The Cynic's Word Book

Bierce Ambrose

The Cynic's Word Book

PREFACE

With reference to certain actual and possible questions of priority and originality, it may be explained that this Word Book was begun in the San Francisco "Wasp" in the year 1881, and has been continued, in a desultory way, in several journals and periodicals. As it was no part of the author's purpose to define all the words in the language, or even to make a complete alphabetical series, the stopping-place of the book was determined by considerations of bulk. In the event of this volume proving acceptable to that part of the reading public to which in humility it is addressed – enlightened souls who prefer dry wines to sweet, sense to sentiment, good English to slang, and wit to humor – there may possibly be another if the author be spared for the compiling.

A conspicuous, and it is hoped not unpleasing, feature of the book is its abundant illustrative quotations from eminent poets, chief of whom is that learned and ingenious cleric, Father Gassalasca Jape, S. J., whose lines bear his initials. To Father Jape's kindly encouragement and assistance the author of the prose text is greatly indebted.

A. B

Washington, D. C.,

May, 1906

A

ABASEMENT, n. A decent and customary mental attitude in the presence of wealth or power. Peculiarly appropriate in an employé when addressing an employer.

ABATIS, n. Rubbish in front of a fort, to prevent the rubbish outside from molesting the rubbish inside.

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

     Poor Isabella's dead, whose abdication     Set all tongues wagging in the Spanish nation.     For that performance 'twere unfair to scold her:     She wisely left a throne too hot to hold her.     To History she 'll be no royal riddle —     Merely a plain parched pea that jumped the griddle.

ABDOMEN, n. The temple of the god Stomach, in whose worship, with sacrificial rights, all true men engage. From women this ancient faith commands but a stammering assent. They sometimes minister at the altar in a half-hearted and inefficient way, but true reverence for the one deity that men really adore they know not. If woman had a free hand in the world's marketing the race would become graminivorous.

ABILITY, n. The natural equipment to accomplish some small part of the meaner ambitions distinguishing able men from dead ones. In the last analysis ability is commonly found to consist mainly in a high degree of solemnity. Perhaps, however, this impressive quality is rightly appraised; it is no easy task to be solemn.

ABNORMAL, adj. Not conforming to standard. In matters of thought and conduct, to be independent is to be abnormal, to be abnormal is to be detested. Wherefore the lexicographer adviseth a striving toward a straiter resemblance to the Average Man than he hath to himself. Who so attaineth thereto shall have peace, the prospect of death and the hope of Hades.

ABORIGINES, Persons of little worth found cumbering the soil of a newly discovered country. They soon cease to cumber; they fertilize.

ABRACADABRA.

     By Abracadabra we signify     An infinite number of things.     'T is the answer to What? and How? and Why?     And Whence? and Whither? – a word whereby     The Truth (with the comfort it brings)     Is open to all who grope in night,     Crying for Wisdom's holy light.     Whether the word is a verb or a noun     Is knowledge beyond my reach.     I only know that't is handed down     From sage to sage,     From age to age —     An immortal part of speech!     Of an ancient man the tale is told     That he lived to be ten centuries old,     In a cave on a mountain side.     (True, he finally died.)     The fame of his wisdom filled the land,     For his head was bald and you 'll understand     His beard was long and white     And his eyes uncommonly bright.     Philosophers gathered from far and near     To sit at his feet and hear and hear,     Though he never was heard     To utter a word     But "Abracadabra, abracadab,     Abracada, abracad.     Abraca, abrac, ahra, ab!"     'T was all he had,     'T was all they wanted to hear, for each     Made copious notes of the mystical speech     Which they published next —     A trickle of text     In a meadow of commentary.     Mighty big books were these,     In number, as leaves of trees;     In learning, remarkable – very!     He 's dead,     As I said,     And the books of the sages have perished,     But his wisdom is sacredly cherished.     In "Abracadabra" it solemnly rings,     Like an ancient bell that forever swings.     Oh, I love to hear     That word make clear     Humanity's General Sense of Things.     Jamrach Holobom.

ABRIDGE, v. t. To shorten.

"When in the course of human events it becomes necessary for a people to abridge their king, a decent respect for the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation." – Oliver Cromwell.

ABRUPT, adj. Sudden, without ceremony, like the arrival of a cannonshot and the departure of the soldier whose interests are most affected by it. Dr. Samuel Johnson beautifully said of another author's ideas that they were "concatenated without abruption."

ABSCOND, v. i. To "move" in a mysterious way, commonly with the property of another.

     Spring beckons! All things to the call respond;     The trees are leaving and cashiers abscond.     Phela Orm.

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

     To men a man is but a mind. Who cares     What face he carries or what form he wears?     But woman's body is the woman. Oh,     Stay thou, my sweetheart, and do never go.     But heed the warning words the sage hath said:     A woman absent is a woman dead.     Jogo Tyree.

ABSENTEE, n. A person with an income who has had the forethought to remove himself from the sphere of exaction.

ABSOLUTE, adj. Independent, irresponsible. An absolute monarchy is one in which the sovereign does as he pleases so long as he pleases the assassins. Not many absolute monarchies are left, most of them having been replaced by limited monarchies, where the sovereigns' power for evil (and for good) is greatly curtailed, and by republics, which are governed by chance.

ABSTAINER, n. A weak person who yields to the temptation of denying himself a pleasure. A Total Abstainer is one who abstains from everything, but abstention, and especially from inactivity in the affairs of others.

     Said a man to a crapulent youth: "I thought     You a total abstainer, my son."     "So I am, so I am," said the scapegrace caught —     "But not, sir, a bigoted one."     G. J.

ABSURDITY, n. A statement or belief manifestly inconsistent with one's own opinion.

ACADEME, n. An ancient school where morality and philosophy were taught.

ACADEMY, n. [from Academe]. A modern school where football is taught.

ACCIDENT, n. An inevitable occurrence due to the action of immutable natural laws.

ACCOMPLICE, n. One associated with another in a crime, having guilty knowledge and complicity, as an attorney who defends a criminal, knowing him guilty. This view of the attorney's position in the matter has not hitherto commanded the assent of attorneys, no one having offered them a fee for assenting.

ACCORD, n. Harmony.

ACCORDION, n. An instrument in harmony with the sentiments of an assassin.

ACCOUNTABILITY, n. The mother of caution.

     "My accountability, bear in mind,"     Said the Grand Vizier: "Yes, yes."     Said the Shah: "I do – 't is the only kind     Of ability you possess."

ACCUSE, v. t. To affirm another's guilt or unworth; most commonly as a justification of ourselves for having wronged him.

ACEPHALOUS, adj. In the surprising condition of the Crusader who absently pulled at his forelock some hours after a Saracen scimitar had, unconsciously to him, passed through his neck, as related by the Prince de Joinville.

ACHIEVEMENT, n. The death of endeavor and the birth of disgust.

ACKNOWLEDGE, v. t. To confess. To acknowledge one another's faults is the highest duty imposed by our love of truth.

Joram Tate.

ACQUAINTANCE, n. A person whom we know well enough to borrow from, but not well enough to lend to. A degree of friendship called slight when its object is poor or obscure, and "intimate" when he is rich or famous.

ACTUALLY, adv. Perhaps; possibly.

ADAGE, n. Boned wisdom for weak teeth.

ADAMANT, n. A mineral frequently found beneath a corset. Soluble in solicitate of gold.

ADDER, n. A species of snake. So called from its habit of adding funeral outlays to the other expenses of living.

ADHERENT, n. A follower who has not yet obtained all that he expects to get.

ADMINISTRATION, n. An ingenious abstraction in politics, designed to receive the kicks and cuffs due to the premier or president. A man of straw, proof against bad-egging and dead-catting.

ADMIRABILITY, n. My kind of ability, as distinguished from your kind of ability.

ADMIRAL, n. That part of a war-ship which does the talking while the figure-head does the thinking.

ADMIRATION, n. Our polite recognition of another's resemblance to ourselves.

ADMONITION, n. Gentle reproof, as with a meat-axe. Friendly warning.

     Consigned, by way of admonition,     His soul forever to perdition.     Judibras.

ADORE, v. t. To venerate expectantly.

ADVICE, n. The smallest current coin.

     "The man was in such deep distress,"     Said Tom, "that I could do no less     Than give him good advice." Said Jim:     "If less could have been done for him     I know you well enough, my son,     To know that's what you would have done."     Je bel Jocordy,

AFFIANCED, pp. Fitted with an anklering for the ball-and-chain.

AFFLICTION, n. An acclimatizing process preparing the soul for another and bitter world.

AFRICAN, n. A nigger that votes our way.

AGE, n. That period of life in which we compound for the vices that remain by reviling those that we have no longer the vigor to commit.

AGITATOR, n. A statesman who shakes the fruit trees of his neighbors – to dislodge the worms.

AIM, n. The task we set our wishes to.

     "Cheer up! Have you no aim in life?"     She tenderly inquired.     "An aim? Well, no, I have n't, wife;     The fact is – I have fired."     G.F.

AIR, n. That nutritious substance so abundantly supplied by a bountiful Providence for the fattening of the poor.

ALDERMAN, n. An ingenious criminal who covers his secret thieving with a pretence of open marauding.

ALIEN, n. An American sovereign in his probationary state.

ALLAH, n. The Mahometan Supreme Being, as distinguished from the Christian, Jewish, etc.

     Allah's good laws I faithfully have kept,     And ever for the sins of man have wept;     And sometimes kneeling in the temple I     Have reverently crossed my hands and slept.     Junker Barlow.

ALLEGIANCE, n.

     This thing Allegiance, as I suppose,     Is a ring fitted in the subject's nose,     Whereby that organ is kept rightly pointed     To smell the sweetness of the Lord's anointed.     G.F.

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.

ALLIGATOR, n. The crocodile of America, superior in every respect to the crocodile of the effete monarchies of the Old World. Herodotus says the Indus is, with one exception, the only river that produces crocodiles, but they appear to have gone West and grown up with the other rivers. From the notches on his back the alligator is called a sawrian.

ALONE, adj. In bad company.

     In contact, lo! the flint and steel,     By spark and flame, the thought reveal     That he the metal, she the stone,     Had cherished secretly alone.     Booley Fito.

ALTAR, n. The place whereon the priest formerly ravelled out the small intestine of the sacrificial victim for purposes of divination and cooked its flesh for the gods. The word is now seldom used, except with reference to the sacrifice of their liberty and peace by a male and a female fool.

     They stood before the altar and supplied     The fire themselves in which their fat was fried.     In vain the sacrifice! – no god will claim     An offering burnt with an unholy flame.     M. P. Nopput.

AMBIDEXTROUS, adj. Able to pick with equal skill a right-hand pocket or a left.

AMBITION, n. An overmastering desire to be villified by enemies while living and made ridiculous by friends when dead.

AMNESTY, n. The State's magnanimity to those offenders whom it would be too expensive to punish.

ANOINT, v.t. To grease. To consecrate a king or other great functionary already sufficiently slippery.

     As sovereigns are anointed by the priesthood,     So pigs to lead the populace are greased good.     Judibras.

ANTIPATHY, n. The sentiment inspired by one's friend's friend.

APHORISM, n. A brief statement, bald in style and flat in sense.

     The flabby wine-skin of a brain     That, spilling once and filled again,     Voids from its impotent abysm     The driblet of an aphorism.     "The Mad Philosopher" 1697

APOLOGIZE, v. i. To lay the foundation for a future offence.

APOSTATE, n. A leech who, having penetrated the shell of a turtle only to find the creature has long been dead, deems it expedient to form a new attachment to a fresh turtle.

APOTHECARY, n. The physician's accomplice, undertaker's benefactor and grave worm's provider.

     When Jove sent blessings to all men that are,     And Mercury conveyed them in a jar,     That friend of tricksters introduced by stealth     Disease for the apothecary's health,     Whose gratitude impelled him to proclaim:     "My deadliest drug shall bear my patron's name!"     G.F.

APPEAL, v. t. In law, to put the dice into the box for another throw.

APPETITE, n. An instinct thoughtfully implanted by Providence as a solution to the labor question.

APPLAUSE, n. The echo of a platitude.

APRIL FOOL, n. The March fool with another month added to his folly.

ARBITRATION, n. A modern device for promoting strife by substituting for an original dispute a score of inevitable disagreements as to the manner of submitting it for settlement.

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

     If I were a jolly archbishop,     On Fridays I 'd eat all the fish up —     Salmon and flounders and smelts;     On other days everything else.     Jodo Rem.

ARCHITECT, n. One who drafts a plan of your house, and plans a draft of your money; who estimates the whole cost, and himself costs the whole estimate.

ARDOR, n. The quality that distinguishes love without knowledge.

ARENA, n. In politics, an imaginary rat-pit, in which the statesman wrestles with his record.

ARISTOCRACY, n. Government by the best men. (In this sense the word is obsolete; so is that kind of government.) Fellows that wear downy hats and clean shirts – guilty of education and suspected of bank accounts.

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

ARRAYED, pp. Drawn up and given an orderly disposition, as a rioter hanged to a lamp-post.

ARREST, v. t Formally to detain one accused of unusualness.

God made the world in six days and was arrested on the seventh. – The Unauthorized Version.

ARSENIC, n. A kind of cosmetic greatly affected by the ladies, whom it greatly affects in turn.

     "Eat arsenic? Yes, all you get,"     Consenting, he did speak up;     "'T is better you should eat it, pet,     Than put it in my teacup."     Joel Huck.

ART, n. This word has no definition. Its origin is related as follows by the ingenious Father Gassalasca Jape, S. J.

     One day a wag – what would the wretch be at? —     Shifted a letter of the cipher RAT,     And said it was a god's name! Straight arose     Fantastic priests and postulants (with shows,     And mysteries, and mummeries, and hymns,     And disputations dire that lamed their limbs)     To serve his temple and maintain the fires,     Expound the law, manipulate the wires.     Amazed, the populace the rites attend,     Believe whate'er they cannot comprehend.     And, inly edified to learn that two     Half-hairs joined so and so (as Art can do)     Have sweeter values and a grace more fit     Than Nature's hairs that never have been split,     Bring cates and wines for sacrificiàl feasts,     And sell their garments to support the priests.

ARTLESSNESS, n. A certain engaging quality to which women attain by long study and severe practice upon the admiring male, who is pleased to fancy it resembles the candid simplicity of his young.

ASPERSE, v. t Maliciously to ascribe to another vicious actions which one has not had the temptation and opportunity to commit.

ASS, n. A public singer with a good voice but no ear. In Virginia City, Nevada, he is called the Washoe Canary, in Dakota, the Senator, and everywhere the Donkey. The animal is widely and variously celebrated in the literature, art, and religion of every age and country; no other so engages and fires the human imagination as this noble vertebrate. Indeed, it is doubted by some (Ramasilus, lib. II., De Clem., and C. Stantatus, De Temperamente) if it is not a god; and as such we know it was worshipped by the Etruscans, and, if we may believe Macrobius, by the Capasians also. Of the only two animals admitted into the Mahometan Paradise along with the souls of men, the ass that carried Balaam is one, the dog of the Seven Sleepers the other. This is no small distinction. From what has been written about this beast might be compiled a library of great splendor and magnitude, rivaling that of the Shakspearean cult, and that which clusters about the Bible. It may be said, generally, that all literature is more or less Asinine.

     "Hail, holy Ass!" the quiring angels sing;     "Priest of Unreason, and of Discords King!     Great co-Creator, let Thy glory shine:     God made all else, the Mule – the Mule is thine!"     G.F.

AUCTIONEER, n. The man who proclaims with a hammer that he has picked a pocket with his tongue.

AUSTRALIA, n. A country lying in the South Sea, whose industrial and commercial development has been unspeakably retarded by an unfortunate dispute among geographers as to whether it is a continent or an island.

AVERNUS, n. The lake by which the ancients entered the infernal regions. The fact that access to the infernal regions was obtained by a lake is believed by the learned Marcus Ansello Scrutator to have suggested the Christian rite of baptism by immersion. This, however, has been shown by Lactantius to be an error.

     Facilis descensus Avertit,     The poet remarks; and the sense     Of it is that when down hill I turn I     Will get more of punches than pence.     Jehal Dai Lupe.

AVERSION, n. The feeling that one has for the plate after he has eaten its contents, madam.

B

BAAL, n. A deity formerly much worshipped under various names. As Baal he was popular with the Phoenicians; as Belus or Bel he had the honor to be served by the priest Berosus, who wrote the famous account of the Deluge; as Babel he had a tower partly erected to his glory on the Plain of Shinar. From Babel comes our English word "babble." Under whatever name worshipped, Baal is the Sun-god. As Beelzebub he is the god of flies, which are begotten of the sun's rays on stagnant water. In Physicia Baal is still worshipped as Bolus, and as Belly he is adored and served with abundant sacrifice by the priests of Guttle and Swig.

BABB, 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. There have been famous babes; for example, little Moses, from whose adventure in the bulrushes the Egyptian hierophants of seven centuries before doubtless derived their idle tale of the child Osiris being preserved on a floating lotus leaf.

     Ere babes were invented     The girls were contented.     Now man is tormented     Until to buy babes he has squandered     His money. And so I have pondered     This thing, and thought may be     'T were better that Baby     The First had been eagled or condored.     Ro Amil.

BACCHUS, w. A convenient deity invented by the ancients as an excuse for getting drunk.

     Is public worship, then, a sin,     That for devotions paid to Bacchus     The lictors dare to run us in,     And resolutely thump and whack us?     Horace.

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

BACKBITE, v. t. To "speak of a man as you find him" when he can't find you.

BAIT, n. A preparation that renders the hook more palatable. The best kind is beauty.

BAPTISM, n. A sacred rite of such efficacy that he who finds himself in heaven without having undergone it will be unhappy forever. It is performed with water in two ways – by immersion, or plunging, and by aspersion, or sprinkling.

     But whether the plan of immersion     Is better than simple aspersion     Let those immersed     And those aspersed     Decide by the Authorized Version,     And by matching their agues tertian.     G. F.

BAROMETER, n. An ingenious instrument which indicates what kind of weather we are having.

BARRACK, n. A house in which soldiers enjoy a portion of that of which it is their business to deprive others.

BASILISK, n. The cockatrice. A sort of serpent hatched from the egg of a cock. The basilisk had a bad eye, and its glance was fatal. Many infidels deny this creature's existence, but Semprello Aurator saw and handled one that had been blinded by lightning as a punishment for having fatally gazed on a lady of rank whom Jupiter loved. Juno afterward restored the reptile's sight and hid it in a cave. Nothing is so well attested by the ancients as the existence of the basilisk, but the cocks have stopped laying eggs.

BASTINADO, n. The act of walking on wood without exertion.

BATH, n. A kind of mystic ceremony substituted for religious worship, with what spiritual efficacy has not been determined.

     The man who taketh a steam bath     He loseth all the skin he hath,     And, for he 's boiled a brilliant red,     Thinketh to cleanliness he's wed,     Forgetting that his lungs he's soiling     With dirty vapors of the boiling.     Richard Gwow.

BATTLE, n. A method of untying with the teeth a political knot that would not yield to the tongue.

BEARD, n. The hair that is commonly cut off by those who justly execrate the absurd Chinese custom of shaving the head.

BEAUTY, n. The power by which a woman charms a lover and terrifies a husband.

BEFRIEND, v. t. To make an ingrate.

BEG, v. To ask for something with an earnestness proportioned to the belief that it will not be given.

     Who is that, father?     A mendicant, child,     Haggard, morose, and unaffable – wild!     See how he glares through the bars of his cell!     With Citizen Mendicant all is not well.     Why did they put him there, father?     Because     Obeying his belly he struck at the laws.     His belly?     Oh, well, he was starving, my boy —     A state in which, doubtless, there 's little of joy.     No bite had he eaten for days, and his cry     Was "Bread!" ever "Bread!"     What 's the matter with pie?     With little to wear, he had nothing to sell;     To beg was unlawful – improper as well.     Why did n't he work?     He would even have done that,     But men said: "Get out!" and the State re     marked: "Scat!"     I mention these incidents merely to show     That the vengeance he took was uncommonly low.     Revenge, at the best, is the act of a Siou,     But for trifles —     Pray what did bad Mendicant do?     Stole two loaves of bread to replenish his lack     And tuck out the belly that clung to his back.     Is that all father dear?     There is little to tell:     They sent him to jail, and they'll send him to —     well,     The company's better than here we can boast,     And there's —     Bread for the needy, dear father?     Um – toast.     Atka Mip

BEGGAR, n. One who has relied on the assistance of his friends.

BEHAVIOR, n. Conduct, as determined, not by principle, but by breeding. The word seems to be somewhat loosely used in Dr. Jamrach Holobom's translation of the following lines in the Dies Iræ: