The Devil's Dictionary

Ere, losing my temper, I wickedly slew

That really meritorious gnu.”

Jarn Leffer

GOOD, adj. Sensible, madam, to the worth of this present writer. Alive, sir, to the advantages of letting him alone.

GOOSE, n. A bird that supplies quills for writing. These, by some occult process of nature, are penetrated and suffused with various degrees of the bird’s intellectual energies and emotional character, so that when inked and drawn mechanically across paper by a person called an “author,” there results a very fair and accurate transcript of the fowl’s thought and feeling. The difference in geese, as discovered by this ingenious method, is considerable: many are found to have only trivial and insignificant powers, but some are seen to be very great geese indeed.

GORGON, n.

The Gorgon was a maiden bold

Who turned to stone the Greeks of old

That looked upon her awful brow.

We dig them out of ruins now,

And swear that workmanship so bad

Proves all the ancient sculptors mad.

GOUT, n. A physician’s name for the rheumatism of a rich patient.

GRACES, n. 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.

GRAMMAR, n. A system of pitfalls thoughtfully prepared for the feet for the self-made man, along the path by which he advances to distinction.

GRAPE, n.

Hail noble fruit! — by Homer sung,

Anacreon and Khayyam;

Thy praise is ever on the tongue

Of better men than I am.

The lyre in my hand has never swept,

The song I cannot offer:

My humbler service pray accept —

I’ll help to kill the scoffer.

The water-drinkers and the cranks

Who load their skins with liquor —

I’ll gladly bear their belly-tanks

And tap them with my sticker.

Fill up, fill up, for wisdom cools

When e’er we let the wine rest.

Here’s death to Prohibition’s fools,

And every kind of vine-pest!

Jamrach Holobom

GRAPESHOT, n. An argument which the future is preparing in answer to the demands of American Socialism.

GRAVE, n. A place in which the dead are laid to await the coming of the medical student.

Beside a lonely grave I stood —

With brambles ‘twas encumbered;

The winds were moaning in the wood,

Unheard by him who slumbered,

A rustic standing near, I said:

“He cannot hear it blowing!”

“‘Course not,” said he: “the feller’s dead —

He can’t hear nowt [sic] that’s going.”

“Too true,” I said; “alas, too true —

No sound his sense can quicken!”

“Well, mister, wot is that to you? —

The deadster ain’t a-kickin’.”

I knelt and prayed: “O Father, smile

On him, and mercy show him!”

That countryman looked on the while,

And said: “Ye didn’t know him.”

Pobeter Dunko

GRAVITATION, n. 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.

GREAT, adj.

“I’m great,” the Lion said — “I reign

The monarch of the wood and plain!”

The Elephant replied: “I’m great —

No quadruped can match my weight!”

“I’m great — no animal has half

So long a neck!” said the Giraffe.

“I’m great,” the Kangaroo said — “see

My femoral muscularity!”

The ‘Possum said: “I’m great — behold,

My tail is lithe and bald and cold!”

An Oyster fried was understood

To say: “I’m great because I’m good!”

Each reckons greatness to consist

In that in which he heads the list,

And Vierick thinks he tops his class

Because he is the greatest ass.

Arion Spurl Doke

GUILLOTINE, n. A machine which makes a Frenchman shrug his shoulders with good reason.

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. II, c. XI) the shrug is a poor foundation upon which to build so important a theory, for previously to the Revolution the gesture was unknown. I have not a doubt that it is directly referable to the terror inspired by the guillotine during the period of that instrument’s activity.

GUNPOWDER, n. 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.