INDIFFERENT, adj. Imperfectly sensible to distinctions among things.
RIMER, n. A poet regarded with indifference or disesteem.
PROVIDENTIAL, adj. Unexpectedly and conspicuously beneficial to the person so describing it.
WHANGDEPOOTENAWAH, n. In the Ojibwa tongue, disaster; an unexpected affliction that strikes hard.
OBLIVION, n. The state or condition in which the wicked cease from struggling and the dreary are at rest. Fame’s eternal dumping ground.
DIGESTION, n. The conversion of victuals into virtues. When the process is imperfect, vices are evolved instead – a circumstance from which that wicked writer, Dr. Jeremiah Blenn, infers that the ladies are the greater sufferers from dyspepsia.
SATIRE, n. An obsolete kind of literary composition in which the vices and follies of the author’s enemies were expounded with imperfect tenderness.
Book – Learning : The dunce’s derisive term for all knowledge that transcends his own impertinent ignorance.
MAGIC, n. An art of converting superstition into coin. There are other arts serving the same high purpose, but the discreet lexicographer does not name them.
PASTIME, n. A device for promoting dejection. Gentle exercise for intellectual debility.
RABBLE, n. In a republic, those who exercise a supreme authority tempered by fraudulent elections. The rabble is like the sacred Simurgh, of Arabian fable – omnipotent on condition that it do nothing.
ORATORY, n. A conspiracy between speech and action to cheat the understanding. A tyranny tempered by stenography.
COMMENDATION n. The tribute that we pay to achievements that resembles but do not equal our own.
NOISE, n. A stench in the ear. Undomesticated music. The chief product and authenticating sign of civilization.
A rabbit’s foot may bring good luck to you, but it brought none to the rabbit.
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.
FIDDLE, n. An instrument to tickle human ears by friction of a horse’s tail on the entrails of a cat.
GRAVE, n. A place in which the dead are laid to await the coming of the medical student.
HYENA, n. A beast held in reverence by some oriental nations from its habit of frequenting at night the burial-places of the dead. But the medical student does that.
MISDEMEANOR, n. An infraction of the law having less dignity than a felony and constituting no claim to admittance into the best criminal society.