The Cynic's Word Book. Bierce Ambrose

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