The Devil’s Dictionary Ambrose Bierce (best ereader for pdf and epub .txt) 📖

temples of Karnak and Palmyra and in the Egyptian Pyramids⁠—always by a Freemason. Friendless

Having no favors to bestow. Destitute of fortune. Addicted to utterance of truth and common sense.

Friendship

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

The sea was calm and the sky was blue;
Merrily, merrily sailed we two.
(High barometer maketh glad.)
On the tipsy ship, with a dreadful shout,
The tempest descended and we fell out.
(O the walking is nasty bad!)

—⁠Armit Huff Bettle Frog

A reptile with edible legs. The first mention of frogs in profane literature is in Homer’s narrative of the war between them and the mice. Skeptical persons have doubted Homer’s authorship of the work, but the learned, ingenious and industrious Dr. 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 fricassées, 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. The libretto of his favorite opera, as written by Aristophanes, is brief, simple and effective⁠—“brekekex-koäx”; the music is apparently by that eminent composer, Richard Wagner. Horses have a frog in each hoof⁠—a thoughtful provision of nature, enabling them to shine in a hurdle race.

Frying-Pan

One part of the penal apparatus employed in that punitive institution, a woman’s kitchen. 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:

Old Nick was summoned to the skies.
Said Peter: “Your intentions
Are good, but you lack enterprise
Concerning new inventions.

“Now, broiling is an ancient plan
Of torment, but I hear it
Reported that the frying-pan
Sears best the wicked spirit.

“Go get one⁠—fill it up with fat⁠—
Fry sinners brown and good in’t.”
“I know a trick worth two o’ that,”
Said Nick⁠—“I’ll cook their food in’t.”

Funeral

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.

The savage dies⁠—they sacrifice a horse
To bear to happy hunting-grounds the corse.
Our friends expire⁠—we make the money fly
In hope their souls will chase it to the sky.

—⁠Jex Wopley Future

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

G Gallows

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.

Whether on the gallows high
Or where blood flows the reddest,
The noblest place for man to die⁠—
Is where he died the deadest.

—⁠Old play Gargoyle

A rain-spout projecting from the eaves of medieval buildings, commonly fashioned into a grotesque caricature of some personal enemy of the architect or owner of the building. This was especially the case in churches and ecclesiastical structures generally, in which the gargoyles presented a perfect rogues’ gallery of local heretics and controversialists. 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.

Garter

An elastic band intended to keep a woman from coming out of her stockings and desolating the country.

Genealogy

An account of one’s descent from an ancestor who did not particularly care to trace his own.

Generous

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.

Genteel

Refined, after the fashion of a gent.

Observe with care, my son, the distinction I reveal:
A gentleman is gentle and a gent genteel.
Heed not the definitions your “Unabridged” presents,
For dictionary makers are generally gents.

—⁠G. J. Geographer

A chap who can tell you offhand the difference between the outside of the world and the inside.

Habeam, geographer of wide renown,
Native of Abu-Keber’s ancient town,
In passing thence along the river Zam
To the adjacent village of Xelam,
Bewildered by the multitude of roads,
Got lost, lived long on migratory toads,
Then from exposure miserably died,
And grateful travelers bewailed their guide.

—⁠Henry Haukhorn Geology

The science of the earth’s crust⁠—to which, doubtless, will be added that of its interior whenever a man shall come up garrulous out of a well. The geological formations of the globe already noted are catalogued thus: The Primary, or lower one, consists of rocks, bones or mired mules, gas-pipes, miners’ tools, antique statues minus the nose, Spanish doubloons and ancestors. 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.

Ghost

The outward and visible sign of an inward fear.

He saw a ghost.
It occupied⁠—that dismal thing!⁠—
The path that he was following.
Before he’d time to stop and fly,
An earthquake trifled with the eye
That saw a ghost.
He fell as fall the early good;
Unmoved that awful vision stood.
The stars that danced before his ken
He wildly brushed away, and then