The Devil’s Dictionary by Ambrose Bierce (children's ebooks free online txt) 📕
Description
“Dictionary, n: A malevolent literary device for cramping the growth of a language and making it hard and inelastic. This dictionary, however, is a most useful work.”
Bierce’s groundbreaking Devil’s Dictionary had a complex publication history. Started in the mid-1800s as an irregular column in Californian newspapers under various titles, he gradually refined the new-at-the-time idea of an irreverent set of glossary-like definitions. The final name, as we see it titled in this work, did not appear until an 1881 column published in the periodical The San Francisco Illustrated Wasp.
There were no publications of the complete glossary in the 1800s. Not until 1906 did a portion of Bierce’s collection get published by Doubleday, under the name The Cynic’s Word Book—the publisher not wanting to use the word “Devil” in the title, to the great disappointment of the author. The 1906 word book only went from A to L, however, and the remainder was never released under the compromised title.
In 1911 the Devil’s Dictionary as we know it was published in complete form as part of Bierce’s collected works (volume 7 of 12), including the remainder of the definitions from M to Z. It has been republished a number of times, including more recent efforts where older definitions from his columns that never made it into the original book were included. Due to the complex nature of copyright, some of those found definitions have unclear public domain status and were not included. This edition of the book includes, however, a set of definitions attributed to his one-and-only “Demon’s Dictionary” column, including Bierce’s classic definition of A: “the first letter in every properly constructed alphabet.”
Bierce enjoyed “quoting” his pseudonyms in his work. Most of the poetry, dramatic scenes and stories in this book attributed to others were self-authored and do not exist outside of this work. This includes the prolific Father Gassalasca Jape, whom he thanks in the preface—“jape” of course having the definition: “a practical joke.”
This book is a product of its time and must be approached as such. Many of the definitions hold up well today, but some might be considered less palatable by modern readers. Regardless, the book’s humorous style is a valuable snapshot of American culture from past centuries.
Read free book «The Devil’s Dictionary by Ambrose Bierce (children's ebooks free online txt) 📕» - read online or download for free at americanlibrarybooks.com
- Author: Ambrose Bierce
Read book online «The Devil’s Dictionary by Ambrose Bierce (children's ebooks free online txt) 📕». Author - Ambrose Bierce
On their meddlesome souls! —Ro Amil Pedestrian
The variable (an audible) part of the roadway for an automobile.
PedigreeThe known part of the route from an arboreal ancestor with a swim bladder to an urban descendant with a cigarette.
PenitentUndergoing or awaiting punishment.
PerfectionAn imaginary state or quality distinguished from the actual by an element known as excellence; an attribute of the critic.
The editor of an English magazine having received a letter pointing out the erroneous nature of his views and style, and signed “Perfection,” promptly wrote at the foot of the letter: “I don’t agree with you,” and mailed it to Matthew Arnold.
PeripateticWalking about. Relating to the philosophy of Aristotle, who, while expounding it, moved from place to place in order to avoid his pupil’s objections. A needless precaution—they knew no more of the matter than he.
PerorationThe explosion of an oratorical rocket. It dazzles, but to an observer having the wrong kind of nose its most conspicuous peculiarity is the smell of the several kinds of powder used in preparing it.
PerseveranceA lowly virtue whereby mediocrity achieves an inglorious success.
“Persevere, persevere!” cry the homilists all,
Themselves, day and night, persevering to bawl.
“Remember the fable of tortoise and hare—
The one at the goal while the other is—where?”
Why, back there in Dreamland, renewing his lease
Of life, all his muscles preserving the peace,
The goal and the rival forgotten alike,
And the long fatigue of the needless hike.
His spirit a-squat in the grass and the dew
Of the dogless Land beyond the Stew,
He sleeps, like a saint in a holy place,
A winner of all that is good in a race.
A philosophy forced upon the convictions of the observer by the disheartening prevalence of the optimist with his scarecrow hope and his unsightly smile.
PhilanthropistA rich (and usually bald) old gentleman who has trained himself to grin while his conscience is picking his pocket.
PhilistineOne whose mind is the creature of its environment, following the fashion in thought, feeling and sentiment. He is sometimes learned, frequently prosperous, commonly clean and always solemn.
PhilosophyA route of many roads leading from nowhere to nothing.
PhoenixThe classical prototype of the modern “small hot bird.”
PhonographAn irritating toy that restores life to dead noises.
PhotographA picture painted by the sun without instruction in art. It is a little better than the work of an Apache, but not quite so good as that of a Cheyenne.
PhrenologyThe science of picking the pocket through the scalp. It consists in locating and exploiting the organ that one is a dupe with.
PhysicianOne upon whom we set our hopes when ill and our dogs when well.
PhysiognomyThe art of determining the character of another by the resemblances and differences between his face and our own, which is the standard of excellence.
“There is no art,” says Shakespeare, foolish man,
“To read the mind’s construction in the face.”
The physiognomists his portrait scan,
And say: “How little wisdom here we trace!
He knew his face disclosed his mind and heart,
So, in his own defence, denied our art.”
A parlor utensil for subduing the impenitent visitor. It is operated by depressing the keys of the machine and the spirits of the audience.
PickaninnyThe young of the Procyanthropos, or Americanus dominans. It is small, black and charged with political fatalities.
PictureA representation in two dimensions of something wearisome in three.
“Behold great Daubert’s picture here on view—
Taken from Life.” If that description’s true,
Grant, heavenly Powers, that I be taken, too.
An advance agent of the reaper whose name is Indigestion.
Cold pie was highly esteemed by the remains.
—The Rev. Dr. Mucker, in a Funeral Sermon Over a British NoblemanCold pie is a detestable
American comestible.
That’s why I’m done—or undone—
So far from that dear London.
Reverence for the Supreme Being, based upon His supposed resemblance to man.
The pig is taught by sermons and epistles
To think the God of Swine has snout and bristles.
An animal (Porcus omnivorus) closely allied to the human race by the splendor and vivacity of its appetite, which, however, is inferior in scope, for it sticks at pig.
PigmyOne of a tribe of very small men found by ancient travelers in many parts of the world, but by modern in Central Africa only. The Pigmies are so called to distinguish them from the bulkier Caucasians—who are Hogmies.
PilgrimA traveler that is taken seriously. A Pilgrim Father was one who, leaving Europe in 1620 because not permitted to sing psalms through his nose, followed it to Massachusetts, where he could personate God according to the dictates of his conscience.
PilloryA mechanical device for inflicting personal distinction—prototype of the modern newspaper conducted by persons of austere virtues and blameless lives.
PiracyCommerce without its folly-swaddles, just as God made it.
PitifulThe state of an enemy or opponent after an imaginary encounter with oneself.
PityA failing sense of exemption, inspired by contrast.
PlagiarismA literary coincidence compounded of a discreditable priority and an honorable subsequence.
PlagiarizeTo take the thought or style of another writer whom one has never, never read.
PlagueIn ancient times a general punishment of the innocent for admonition of their ruler, as in the familiar instance of Pharaoh the Immune. The plague as we of today have the happiness to know it is merely Nature’s fortuitous manifestation of her purposeless objectionableness.
PlanTo bother about the best method of accomplishing an accidental result.
PlatitudeThe fundamental element and special glory of popular literature. A thought that snores in words that smoke. The wisdom of a million fools in the diction of a dullard. A fossil sentiment in artificial rock. A moral without the fable. All that is mortal of a departed truth. A demitasse of milk-and-mortality. The Pope’s-nose of a featherless peacock. A jellyfish withering on the shore of the sea of thought. The cackle surviving the egg. A desiccated epigram.
PlatonicPertaining to the philosophy of Socrates. Platonic Love is a fool’s name for the affection between a disability and a frost.
PlauditsCoins with which
Comments (0)