POSITIVISM- A philosophy that denies our knowledge of the Real and affirms our ignorance of the Apparent. Its longest exponent is Comte, its broadest Mill and its thickest Spencer.
IMBECILITY, n. A kind of divine inspiration, or sacred fire affecting censorious critics of this dictionary.
The best kind of onion soup is the simplest kind.
PITY, n. A failing sense of exemption, inspired by contrast.
KILT, n. A costume sometimes worn by Scotchmen in America and Americans in Scotland.
KING, n. A male person commonly known in America as a “crowned head,” although he never wears a crown and has usually no head to speak of.
LECTURER, n. One with his hand in your pocket, his tongue in your ear and his faith in your patience.
REPENTANCE, n. The faithful attendant and follower of Punishment. It is usually manifest in a degree of reformation that is not inconsistent with continuity of sin.
ORTHODOX, n. An ox wearing the popular religious joke.
RITE, n. A religious or semi-religious ceremony fixed by law, precept or custom, with the essential oil of sincerity carefully squeezed out of it.
LIVER, n. A large red organ thoughtfully provided by nature to be bilious with. The liver is heaven’s best gift to the goose; without it that bird would be unable to supply us with the Strasbourg “pate”.
ZENITH, n. The point in the heavens directly overhead to a man standing or a growing cabbage. A man in bed or a cabbage in the pot is not considered as having a zenith, though Horizontalists hold that the posture of the body was immaterial.
MONSIGNOR- A high ecclesiastical title, of which the Founder of our religion overlooked the advantages.
MUGWUMP, n. In politics one afflicted with self-respect and addicted to the vice of independence. A term of contempt.
CALUMNUS, n. A graduate of the School for Scandal.
DEGRADATION, n. One of the stages of moral and social progress from private station to political preferment.
INTENTION, n. The mind’s sense of the prevalence of one set of influences over another set; an effect whose cause is the imminence, immediate or remote, of the performance of an involuntary act.
IMMORAL, adj. Inexpedient. Whatever in the long run and with regard to the greater number of instances men find to be generally inexpedient comes to be considered wrong, wicked, immoral.
OYSTER, n. A slimy, gobby shellfish which civilization gives men the hardihood to eat without removing its entrails! The shells are sometimes given to the poor.
RITUALISM, n. A Dutch Garden of God where He may walk in rectilinear freedom, keeping off the grass.