The Foolish Dictionary<br />An exhausting work of reference to un-certain English words, their origi by Gideon Wurdz (chrome ebook reader txt) đź“•
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- Author: Gideon Wurdz
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MOUSE
The frequent cause of a rise in cotton.
All gone to 6's and 7's—Ladies' Footwear in Chicago.
Time and tide wait for no man—But time always stands still for a woman of thirty.
NATURE The author of "The Seasons," an interesting work over which Spring pours, Summer smiles, and Autumn turns the leaves while Winter catches the drift of it all.
NECK A close connection between chin and chest, used for the display of linen, silk, furs, jewelry and skin, fitted with gullet, windpipe, hunger and thirst, and devoted to the rubber industry.
NEGRO One who votes your way. NIGGER One who doesn't.
NEIGHBOR One who knows more about your affairs than yourself.
NERVE
Breaking the hair-brush on the disobedient scion, then making him pay for a new one. See revised version, "Spare the rod and spoil the hair-brush!"
"NEXT" The barberous password to the heaven of the shaved and the unshaved.
NIP Something bracing from without or within When felt in the air, it's a frost. When found in a glass, a life saver.
NOBILITY A gang of foreign brigands having abducent designs on the American Damsel and the American Dollar.
NON-CONDUCTOR The motorman.
NOSE A prominent member of the face family, usually a Greek or Roman, who owns the shortest bridge in the world. He is often stuck up in company, but frequently blows himself when he has his grippe. Principal occupations, sniffling, snivelling, sneezing, snorting and scenting, intruding in the neighbors' affairs, stuffing himself without permission and bleeding for others.
NOTE (PROMISSORY) "The substance of things long hoped for, the evidence of things not seen."
NOVEL A fabric that is often (k)nit in print, though the yarn be well spun.
NURSE
One who keeps setting up the drinks after you're all in.
Out of the frying-pan into the face—Mothers' doughnuts.
Many hands make light work—also a good Jackpot.
OAR
A popular device for catching crabs.
OATS England's horse-feed, America's breakfast and Scotland's table-d'hote.
OATH A form of speech that has many trials in court, but is never tried in Sunday School.
OBESITY
A surplus gone to waist.
OCEAN An old toper who is always soaked, has many a hard night along the coast, floats many a schooner, lashes himself into a fury because so frequently crossed, and has his barks in every port. At sea, the king of the elements; on shore, a mere surf.
OLEOMARGARINE The White Bread's Burden. From Eng. olio, a mixture, and Grk. margino, to be furious. A furious mixture.
OMNIBUS A test for Patience, still popular in England. From Grk. oneiros, dream, and baino, to go or move. A dream of motion.
ONION The all-round strength champion of the Vegetable Kingdom, garlic and cabbage being close rivals.
OPERA A drama that has taken on airs and refuses to speak, yet always sings its own praises. GRAND OPERA An excuse for displaying several boxes of jewelry and peaches with pedigrees.
OPINION The prodigal son of Thought. PUBLIC OPINION The world's champion pugilist, who has knocked out Law in many a hard fought bout.
OPIUM The real author of "The Dream Book."
OPTIMISM A cheerful frame of mind that enables a tea-kettle to sing though in hot water up to its nose.
ORCHARD The small boy's Eden of today, in which the apple again occasions the fall.
OSTRICH The largest and heaviest bird on earth, yet rated by his owners only as a featherweight.
OUTSKIRTS The only garments which clothe many a metropolis with decency.
OVEN The only sport who enjoys an equally hot time with or without the dough.
Handsome is what hansoms charge.
Soap, long deferred, maketh the dirt stick.
PAIN A sensation experienced on receiving a Punch, particularly the London one.
PALMISTRY A plausible excuse for holding hands.
PANTS Trousers' Country Cousins.
PARACHUTE
A successful method for getting the drop on the Earth.
PARAGON The model man a woman regrets she gave up for the one she mistakenly married.
PARENTS One of the hardships of a minor's life.
PASS A form of transportation issued free to those who are quite able to pay.
PASSENGER One who does not travel on a pass. (Antonym for Deadhead). From Eng. pass, to go, and Grk. endidomi, to give up. One who has to give up to go.
PARROT An individual who can never be held responsible for what he says.
PASTRY A deadly weapon carried by cafes, cooks and newly married housekeepers.
PATRIOT One who is willing to take all of Uncle Sam's bonds in a lump.
PAWN
v. t., To keep property in the family by leaving it all with your Uncle.
PAWNBROKER A mercenary man to whom money is the one redeeming quality.
PEACE A mythical condition of tranquillity frequently reported from the Phillipines.
PEACH A popular synonym for Fair Woman, probably because the peach is largely a skin and stony at heart.
PEARL A small round product manufactured by an oyster, bought by a lobster and worn by a butterfly.
PENITENT From pen, meaning to write, and intent, meaning determination. One who determines for the right.
PESSIMIST One who paints things blue. And sometimes red.
PHILISTINE In Bible times, one who worried the children of Israel; today, one who worries only himself. From Grk. phloios, bark, and tino, to punish. One who barks to punish.
PHILANTHROPIST One who returns to the people publicly a small percentage of the wealth he steals from them privately.
PHILOSOPHER One who instead of crying over spilt milk consoles himself with the thought that it was over four-fifths water.
PHILOSOPHY Something that enables the rich to say there is no disgrace in being poor.
PIANO A tool frequently used in building a Rough House.
PIN The best dresser in a woman's acquaintance—of remarkable penetration and true as steel, seldom loses its head, follows its own bent and carries its point in whatever it undertakes.
PING-PONG A game invented for the benefit of furniture and crockery dealers.
PITY An emotion awakened in a man's mind when he beholds the children of a woman who might have married him instead.
PLATONIC LOVE An arrangement in which a man and woman attempt a correct imitation of a pair of icicles—and never succeed.
PLENTY A desirable condition that is likely to step out whenever Extravagance steps in.
PLUM A fruit that ripens and falls from the Political Tree—but only after careful grafting.
PLUMB To ascertain the capacity of.
PLUMBER One who ascertains the capacity of your purse, soaks you with a piece of lead and gets away with the money—a process vulgarly known as "a lead-pipe cinch."
POLE-CAT A small animal to be killed with a pole, the longer the pole the better.
POLICEMAN
A never present help in time of trouble.
POLYGAMY A thoughtless way of increasing the family expenses.
POLYGLOT A parrot that can swear in several languages.
POSTSCRIPT The only thing readable in a woman's letter.
PRETZEL The bar-keeper's promoter.
PROTECTION Originally, the swaddling clothes of the infant, Industry; now, merely the shoe-lacings for the giant, Monopoly.
PRO and CON Prefixes of opposite meaning. For example, Progress and Congress.
PRUDE A native of Boston.
PRUDENCE A quality of mind that restrains the wise boarder from trying to find out how his landlady makes her hash.
PRUDERY A quality that displays a lack of modesty as a wig does a loss of hair.
PRUNE A plum that has seen better days: the boarding-house veteran and the landlady's pet; badly wrinkled, yet well preserved.
PUGILIST A close-fisted party who is often roped in but never gives up till he's out.
PULLMAN PORTER A legalized train-robber.
PUNCH A weekly obituary notice from London, chronicling the death of Humor.
Never make a mountain out of a mole-hill—Try gold,
silver, copper or radium—there's more in it.
Charity begins at home—but ends when you reach The Cook.
QUACK The Duck family's favorite physician.
QUAIL
v. t., To shrink—a characteristic of the bird when ordered in a restaurant.
QUEEN One entitled to rule a nation, make up a deck, or beat a knave.
QUESTION Is marriage a failure?
QUEUE The only Mongolian line connecting America and China.
QUORUM A clumsy individual, all Ayes and Noes, who is seldom on hand when needed.
Faint heart never won fair lady—but a full purse can always pull the trick.
Man proposes, then woman imposes.
RABBIT A small rodent, very similar to a hare, which feeds on grass and burrows in the earth. WELSH RABBIT More like a string, thrives on cheese and burrows in the stomach.
RACE-TRACK An interesting locality, where pools are bought and sold in books and the heat never interferes with the search for the Pole.
RADIUM A radiant radiator, redolent of ranging radial rays of radio-activity, raised to radical rates and regarded as a ruthless rake-off in the reign of riches within the arrayed radius of a raging, raving and raided race.
RAG-TIME Music pulled into many pieces—the invention of a flannel-mouth to which many have cottoned.
RAPID TRANSIT A municipal myth, circulated for the amusement of the long suffering—and slow moving—public.
REFORM In general, a periodic epidemic, starting with marked heat, followed by a high fever, and accompanied by a flow of ink in the newspapers, a discharge of words from the face and a rush of blood to the polls, leaving the victim a chronic invalid until the next campaign. In New York, reform has been confined to a Low attempt at government.
REFORMER One who, when he smells a rat, is eager to let the cat out of the bag.
REGISTER
The only autograph album which it costs you money to write in.
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