Mary Walker and other reformers have done with their coattails in our own day — an evidence that revolutions sometimes go backward.
An officer of the law charged with duties of the highest dignity and utmost gravity, and held in hereditary disesteem by a populace having a criminal ancestry. In some of the American States his functions are now performed by an electrician, as in New Jersey, where executions by electricity have recently been ordered — the first instance known to this lexicographer of anybody questioning the expediency of hanging Jerseymen. A place where ships taking shelter from stores are exposed to the fury of the customs. A sect of Protestants, now extinct, who came from Europe in the beginning of the last century and were distinguished for the bitterness of their internal controversies and dissensions.
An automatic, muscular blood-pump. Figuratively, this useful organ is said to be the seat of emotions and sentiments — a very pretty fancy which, however, is nothing but a survival of a once universal belief. It is now known that the sentiments and emotions reside in the stomach, being evolved from food by chemical action of the gastric fluid.
The exact process by which a beefsteak becomes a feeling — tender or not, according to the age of the animal from which it was cut; the successive stages of elaboration through which a caviar sandwich is transmuted to a quaint fancy and reappears as a pungent epigram; the marvelous functional methods of converting a hard-boiled egg into religious contrition, or a cream-puff into a sigh of sensibility — these things have been patiently ascertained by M.
Pasteur, and by him expounded with convincing lucidity. A benighted creature who has the folly to worship something that he can see and feel. A place where the wicked cease from troubling you with talk of their personal affairs, and the good listen with attention while you expound your own. A plant from whose fibrous bark is made an article of neckwear which is frequently put on after public speaking in the open air and prevents the wearer from taking cold. To pass the winter season in domestic seclusion.
There have been many singular popular notions about the hibernation of various animals. Many believe that the bear hibernates during the whole winter and subsists by mechanically sucking its paws. It is admitted that it comes out of its retirement in the spring so lean that it had to try twice before it can cast a shadow. Three or four centuries ago, in England, no fact was better attested than that swallows passed the winter months in the mud at the bottom of their brooks, clinging together in globular masses.
They have apparently been compelled to give up the custom and account of the foulness of the brooks. Sotus Ecobius discovered in Central Asia a whole nation of people who hibernate. By some investigators, the fasting of Lent is supposed to have been originally a modified form of hibernation, to which the Church gave a religious significance; but this view was strenuously opposed by that eminent authority, Bishop Kip, who did not wish any honors denied to the memory of the Founder of his family.
An animal now extinct which was half horse and half griffin. The griffin was itself a compound creature, half lion and half eagle. The hippogriff was actually, therefore, a one-quarter eagle, which is two dollars and fifty cents in gold. The study of zoology is full of surprises. An account mostly false, of events mostly unimportant, which are brought about by rulers mostly knaves, and soldiers mostly fools.
A bird remarkable for the catholicity of its appetite and serving to illustrate that of ours. Among the Mahometans and Jews, the hog is not in favor as an article of diet, but is respected for the delicacy and the melody of its voice. It is chiefly as a songster that the fowl is esteemed; the cage of him in full chorus has been known to draw tears from two persons at once.
The scientific name of this dicky-bird is Porcus Rockefelleri. Rockefeller did not discover the hog, but it is considered his by right of resemblance.
A school of medicine midway between Allopathy and Christian Science. To the last both the others are distinctly inferior, for Christian Science will cure imaginary diseases, and they can not. The slaying of one human being by another. There are four kinds of homocide: The science of adapting sermons to the spiritual needs, capacities and conditions of the congregation. The virtue which induces us to feed and lodge certain persons who are not in need of food and lodging.
Hostility is classified as active and passive; as respectively the feeling of a woman for her female friends, and that which she entertains for all the rest of her sex. A comely female inhabiting the Mohammedan Paradise to make things cheery for the good Mussulman, whose belief in her existence marks a noble discontent with his earthly spouse, whom he denies a soul.
By that good lady the Houris are said to be held in deficient esteem. A hollow edifice erected for the habitation of man, rat, mouse, beetle, cockroach, fly, mosquito, flea, bacillus and microbe. House of Correction , a place of reward for political and personal service, and for the detention of offenders and appropriations. House of God , a building with a steeple and a mortgage on it. House-dog , a pestilent beast kept on domestic premises to insult persons passing by and appal the hardy visitor.
House-maid , a youngerly person of the opposing sex employed to be variously disagreeable and ingeniously unclean in the station in which it has pleased God to place her. An atmospheric demonstration once very common but now generally abandoned for the tornado and cyclone.
The hurricane is still in popular use in the West Indies and is preferred by certain old-fashioned sea-captains. A beast held in reverence by some oriental nations from its habit of frequenting at night the burial-places of the dead. But the medical student does that. One who, profession virtues that he does not respect secures the advantage of seeming to be what he despises. 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. Its plural is said to be We , but how there can be more than one myself is doubtless clearer the grammarians than it is to the author of this incomparable dictionary. Conception of two myselfs is difficult, but fine. A breaker of idols, the worshipers whereof are imperfectly gratified by the performance, and most strenuously protest that he unbuildeth but doth not reedify, that he pulleth down but pileth not up.
For the poor things would have other idols in place of those he thwacketh upon the mazzard and dispelleth. But the iconoclast saith: A member of a large and powerful tribe whose influence in human affairs has always been dominant and controlling. He sets the fashions and opinion of taste, dictates the limitations of speech and circumscribes conduct with a dead-line. A model farm where the devil experiments with seeds of new sins and promotes the growth of staple vices. A person unacquainted with certain kinds of knowledge familiar to yourself, and having certain other kinds that you know nothing about.
A sect of Spanish heretics of the latter part of the sixteenth century; so called because they were light weights — cunctationes illuminati. A kind of divine inspiration, or sacred fire affecting censorious critics of this dictionary. Whatever in the long run and with regard to the greater number of instances men find to be generally inexpedient comes to be considered wrong, wicked, immoral. In popular usage to pierce with any weapon which remains fixed in the wound. This, however, is inaccurate; to impale is, properly, to put to death by thrusting an upright sharp stake into the body, the victim being left in a sitting position.
This was a common mode of punishment among many of the nations of antiquity, and is still in high favor in China and other parts of Asia. To the person in actual experience of impalement it must be a matter of minor importance by what kind of civil or religious dissent he was made acquainted with its discomforts; but doubtless he would feel a certain satisfaction if able to contemplate himself in the character of a weather-cock on the spire of the True Church. Unable to perceive any promise of personal advantage from espousing either side of a controversy or adopting either of two conflicting opinions.
The act of blessing or consecrating by the laying on of hands — a ceremony common to many ecclesiastical systems, but performed with the frankest sincerity by the sect known as Thieves. Not competent to be considered. Said of certain kinds of testimony which juries are supposed to be unfit to be entrusted with, and which judges, therefore, rule out, even of proceedings before themselves alone.
Hearsay evidence is inadmissible because the person quoted was unsworn and is not before the court for examination; yet most momentous actions, military, political, commercial and of every other kind, are daily undertaken on hearsay evidence. There is no religion in the world that has any other basis than hearsay evidence. Revelation is hearsay evidence; that the Scriptures are the word of God we have only the testimony of men long dead whose identity is not clearly established and who are not known to have been sworn in any sense.
Under the rules of evidence as they now exist in this country, no single assertion in the Bible has in its support any evidence admissible in a court of law. It cannot be proved that the battle of Blenheim ever was fought, that there was such as person as Julius Caesar, such an empire as Assyria. But as records of courts of justice are admissible, it can easily be proved that powerful and malevolent magicians once existed and were a scourge to mankind. The evidence including confession upon which certain women were convicted of witchcraft and executed was without a flaw; it is still unimpeachable.
Nothing in any existing court was ever more thoroughly proved than the charges of witchcraft and sorcery for which so many suffered death. If there were no witches, human testimony and human reason are alike destitute of value. In an unpromising manner, the auspices being unfavorable. Among the Romans it was customary before undertaking any important action or enterprise to obtain from the augurs, or state prophets, some hint of its probable outcome; and one of their favorite and most trustworthy modes of divination consisted in observing the flight of birds — the omens thence derived being called auspices.
Hence it followeth that all things are truly to be rated as of worth in measure of their serviceableness to that end; and their possessors should take rank in agreement thereto, neither the lord of an unproducing manor, howsoever broad and ancient, nor he who bears an unremunerate dignity, nor yet the pauper favorite of a king, being esteemed of level excellency with him whose riches are of daily accretion; and hardly should they whose wealth is barren claim and rightly take more honor than the poor and unworthy.
In matrimony a similarity of tastes, particularly the taste for domination. Incompatibility may, however, consist of a meek-eyed matron living just around the corner. It has even been known to wear a moustache. Unable to exist if something else exists. Incompossibility, it will be seen, is only incompatibility let loose. One of a race of highly improper demons who, though probably not wholly extinct, may be said to have seen their best nights. For a complete account of incubi and succubi , including incubae and succubae , see the Liber Demonorum of Protassus Paris, , which contains much curious information that would be out of place in a dictionary intended as a text-book for the public schools.
Victor Hugo relates that in the Channel Islands Satan himself — tempted more than elsewhere by the beauty of the women, doubtless — sometimes plays at incubus , greatly to the inconvenience and alarm of the good dames who wish to be loyal to their marriage vows, generally speaking. A certain lady applied to the parish priest to learn how they might, in the dark, distinguish the hardy intruder from their husbands.
The holy man said they must feel his brown for horns; but Hugo is ungallant enough to hint a doubt of the efficacy of the test. When in doubt whether to attack or retreat I never hesitate a moment — I toss us a copper. A disease which the patient and his friends frequently mistake for deep religious conviction and concern for the salvation of mankind.
As the simple Red Man of the western wild put it, with, it must be confessed, a certain force: The narrative ended abruptly at the point, owing to the inconsiderate crowing of a cock, which compelled the ghosted King of Men to scamper back to Hades. In New York, one who does not believe in the Christian religion; in Constantinople, one who does. In politics, a visionary quo given in exchange for a substantial quid. Infralapsarians are sometimes called Sublapsarians without material effect upon the importance and lucidity of their views about Adam. A burden which of all those that we load upon others and carry ourselves is lightest in the hands and heaviest upon the back.
A villainous compound of tannogallate of iron, gum-arabic and water, chiefly used to facilitate the infection of idiocy and promote intellectual crime. The properties of ink are peculiar and contradictory: There are men called journalists who have established ink baths which some persons pay money to get into, others to get out of. Not infrequently it occurs that a person who has paid to get in pays twice as much to get out.
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Natural, inherent — as innate ideas, that is to say, ideas that we are born with, having had them previously imparted to us. The stomach, heart, soul and other bowels. Gunsaulus, is persuaded that the mysterious organ known as the spleen is nothing less than our important part. To the contrary, Professor Garrett P. Concerning these two theories, it is best to suspend judgment by believing both. Something written on another thing.
Inscriptions are of many kinds, but mostly memorial, intended to commemorate the fame of some illustrious person and hand down to distant ages the record of his services and virtues. To this class of inscriptions belongs the name of John Smith, penciled on the Washington monument. Following are examples of memorial inscriptions on tombstones: An ingenious modern game of chance in which the player is permitted to enjoy the comfortable conviction that he is beating the man who keeps the table.
Please make the annual premium so low that by the time when, according to the tables of your actuary, it will probably be destroyed by fire I will have paid you considerably less than the face of the policy. O dear, no — we could not afford to do that. We must fix the premium so that you will have paid more. Why, your house may burn down at any time. Let us understand each other. You want me to pay you money on the supposition that something will occur previously to the time set by yourself for its occurrence. In other words, you expect me to bet that my house will not last so long as you say that it will probably last.
But suppose it to burn, uninsured, before the time upon which your figures are based. If I could not afford that, how could you if it were insured? O, we should make ourselves whole from our luckier ventures with other clients. Virtually, they pay your loss. Are not their houses as likely as mine to burn before they have paid you as much as you must pay them?
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The case stands this way: I would not trust you with my money. If it is certain , with reference to the whole body of your clients, that they lose money on you it is probable , with reference to any one of them, that he will. It is these individual probabilities that make the aggregate certainty. You spoke of saving the premiums which you would otherwise pay to me. Will you not be more likely to squander them? We offer you an incentive to thrift. Deign to accept its expression from a Deserving Object.
The period during which a monarchical country is governed by a warm spot on the cushion of the throne. The experiment of letting the spot grow cold has commonly been attended by most unhappy results from the zeal of many worthy persons to make it warm again. A social ceremony invented by the devil for the gratification of his servants and the plaguing of his enemies. The introduction attains its most malevolent development in this century, being, indeed, closely related to our political system. Every American being the equal of every other American, it follows that everybody has the right to know everybody else, which implies the right to introduce without request or permission.
The Declaration of Independence should have read thus:. A person who makes an ingenious arrangement of wheels, levers and springs, and believes it civilization. J is a consonant in English, but some nations use it as a vowel — than which nothing could be more absurd. This is the origin of the letter, as expounded by the renowned Dr. Jocolpus Bumer, of the University of Belgrade, who established his conclusions on the subject in a work of three quarto volumes and committed suicide on being reminded that the j in the Roman alphabet had originally no curl.
Unduly concerned about the preservation of that which can be lost only if not worth keeping. The king himself being attired with dignity, it took the world some centuries to discover that his own conduct and decrees were sufficiently ridiculous for the amusement not only of his court but of all mankind. The jester was commonly called a fool, but the poets and romancers have ever delighted to represent him as a singularly wise and witty person.
In the circus of to-day the melancholy ghost of the court fool effects the dejection of humbler audiences with the same jests wherewith in life he gloomed the marble hall, panged the patrician sense of humor and tapped the tank of royal tears. An unmusical instrument, played by holding it fast with the teeth and trying to brush it away with the finger. Small sticks burned by the Chinese in their pagan tomfoolery, in imitation of certain sacred rites of our holy religion.
A commodity which is a more or less adulterated condition the State sells to the citizen as a reward for his allegiance, taxes and personal service. 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. Snedeker explains that it was altered to its present shape to commemorate the destruction of the great temple of Jarute by an earthquake, circa B. This building was famous for the two lofty columns of its portico, one of which was broken in half by the catastrophe, the other remaining intact.
As the earlier form of the letter is supposed to have been suggested by these pillars, so, it is thought by the great antiquary, its later was adopted as a simple and natural — not to say touching — means of keeping the calamity ever in the national memory. As each theory seems probable enough, I see no objection to believing both — and Dr.
Snedeker arrayed himself on that side of the question. A malady that was formerly cured by the touch of the sovereign, but has now to be treated by the physicians. But the gift somewhere dropped out of the line of succession: The superstition that maladies can be cured by royal taction is dead, but like many a departed conviction it has left a monument of custom to keep its memory green.
A book which the Mohammedans foolishly believe to have been written by divine inspiration, but which Christians know to be a wicked imposture, contradictory to the Holy Scriptures. The theory that land is property subject to private ownership and control is the foundation of modern society, and is eminently worthy of the superstructure. Carried to its logical conclusion, it means that some have the right to prevent others from living; for the right to own implies the right exclusively to occupy; and in fact laws of trespass are enacted wherever property in land is recognized. It follows that if the whole area of terra firma is owned by A, B and C, there will be no place for D, E, F and G to be born, or, born as trespassers, to exist.
A famous piece of antique scripture representing a priest of that name and his two sons in the folds of two enormous serpents. The skill and diligence with which the old man and lads support the serpents and keep them up to their work have been justly regarded as one of the noblest artistic illustrations of the mastery of human intelligence over brute inertia. One of the most important organs of the female system — an admirable provision of nature for the repose of infancy, but chiefly useful in rural festivities to support plates of cold chicken and heads of adult males.
An interior convulsion, producing a distortion of the features and accompanied by inarticulate noises. It is infectious and, though intermittent, incurable. Liability to attacks of laughter is one of the characteristics distinguishing man from the animals — these being not only inaccessible to the provocation of his example, but impregnable to the microbes having original jurisdiction in bestowal of the disease. Whether laughter could be imparted to animals by inoculation from the human patient is a question that has not been answered by experimentation.
Meir Witchell holds that the infection character of laughter is due to the instantaneous fermentation of sputa diffused in a spray. From this peculiarity he names the disorder Convulsio spargens. Crowned with leaves of the laurel. Of all incumbents of that high office, Robert Southey had the most notable knack at drugging the Samson of public joy and cutting his hair to the quick; and he had an artistic color-sense which enabled him so to blacken a public grief as to give it the aspect of a national crime.
The laurus , a vegetable dedicated to Apollo, and formerly defoliated to wreathe the brows of victors and such poets as had influence at court. Lead is also of great service as a counterpoise to an argument of such weight that it turns the scale of debate the wrong way. An interesting fact in the chemistry of international controversy is that at the point of contact of two patriotisms lead is precipitated in great quantities.
One with his hand in your pocket, his tongue in your ear and his faith in your patience. Unlike a menagerie lion. Leonine verses are those in which a word in the middle of a line rhymes with a word at the end, as in this famous passage from Bella Peeler Silcox:. It should be explained that Mrs. Silcox does not undertake to teach pronunciation of the Greek and Latin tongues.
Leonine verses are so called in honor of a poet named Leo, whom prosodists appear to find a pleasure in believing to have been the first to discover that a rhyming couplet could be run into a single line. For by his inner light the righteous man has discerned a manner of compounding for it a dressing to the appetency whereof a multitude of gustible condiments conspire, being reconciled and ameliorated with profusion of oil, the entire comestible making glad the heart of the godly and causing his face to shine.
But the person of spiritual unworth is successfully tempted to the Adversary to eat of lettuce with destitution of oil, mustard, egg, salt and garlic, and with a rascal bath of vinegar polluted with sugar. Wherefore the person of spiritual unworth suffers an intestinal pang of strange complexity and raises the song. An enormous aquatic animal mentioned by Job. Some suppose it to have been the whale, but that distinguished ichthyologer, Dr.
Jordan, of Stanford University, maintains with considerable heat that it was a species of gigantic Tadpole Thaddeus Polandensis or Polliwig — Maria pseudo-hirsuta. For an exhaustive description and history of the Tadpole consult the famous monograph of Jane Potter, Thaddeus of Warsaw. A pestilent fellow who, under the pretense of recording some particular stage in the development of a language, does what he can to arrest its growth, stiffen its flexibility and mechanize its methods. The natural servility of the human understanding having invested him with judicial power, surrenders its right of reason and submits itself to a chronicle as if it were a statue.
In the golden prime and high noon of English speech; when from the lips of the great Elizabethans fell words that made their own meaning and carried it in their very sound; when a Shakespeare and a Bacon were possible, and the language now rapidly perishing at one end and slowly renewed at the other was in vigorous growth and hardy preservation — sweeter than honey and stronger than a lion — the lexicographer was a person unknown, the dictionary a creation which his Creator had not created him to create.
A useful functionary, not infrequently found editing a newspaper. In his character of editor he is closely allied to the blackmailer by the tie of occasional identity; for in truth the lickspittle is only the blackmailer under another aspect, although the latter is frequently found as an independent species. Lickspittling is more detestable than blackmailing, precisely as the business of a confidence man is more detestable than that of a highway robber; and the parallel maintains itself throughout, for whereas few robbers will cheat, every sneak will plunder if he dare.
A spiritual pickle preserving the body from decay. We live in daily apprehension of its loss; yet when lost it is not missed. A tall building on the seashore in which the government maintains a lamp and the friend of a politician. A large red organ thoughtfully provided by nature to be bilious with. Letters indicating the degree Legumptionorum Doctor , one learned in laws, gifted with legal gumption. Some suspicion is cast upon this derivation by the fact that the title was formerly LL. At the date of this writing Columbia University is considering the expediency of making another degree for clergymen, in place of the old D.
The name of the Rev. John Satan has been suggested as a suitable recipient by a lover of consistency, who points out that Professor Harry Thurston Peck has long enjoyed the advantage of a degree. A less popular name for the Second Person of that delectable newspaper Trinity, the Roomer, the Bedder, and the Mealer.
The art of thinking and reasoning in strict accordance with the limitations and incapacities of the human misunderstanding. The basic of logic is the syllogism, consisting of a major and a minor premise and a conclusion — thus:. This may be called the syllogism arithmetical, in which, by combining logic and mathematics, we obtain a double certainty and are twice blessed. A war in which the weapons are words and the wounds punctures in the swim-bladder of self-esteem — a kind of contest in which, the vanquished being unconscious of defeat, the victor is denied the reward of success.
The disposition to endure injury with meek forbearance while maturing a plan of revenge. The King of Manchuria had a magic looking-glass, whereon whoso looked saw, not his own image, but only that of the king. And the mirror was dimmed with dust and overlaced with cobwebs. This so angered him that he fisted it hard, shattering the glass, and was sorely hurt. Enraged all the more by this mischance, he commanded that the ungrateful courtier be thrown into prison, and that the glass be repaired and taken back to his own palace; and this was done.
But when the king looked again on the mirror he saw not his image as before, but only the figure of a crowned ass, having a bloody bandage on one of its hinder hooves — as the artificers and all who had looked upon it had before discerned but feared to report. Taught wisdom and charity, the king restored his courtier to liberty, had the mirror set into the back of the throne and reigned many years with justice and humility; and one day when he fell asleep in death while on the throne, the whole court saw in the mirror the luminous figure of an angel, which remains to this day.
A disorder which renders the sufferer unable to curb his tongue when you wish to talk. Learning — particularly that sort which is not derived from a regular course of instruction but comes of the reading of occult books, or by nature. This latter is commonly designated as folk-lore and embraces popularly myths and superstitions. Privation of that which we had, or had not. A temporary insanity curable by marriage or by removal of the patient from the influences under which he incurred the disorder. This disease, like caries and many other ailments, is prevalent only among civilized races living under artificial conditions; barbarous nations breathing pure air and eating simple food enjoy immunity from its ravages.
It is sometimes fatal, but more frequently to the physician than to the patient. An inhabitant of the moon, as distinguished from Lunatic, one whom the moon inhabits. The Lunarians have been described by Lucian, Locke and other observers, but without much agreement. For example, Bragellos avers their anatomical identity with Man, but Professor Newcomb says they are more like the hill tribes of Vermont.
An ancient instrument of torture. The word is now used in a figurative sense to denote the poetic faculty, as in the following fiery lines of our great poet, Ella Wheeler Wilcox:. A staff of office signifying authority. Its form, that of a heavy club, indicates its original purpose and use in dissuading from dissent. One forgotten of the gods and living to a great age. History is abundantly supplied with examples, from Methuselah to Old Parr, but some notable instances of longevity are less well known.
A Calabrian peasant named Coloni, born in , lived so long that he had what he considered a glimpse of the dawn of universal peace. Scanavius relates that he knew an archbishop who was so old that he could remember a time when he did not deserve hanging. In a linen draper of Bristol, England, declared that he had lived five hundred years, and that in all that time he had never told a lie.
There are instances of longevity macrobiosis in our own country. Senator Chauncey Depew is old enough to know better. The editor of The American , a newspaper in New York City, has a memory that goes back to the time when he was a rascal, but not to the fact. The President of the United States was born so long ago that many of the friends of his youth have risen to high political and military preferment without the assistance of personal merit.
The verses following were written by a macrobian:. Affected with a high degree of intellectual independence; not conforming to standards of thought, speech and action derived by the conformants from study of themselves; at odds with the majority; in short, unusual. It is noteworthy that persons are pronounced mad by officials destitute of evidence that themselves are sane. For illustration, this present and illustrious lexicographer is no firmer in the faith of his own sanity than is any inmate of any madhouse in the land; yet for aught he knows to the contrary, instead of the lofty occupation that seems to him to be engaging his powers he may really be beating his hands against the window bars of an asylum and declaring himself Noah Webster, to the innocent delight of many thoughtless spectators.
An inhabitant of Magdala. Popularly, a woman found out. This definition of the word has the authority of ignorance, Mary of Magdala being another person than the penitent woman mentioned by St. It has also the official sanction of the governments of Great Britain and the United States. In England the word is pronounced Maudlin, whence maudlin, adjective, unpleasantly sentimental. With their Maudlin for Magdalene, and their Bedlam for Bethlehem, the English may justly boast themselves the greatest of revisers. An art of converting superstition into coin. There are other arts serving the same high purpose, but the discreet lexicographer does not name them.
The two definitions immediately foregoing are condensed from the works of one thousand eminent scientists, who have illuminated the subject with a great white light, to the inexpressible advancement of human knowledge. Having a grandeur or splendor superior to that to which the spectator is accustomed, as the ears of an ass, to a rabbit, or the glory of a glowworm, to a maggot.
Magnitude being purely relative, nothing is large and nothing small. If everything in the universe were increased in bulk one thousand diameters nothing would be any larger than it was before, but if one thing remain unchanged all the others would be larger than they had been. To an understanding familiar with the relativity of magnitude and distance the spaces and masses of the astronomer would be no more impressive than those of the microscopist.
For anything we know to the contrary, the visible universe may be a small part of an atom, with its component ions, floating in the life-fluid luminiferous ether of some animal. Possibly the wee creatures peopling the corpuscles of our own blood are overcome with the proper emotion when contemplating the unthinkable distance from one of these to another.
A bird whose thievish disposition suggested to someone that it might be taught to talk. A young person of the unfair sex addicted to clewless conduct and views that madden to crime. The genus has a wide geographical distribution, being found wherever sought and deplored wherever found. The maiden is not altogether unpleasing to the eye, nor without her piano and her views insupportable to the ear, though in respect to comeliness distinctly inferior to the rainbow, and, with regard to the part of her that is audible, bleating out of the field by the canary — which, also, is more portable.
The state and title of a king. A member of the unconsidered, or negligible sex. The male of the human race is commonly known to the female as Mere Man. The genus has two varieties: Pertaining to Malthus and his doctrines. Malthus believed in artificially limiting population, but found that it could not be done by talking.
One of the most practical exponents of the Malthusian idea was Herod of Judea, though all the famous soldiers have been of the same way of thinking. A family of vertebrate animals whose females in a state of nature suckle their young, but when civilized and enlightened put them out to nurse, or use the bottle. The chief temple is in the holy city of New York. An animal so lost in rapturous contemplation of what he thinks he is as to overlook what he indubitably ought to be. His chief occupation is extermination of other animals and his own species, which, however, multiplies with such insistent rapidity as to infest the whole habitable earth and Canada.
The immortal parts of dead Greeks and Romans. They were in a state of dull discomfort until the bodies from which they had exhaled were buried and burned; and they seem not to have been particularly happy afterward. The ancient Persian doctrine of an incessant warfare between Good and Evil. When Good gave up the fight the Persians joined the victorious Opposition.
A food miraculously given to the Israelites in the wilderness. When it was no longer supplied to them they settled down and tilled the soil, fertilizing it, as a rule, with the bodies of the original occupants. The state or condition of a community consisting of a master, a mistress and two slaves, making in all, two. The objectionable case of I.
The personal pronoun in English has three cases, the dominative, the objectionable and the oppressive. Each is all three. To proceed sinuously and aimlessly. The word is the ancient name of a river about one hundred and fifty miles south of Troy, which turned and twisted in the effort to get out of hearing when the Greeks and Trojans boasted of their prowess.
A small metal disk given as a reward for virtues, attainments or services more or less authentic. It is related of Bismark, who had been awarded a medal for gallantly rescuing a drowning person, that, being asked the meaning of the medal, he replied: Literally, seafoam, and by many erroneously supposed to be made of it. A fine white clay, which for convenience in coloring it brown is made into tobacco pipes and smoked by the workmen engaged in that industry. The purpose of coloring it has not been disclosed by the manufacturers.
One engaged in a commercial pursuit. A commercial pursuit is one in which the thing pursued is a dollar. Hypnotism before it wore good clothes, kept a carriage and asked Incredulity to dinner. The period of a thousand years when the lid is to be screwed down, with all reformers on the under side.
A mysterious form of matter secreted by the brain. Its chief activity consists in the endeavor to ascertain its own nature, the futility of the attempt being due to the fact that it has nothing but itself to know itself with. An agent of a higher power with a lower responsibility.
The Devil's Dictionary by Ambrose Bierce
His principal qualification is a degree of plausible inveracity next below that of an ambassador. Formerly a poet, singer or musician; now a nigger with a color less than skin deep and a humor more than flesh and blood can bear. An act or event out of the order of nature and unaccountable, as beating a normal hand of four kings and an ace with four aces and a king. A person of the highest degree of unworth. An infraction of the law having less dignity than a felony and constituting no claim to admittance into the best criminal society.
A dagger which in mediaeval warfare was used by the foot soldier to remind an unhorsed knight that he was mortal. The title with which we brand unmarried women to indicate that they are in the market. Two are corruptions of Mistress, the other of Master. In the general abolition of social titles in this our country they miraculously escaped to plague us. If we must have them let us be consistent and give one to the unmarried man. I venture to suggest Mush, abbreviated to Mh. The ultimate, indivisible unit of matter. It is distinguished from the corpuscle, also the ultimate, indivisible unit of matter, by a closer resemblance to the atom, also the ultimate, indivisible unit of matter.
Three great scientific theories of the structure of the universe are the molecular, the corpuscular and the atomic. A fourth affirms, with Haeckel, the condensation of precipitation of matter from ether — whose existence is proved by the condensation of precipitation. The present trend of scientific thought is toward the theory of ions. The ion differs from the molecule, the corpuscle and the atom in that it is an ion. A fifth theory is held by idiots, but it is doubtful if they know any more about the matter than the others. According to Leibnitz, as nearly as he seems willing to be understood, the monad has body without bulk, and mind without manifestation — Leibnitz knows him by the innate power of considering.
He has founded upon him a theory of the universe, which the creature bears without resentment, for the monad is a gentleman. Small as he is, the monad contains all the powers and possibilities needful to his evolution into a German philosopher of the first class — altogether a very capable little fellow. He is not to be confounded with the microbe, or bacillus; by its inability to discern him, a good microscope shows him to be of an entirely distinct species. A person engaged in reigning.
Formerly the monarch ruled, as the derivation of the word attests, and as many subjects have had occasion to learn. In Russia and the Orient the monarch has still a considerable influence in public affairs and in the disposition of the human head, but in western Europe political administration is mostly entrusted to his ministers, he being somewhat preoccupied with reflections relating to the status of his own head.
A blessing that is of no advantage to us excepting when we part with it. An evidence of culture and a passport to polite society. Composed of words of one syllable, for literary babes who never tire of testifying their delight in the vapid compound by appropriate googoogling.
The words are commonly Saxon — that is to say, words of a barbarous people destitute of ideas and incapable of any but the most elementary sentiments and emotions.
The Revolt of the Angels by Anatole France
A high ecclesiastical title, of which the Founder of our religion overlooked the advantages. A structure intended to commemorate something which either needs no commemoration or cannot be commemorated. Conforming to a local and mutable standard of right. Having the quality of general expediency. It is sayd there be a raunge of mountaynes in the Easte, on one syde of the which certayn conducts are immorall, yet on the other syde they are holden in good esteeme; wherebye the mountayneer is much conveenyenced, for it is given to him to goe downe eyther way and act as it shall suite his moode, withouten offence.
An animal which strews its path with fainting women. As in Rome Christians were thrown to the lions, so centuries earlier in Otumwee, the most ancient and famous city of the world, female heretics were thrown to the mice. Jakak—Zotp, the historian, the only Otumwump whose writings have descended to us, says that these martyrs met their death with little dignity and much exertion. He even attempts to exculpate the mice such is the malice of bigotry by declaring that the unfortunate women perished, some from exhaustion, some of broken necks from falling over their own feet, and some from lack of restoratives.
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Sun 12—6 Mon-Tue Wed—Sat 11—8. Emerald City Comics updated their cover photo. Emerald City Comics added 6 new photos. With new art, a special box, and quality components, this special anniversary edition is a must-have for fans of Pandemic. Comes with Special pre-painted promo figures! Two to five players face off in a classic battle of good versus evil.
Everyone gets a character with a HeroClix combat dial to track their level and build points. One player is the villainous mastermind and is able to guide the direction of each encounter; the rest are the heroes who each control a single hero for the mission and must work together by combining their vast array of powers and abilities to complete various objectives, such as infiltrating an enemy warehouse or saving hostages. Each hero is unique with individual play styles, giving players multiple options to play the way that best suits them.
The environment also lends to the game play, putting obstacles in the way of players and granting them objects they can use as weapons. A wooden crate may block Captain America's path, but he can pick it up and hurl it at enemy Hydra soldiers. Players will quickly pick the role that best suits their team and lead the heroes to victory — or at least they hope so!
Aside from standalone missions, Marvel Strike Teams includes a campaign-based game in which the players can improve their heroes over the course of several missions. With randomly generated scenarios, multiple map tiles, and thousands of possible encounters, each mission will feel like a fresh experience! Each card in the game serves three potential purposes. They contain the DNA sequences for dinosaurs you could create, the blueprints for attractions you can build, and certain actions that you can take by discarding them.
Do you create the dinosaur on the top of the card to attract guests to your park? Or do you build the attraction on the bottom of the card, which can add to a player's hand-limit, income, and end-game victory points? Or do you discard the card to combine DNA towards creating another dinosaur? Duelosaur Island comes with five new full-color "DNA dice".
You can mix and match dice between Dinosaur Island and Duelosaur Island for even more variability in both games, such as the new security symbol that can appear on dice to upgrade your security level instantly! GEN7 An international colony ship has left an exhausted Earth, headed for a distant planet in the Epsilon Eridani system. Thirteen generations will be born on this vessel before it reaches its destination, each generation a steward of the hopes and ideals of the human species.
For six generations, everything has gone as planned Now, just as a new command team takes control of the ship, a terrible mystery emerges that will threaten the entire mission. The commanders of Gen7 are about to discover that everything is not as it seems, and the fate of the human species will hang on the choices they make. In the tradition of the award-winning Dead of Winter, Gen7: A Crossroads Game is a grand narrative game with multiple possibilities.
The choices players make as they play will alter the direction of the story. Gen7 will constantly challenge its players with a variety of unique situations that force them to make difficult moral decisions. Will you compromise your integrity to ensure the safety of your crew? Will you value their lives over the safety of the mission? An amphitheatre so large that it dwarfs all the others—the Colosseum!
As a prominent architect, you have been tasked with the planning and building of the Colosseum according to the specifications set forth by the Consul. Manage your resources well, and you may be named the Master Architect! This new game from famed designer Klaus-Jurgen Wrede includes a special insert that has the walls of the Colosseum erected as the game is played. Over , players select an iconic hero or villain from Dragon Ball Z and compete against their friends to be the first to get their power level over In Dragon Ball Super: Heroic Battle, players flick Goku, Vegeta, Goku Black, or Zamasu tokens into their opponents to deal damage and gain power.
See More See Less. To celebrate, we invited T'Challa himself to come out and test some new warriors through his Beach Ball Challenge!!!
We had a lot of fun, and you can check out the pics here!!! Be sure to go to the back to see Black Panther's poses for his autograph pics!!! Thanks to everyone who stopped by to see us!!! Pictures and Legendary Films have released a new trailer for its upcoming Godzilla: King of the Monsters, and it gives us the best look yet at the small army well, maybe "small" isn't the right word of monsters If you're in the mood for monsters, big and small, stop by to see your friends at EC!!!
We have lots of books, comics, games, toys, collectibles and tchotchkes to keep you entertained!!! Emerald City Comics added 7 new photos. So why are Granny Goodness' girls left behind every time the men go to war? With the might of New Genesis hanging over the planet, and the Forever People making mincemeat out of Darkseid's army, Granny thinks it's about time that changed. Little do they know the game is rigged-and one accidental murder could spell disaster for them all!
Death surely awaits him. When Conan finds himself captured, he unleashes his might on an unsuspecting pirate crew Welcome to the deadly Hyborian Age-hope you survive the experience! Aided and abetted by his ten-year-old partner, he's out for the biggest bounty of his career. You've got to bellllch! Two pop culture juggernauts are teaming up and neither multiverse is prepared for what comes next!
And as it turns out, Rick isn't the only one who knows his way around a d This is going to hurt! In a world where costumed heroes soar through the sky and masked vigilantes prowl the night, someone's got to make sure the "supes" don't get out of line. A CIA-backed team of very dangerous people, each one dedicated to the struggle against the most dangerous force on Earth - superpower! Some superheroes have to be watched. Some have to be controlled. And some of them - sometimes - need to be taken out of the picture. That's when you call in The Boys!
After the opening story arc introducing Hughie to the team issues , Dark avenger Tek-Knight and his ex-partner Swingwing are in trouble issues One has lost control of his terrifyingly overactive sex-drive, and the other might just be a murderer. It's up to Hughie and Butcher to work out which is which, in Get Some. Then, in Glorious Five-Year Plan, The Boys travel to Russia - where their corporate opponents are working with the mob, in a super-conspiracy that threatens to spiral lethally out of control. Good thing our heroes have Love Sausage on their side. Featuring some ever-so-slight tweaks the creators have meticulously restored, The Boys Omniobus Volume 1 also features bonus art materials, the script to issue 1 by Garth Ennis, a complete cover gallery, and more!
Craig Russell The Giver is a modern classic and one of the most influential books of our time. Now in graphic novel format, Lois Lowry's Newbery Medal-winning classic story of a young boy discovering the dark secrets behind his seemingly ideal world is accompanied by renowned artist P. Craig Russell's beautifully haunting illustrations. In this new graphic novel edition, readers experience the haunting story of twelve-year-old Jonas and his seemingly ideal, if colorless, world of conformity and contentment.
Witness Jonas' assignment as the Receiver of Memory, watch as he begins to understand the dark secrets behind his fragile community, and follow the explosion of color into his world like never before. According to The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch the world's only completely accurate book of prophecies, written in , before she exploded , the world will end on a Saturday.
Next Saturday, in fact. So the armies of Good and Evil are amassing, Everything appears to be going according to Divine Plan. Except a somewhat fussy angel and a fast-living demon, both of whom have lived amongst Earth's mortals since The Beginning and have grown rather fond of the lifestyle, are not actually looking forward to the coming Rapture. And someone seems to have misplaced the Antichrist We know you're super-focused on multiple viewings of today's Avengers trailer, but there's some other big news from Marvel Studios today, too!!!
Check out the details below!!! Endgame, and we're still shaking!!! If you haven;t seen it, check this out, and then stop by to see your friends at EC for all kinds of Avengers goodness!!! Emerald City Comics added 24 new photos. Everyone loves a good mystery, and comic packs are always a great surprise!!! EC is now offering mystery, or "MysterEC! Remember when you used to get those 3-packs of comics when you were a kid? To help set the mood, we've added some old pics we found of some of the comic packs that used to be sold in stores!!!
Then come see us for mystery comic fun!!! Give the gifts of Stories, Art and Limitless Imagination! Available daily at Your Local Comic Shop! Plus, play games with our Black Panther cosplayer for extra prizes!!! Marvel Studios has released a new trailer for their upcoming Captain Marvel movie