The Devil's Dictionary

His brains, renewed by night, consumes by day.

He thinks, admitted to an equal sty,

A graceful hog would bear his company.

Alexander Poke

HURRICANE, n. 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. It is also used in the construction of the upper decks of steamboats, but generally speaking, the hurricane’s usefulness has outlasted it.

HURRY, n. The dispatch of bunglers.

HUSBAND, n. One who, having dined, is charged with the care of the plate.

HYBRID, n. A pooled issue.

HYDRA, n. A kind of animal that the ancients catalogued under many heads.

HYENA, n. 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.

HYPOCHONDRIASIS, n. Depression of one’s own spirits.

Some heaps of trash upon a vacant lot

Where long the village rubbish had been shot

Displayed a sign among the stuff and stumps —

“Hypochondriasis.” It meant The Dumps.

Bogul S. Purvy

HYPOCRITE, n. One who, profession virtues that he does not respect secures the advantage of seeming to be what he depises.

I

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. The frank yet graceful use of “I” distinguishes a good writer from a bad; the latter carries it with the manner of a thief trying to cloak his loot.

ICHOR, n. A fluid that serves the gods and goddesses in place of blood.

Fair Venus, speared by Diomed,

Restrained the raging chief and said:

“Behold, rash mortal, whom you’ve bled —

Your soul’s stained white with ichorshed!”

Mary Doke

ICONOCLAST, n. 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: “Ye shall have none at all, for ye need them not; and if the rebuilder fooleth round hereabout, behold I will depress the head of him and sit thereon till he squawk it.”

IDIOT, n. A member of a large and powerful tribe whose influence in human affairs has always been dominant and controlling. The Idiot’s activity is not confined to any special field of thought or action, but “pervades and regulates the whole.” He has the last word in everything; his decision is unappealable. He sets the fashions and opinion of taste, dictates the limitations of speech and circumscribes conduct with a dead-line.

IDLENESS, n. A model farm where the devil experiments with seeds of new sins and promotes the growth of staple vices.

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

Dumble was an ignoramus,

Mumble was for learning famous.

Mumble said one day to Dumble:

“Ignorance should be more humble.

Not a spark have you of knowledge

That was got in any college.”

Dumble said to Mumble: “Truly

You’re self-satisfied unduly.

Of things in college I’m denied

A knowledge — you of all beside.”

Borelli

ILLUMINATI, n. A sect of Spanish heretics of the latter part of the sixteenth century; so called because they were light weights — cunctationes illuminati.

ILLUSTRIOUS, adj. Suitably placed for the shafts of malice, envy and detraction.

IMAGINATION, n. A warehouse of facts, with poet and liar in joint ownership.

IMBECILITY, n. A kind of divine inspiration, or sacred fire affecting censorious critics of this dictionary.

IMMIGRANT, n. An unenlightened person who thinks one country better than another.

IMMODEST, adj. Having a strong sense of one’s own merit, coupled with a feeble conception of worth in others.

There was once a man in Ispahan

Ever and ever so long ago,

And he had a head, the phrenologists said,

That fitted him for a show.

For his modesty’s bump was so large a lump

(Nature, they said, had taken a freak)

That its summit stood far above the wood

Of his hair, like a mountain peak.

So modest a man in all Ispahan,

Over and over again they swore —

So humble and meek, you would vainly seek;

None ever was found before.

Meantime the hump of that awful bump

Into the heavens contrived to get

To so great a height that they called the wight

The man with the minaret.

There wasn’t a man in all Ispahan

Prouder, or louder in praise of his chump:

With a tireless tongue and a brazen lung

He bragged of that beautiful bump

Till the Shah in a rage sent a trusty page

Bearing a sack and a bow-string too,

And that gentle child explained as he smiled: