50 or so from 'The Devil's Dictionary'

Ambrose Bierce's famous Devil's Dictionary (aka the Cynic's Dictionary) emerged out of his column for the San Francisco Examiner written from 1881 to 1888, emerging as a best-selling book sixteen years later. Usually cutting, always funny, these were some of the best entries. Few are spared...

Abdication, n. An act whereby a sovereign attests his sense of the high temperature of the throne.

Absent, adj. Peculiarly exposed to the tooth of detraction; vilified; hopelessly in the wrong; superseded in the consideration and affection of another.

Admiration, n. Our polite recognition of another’s resemblance to ourselves.

Advice, n. The smallest current coin.

Air, n. A nutritious substance supplied by a bountiful Providence for the fattening of the poor.

Alliance, n. In international politics, the union of two thieves who have their hands so deeply inserted in each other’s pocket that they cannot separately plunder a third.

Applause, n. The echo of a platitude.

Archbishop, n. An ecclesiastical dignitary one point holier than a bishop.

Armor, n. The kind of clothing worn by a man whose tailor is a blacksmith.

Babe or Baby, n. A misshapen creature of no particular age, sex, or condition, chiefly remarkable for the violence of the sympathies and antipathies it excites in others, itself without sentiment or emotion.

Back, n. That part of your friend which it is your privilege to contemplate in your adversity.

Boundary, n. In political geography, an imaginary line between two nations, separating the imaginary rights of one from the imaginary rights of the other. 

Brandy, n. A cordial composed of one part thunder-and-lightning, one part remorse, two parts bloody murder, one part death-hell-and-the-grave and four parts clarified Satan. Dose, a headful all the time. 

Brute, n. See Husband.

Cabbage, n. A familiar kitchen-garden vegetable about as large and wise as a man’s head.

Cabinet, n. The principal persons charged with the mismanagement of a government, the charge being commonly well founded.

Calamity, n. A more than commonly plain and unmistakable reminder that the affairs of this life are not of our own ordering. Calamities are of two kinds: misfortune to ourselves, and good fortune to others.

Cannon, n. An instrument employed in the rectification of national boundaries.

Capital, n. The seat of misgovernment.

Cat, n. A soft, indestructible automaton provided by nature to be kicked when things go wrong in the domestic circle.

Cemetery, n. An isolated suburban spot where mourners match lies, poets write at a target, and stone-cutters spell for a wager.

Cerberus, n. The watch-dog of Hades, whose duty it was to guard the entrance—against whom or what does not clearly appear; everybody, sooner or later, had to go there, and nobody wanted to carry off the entrance.

Childhood, n. The period of human life intermediate between the idiocy of infancy and the folly of youth—two removes from the sin of manhood and three from the remorse of age. 

Christian, n. One who believes that the New Testament is a divinely inspired book admirably suited to the spiritual needs of his neighbour. One who follows the teachings of Christ in so far as they are not inconsistent with a life of sin. 

Clergyman, n. A man who undertakes the management of our spiritual affairs as a method of bettering his temporal ones. 

Club, n. An association of men for purposes of drunkenness, gluttony, unholy hilarity, murder, sacrilege and the slandering of mothers, wives and sisters.

Conversation, n. A fair for the display of minor mental commodities, each exhibitor being too intent upon the arrangement of his own wares to observe those of this neighbour.

Conservative, n. A statesman who is enamoured of existing evils, as distinguished from the Liberal, who wishes to replace them with others. 

Consul, n. In American politics, a person who having failed to secure an office from the people is given one by the Administration on condition that he leave the country. 

Curse, v.t. Energetically to belabour with a verbal slap-stick. This is an operation which in literature, particularly in the drama, is commonly fatal to the victim.

Cynic, n. A blackguard whose faulty vision sees things as they are, not as they ought to be. Hence the custom among the Scythians of plucking out a cynic’s eyes to improve his vision.

Deputy, n. A male relative of an office-holder, or of his bondsman. The deputy is commonly a beautiful young man, with a red necktie and an intricate system of cobwebs extending from his nose to his desk. When accidentally struck by the janitor’s broom, he gives off a cloud of dust.

Diagnosis, n. A physician's forecast of disease by the patient's pulse and purse.

Diary, n. A daily record of that part of one's life, which he can relate to himself without blushing.

Die, n. The singular of “dice.” We seldom hear the word, because there is a prohibitory proverb, “Never say die.”  

Divorce, n. A bugle blast that separates the combatants and makes them fight at long range.

Dog, n. A kind of additional or subsidiary Deity designed to catch the overflow and surplus of the world’s worship. This Divine Being in some of his smaller and silkier incarnations, takes, in the affection of Woman, the place to which there is no human male aspirant. The Dog is a survival—an anachronism. He toils not, neither does he spin, yet Solomon in all his glory never lay upon a door-mat all day long, sun-soaked and fly-fed and fat, while his master worked for the means wherewith to purchase an idle wag of the Solomonic tail, seasoned with a look of tolerant recognition.

Education, n. That which discloses to the wise and disguises from the foolish their lack of understanding.

Egotist, n. A person of low taste, more interested in himself than in me.

Elegy, n. A composition in verse, in which without employing any of the methods of humour, the writer aims to produce in the reader’s mind the dampest kind of dejection.

Envelope, n. The coffin of a document; the scabbard of a bill; the husk of a remittance; the bed-gown of a love-letter.

Exhort, v.t. In religious affairs, to put the conscience of another upon the spit and roast it to a nut-brown discomfort.

Exile, n. One who serves his country by residing abroad, yet is not an ambassador.

Fork, n. An instrument used chiefly for the purpose of putting dead animals into the mouth. Formerly the knife was used for this purpose, and by many worthy persons is still thought to have many advantages.

Frog, n. A reptile with edible legs. 

Gallows, n. 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. 

Government, n. A modern Chronos who devours his own children. The priesthood are charged with the duty of preparing them for his tooth. 

Handkerchief, n. A small square of silk or linen, used in various ignoble offices about the face and especially serviceable at funerals to conceal the lack of tears.

Harangue, n. A speech by an opponent, who is known as an harangue-outang.

Hearse, n. Death’s baby-carriage.

Historian, n. A broad-gauge gossip.

History, n. An account mostly false, of events mostly unimportant, which are brought about by rulers mostly knaves, and soldiers mostly fools.

Homicide, n. The slaying of one human being by another. There are four kinds of homicide: felonious, excusable, justifiable and praiseworthy.

Hostility, n. A peculiarly sharp and specially applied sense of the earth’s overpopulation.

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

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

Incompossible, adj. Unable to exist if something else exists. Two things are incompossible when the world of being has scope enough for one of them, but not enough for both—as Walt Whitman's poetry and God's mercy to man. 

Interpreter, n. One who enables two persons of different languages to understand each other by repeating to each what it would have been to the interpreter’s advantage for the other to have said. 

Intoxication, n. A spiritual condition that goeth before the next morning. 

Introduction, n. A social ceremony invented by the devil for the gratification of his servants and the plaguing of his enemies. 

Irreligion, n. The principal one of the great faiths of the world. 

Judge, n. A person who is always interfering in disputes in which he has no personal interest.

Jurisprudence, n. The kind of prudence that keeps one inside the law.

Jury, n. A number of persons appointed by a court to assist the attorneys in preventing law from degenerating into justice.

Justice, n. A commodity which in a more or less adulterated condition the State sells to the citizen as a reward for his allegiance, taxes and personal service.

Kilt, n. A costume sometimes worn by Scotsmen in America and Americans in Scotland.

Lawful, adj. Compatible with the will of a judge having jurisdiction.

Lawyer, n. One skilled in circumvention of the law.

Liar, n. A lawyer with a roving commission.

Libertarian, n. One who is compelled by the evidence to believe in free-will, and whose will is therefore free to reject that doctrine.

Libertine, n. Literally a freedman; hence, one who is in bondage to his passions.

Logic, n. The art of thinking and reasoning in strict accordance with the limitations and incapacities of the human misunderstanding. The basis of logic is the syllogism, consisting of a major and a minor premise and a conclusion—thus:

Major Premise: Sixty men can do a piece of work sixty times as quickly as one man.
Minor Premise: One man can dig a post-hole in sixty seconds; therefore—
Conclusion: Sixty men can dig a post-hole in one second.

This may be called the syllogism arithmetical, in which, by combining logic and mathematics, we obtain a double certainty and are twice blessed.

Man, n. An animal so lost in rapturous contemplation of what he thinks he is as to overlook what he indubitably ought to be.

Legislator, n. A person who goes to the capital of his country to increase his own; one who makes laws and money.

Litigation, n. A machine which you go into as a pig and come out of as a sausage.

Love, n., A temporary insanity curable by marriage.

Male, n. A member of the unconsidered, or negligible sex. The male of the human race is commonly known (to the female) as Mere Man. The genus has two varieties: good providers and bad providers.

Medicine, n. A stone flung down the Bowery to kill a dog in Broadway.

Misdemeanour, n. An infraction of the law having less dignity than a felony and constituting no claim to admittance into the best criminal society.

Miss, n. A title with which we brand unmarried women to indicate that they are in the market. Miss, Missis (Mrs.) and Mister (Mr.) are the three most distinctly disagreeable words in the language, in sound and sense. Two are corruptions of Mistress, the other of Master. In the general abolition of social titles in this our country they miraculously escaped to plague us.

Mythology, n. The body of a primitive people's beliefs concerning its origin, early history, heroes, deities and so forth, as distinguished from the true accounts which it invents later. 

Nose, n. The extreme outpost of the face. From the circumstance that great conquerors have great noses, Getius, whose writings antedate the age of humour, calls the nose the organ of quell. It has been observed that one’s nose is never so happy as when thrust into the affairs of another, from which some physiologists have drawn the inference that the nose is devoid of the sense of smell. 

Notoriety, n. The fame of one’s competitor for public honours. The kind of renown most accessible and acceptable to mediocrity. A Jacob’s-ladder leading to the vaudeville stage, with angels ascending and descending.

Novel, n. A short story padded.

Piano, n. A parlour utensil for subduing the impenitent visitor. It is operated by depressing the keys of the machine and the spirits of the audience.

Piracy, n. Commerce without its folly-swaddles, just as God made it.

Polite, adj. Skilled in the art and practice of dissimulation.

Politician, n. An eel in the fundamental mud upon which the superstructure of organized society is reared. When he wriggles he mistakes the agitation of his tail for the trembling of the edifice. As compared with the statesman, he suffers the disadvantage of being alive.

Politics, n. A strife of interests masquerading as a contest of principles. The conduct of public affairs for private advantage.

Prejudice, n. A vagrant opinion without visible means of support.

Presidency, n. The greased pig in the field game of American politics.

President, n. The leading figure in a small group of men of whom—and of whom only—it is positively known that immense numbers of their countrymen did not want any of them for President.

Public, n. The negligible factor in problems of legislation.

Quiver, n. A portable sheath in which the ancient statesman and the aboriginal lawyer carried their lighter arguments.

Rear, n. In American military matters, that exposed part of the army that is nearest to Congress.

Recruit, n. A person distinguishable from a civilian by his uniform and from a soldier by his gait.

Religion, n. A daughter of Hope and Fear, explaining to Ignorance the nature of the Unknowable.

Sycophant, n. One who approaches Greatness on his belly so that he may not be commanded to turn and be kicked.

Telephone, n. An invention of the devil which abrogates some of the advantages of making a disagreeable person keep his distance.

Tenacity, n. A certain quality of the human hand in its relation to the coin of the realm.

Un-American, adj. Wicked, intolerable, heathenish.

Virtues, n.pl. Certain abstentions.

Vote, n. The instrument and symbol of a freeman's power to make a fool of himself and a wreck of his country.

Wedding, n. A ceremony at which two persons undertake to become one, one undertakes to become nothing, and nothing undertakes to become supportable. 

Wheat, n. A cereal from which a tolerably good whisky can with some difficulty be made. Also used for bread. 

Woman, n. An animal usually living in the vicinity of Man, and having a rudimentary susceptibility to domestication. It is credited by many of the elder zoölogists with a certain vestigial docility acquired in a former state of seclusion, but naturalists of the postsusananthony period, having no knowledge of the seclusion, deny the virtue and declare that such as creation's dawn beheld, it roareth now. The species is the most widely distributed of all beasts of prey.

Year, n. A period of three hundred and sixty-five disappointments.

Zeal n. A certain nervous disorder afflicting the young and inexperienced. A passion that goeth before a sprawl.

 Check out the online version (complete and said to be unabridged).