PAIN, n.
An uncomfortable frame of mind that may have a physical basis in
something that is being done to the body, or may be purely
mental, caused by the good fortune of another.
PAINTING, n.
The art of protecting flat surfaces from the weather and
exposing them to the critic.Formerly, painting and sculpture were
combined in the same work: the ancients painted their statues.
The only present alliance between the two arts is that the modern
painter chisels his patrons.
PALACE, n.
A fine and costly residence, particularly that of a great
official. The residence of a high dignitary of the Christian
Church is called a palace; that of the Founder of his religion
was known as a field, or wayside. There is progress.
PALM, n.
A species of tree having several varieties, of which the
familiar "itching palm" (Palma hominis) is most widely
distributed and sedulously cultivated. This noble vegetable
exudes a kind of invisible gum, which may be detected by applying
to the bark a piece of gold or silver. The metal will adhere with
remarkable tenacity. The fruit of the itching palm is so bitter
and unsatisfying that a considerable percentage of it is
sometimes given away in what are known as "benefactions."
PALMISTRY, n.
The 947th method (according to Mimbleshaw's classification) of
obtaining money by false pretences. It consists in "reading
character" in the wrinkles made by closing the hand. The pretence
is not altogether false; character can really be read very
accurately in this way, for the wrinkles in every hand submitted
plainly spell the word "dupe." The imposture consists in not
reading it aloud.
PANDEMONIUM, n.
Literally, the Place of All the Demons. Most of them have
escaped into politics and finance, and the place is now used as a
lecture hall by the Audible Reformer. When disturbed by his voice
the ancient echoes clamor appropriate responses most gratifying
to his pride of distinction.
PANTALOONS, n.
A nether habiliment of the adult civilized male. The garment is
tubular and unprovided with hinges at the points of flexion.
Supposed to have been invented by a humorist. Called "trousers"
by the enlightened and "pants" by the unworthy.
PANTHEISM, n.
The doctrine that everything is God, in contradistinction to the
doctrine that God is everything.
PANTOMIME, n.
A play in which the story is told without violence to the
language. The least disagreeable form of dramatic action.
PARDON, v.
To remit a penalty and restore to the life of crime. To add to
the lure of crime the temptation of ingratitude.
PASSPORT, n.
A document treacherously inflicted upon a citizen going abroad,
exposing him as an alien and pointing him out for special
reprobation and outrage.
PAST, n.
That part of Eternity with some small fraction of which we have
a slight and regrettable acquaintance. A moving line called the
Present parts it from an imaginary period known as the Future.
These two grand divisions of Eternity, of which the one is
continually effacing the other, are entirely unlike. The one is
dark with sorrow and disappointment, the other bright with
prosperity and joy. The Past is the region of sobs, the Future is
the realm of song. In the one crouches Memory, clad in sackcloth
and ashes, mumbling penitential prayer; in the sunshine of the
other Hope flies with a free wing, beckoning to temples of
success and bowers of ease. Yet the Past is the Future of
yesterday, the Future is the Past of to- morrow. They are one-- the knowledge and the dream.
PASTIME, n.
A device for promoting dejection. Gentle exercise for
intellectual debility.
PATIENCE, n.
A minor form of despair, disguised as a virtue.
PATRIOT, n.
One to whom the interests of a part seem superior to those of
the whole. The dupe of statesmen and the tool of conquerors.
PATRIOTISM, n.
Combustible rubbish read to the torch of any one ambitious to
illuminate his name.In Dr. Johnson's famous dictionary patriotism
is defined as the last resort of a scoundrel. With all due
respect to an enlightened but inferior lexicographer I beg to
submit that it is the first.
PEACE, n.
In international affairs, a period of cheating between two
periods of fighting.
PEDESTRIAN, n.
The variable (and audible) part of the roadway for an
automobile.
PEDIGREE, n.
The known part of the route from an arboreal ancestor with a
swim bladder to an urban descendant with a cigarette.
PENITENT adj.
Undergoing or awaiting punishment.
PERFECTION, n.
An imaginary state of quality distinguished from the actual by
an element known as excellence; an attribute of the critic.The
editor of an English magazine having received a letter pointing
out the erroneous nature of his views and style, and signed
"Perfection," promptly wrote at the foot of the letter: "I don't
agree with you," and mailed it to Matthew Arnold.
PERIPATETIC adj.
Walking about. Relating to the philosophy of Aristotle, who,
while expounding it, moved from place to place in order to avoid
his pupil's objections. A needless precaution-- they knew no
more of the matter than he.
PERORATION, n.
The explosion of an oratorical rocket. It dazzles, but to an
observer having the wrong kind of nose its most conspicuous
peculiarity is the smell of the several kinds of powder used in
preparing it.
PERSEVERANCE, n.
A lowly virtue whereby mediocrity achieves an inglorious
success.
PESSIMISM, n.
A philosophy forced upon the convictions of the observer by the
disheartening prevalence of the optimist with his scarecrow hope
and his unsightly smile.
PHILANTHROPIST, n.
A rich (and usually bald) old gentleman who has trained himself
to grin while his conscience is picking his pocket.
PHILISTINE, n.
One whose mind is the creature of its environment, following the
fashion in thought, feeling and sentiment. He is sometimes
learned, frequently prosperous, commonly clean and always
solemn.
PHILOSOPHY, n.
A route of many roads leading from nowhere to nothing.
PHOENIX, n.
The classical prototype of the modern "small hot bird."
PHONOGRAPH, n.
An irritating toy that restores life to dead noises.
PHOTOGRAPH, n.
A picture painted by the sun without instruction in art. It is a
little better than the work of an Apache, but not quite so good
as that of a Cheyenne.
PHRENOLOGY, n.
The science of picking the pocket through the scalp. It consists
in locating and exploiting the organ that one is a dupe with.
PHYSICIAN, n.
One upon whom we set our hopes when ill and our dogs when
well.
PHYSIOGNOMY, n.
The art of determining the character of another by the
resemblances and differences between his face and our own, which
is the standard of excellence.
PIANO, n.
A parlor utensil for subduing the impenitent visitor. It is
operated by depressing the keys of the machine and the spirits of
the audience.
PICTURE, n.
A representation in two dimensions of something wearisome in
three.
PIE, n.
An advance agent of the reaper whose name is Indigestion.
PIETY, n.
Reverence for the Supreme Being, based upon His supposed
resemblance to man.
The pig is taught by sermons and epistles
To think the God of Swine has snout and bristles.
Judibras
PIG, n.
An animal (Porcus omnivorus) closely allied to the
human race by the splendor and vivacity of its appetite, which,
however, is inferior in scope, for it sticks at pig.
PIGMY, n.
One of a tribe of very small men found by ancient travelers in
many parts of the world, but by modern in Central Africa only.
The Pigmies are so called to distinguish them from the bulkier
Caucasians-- who are Hogmies.
PILGRIM, n.
A traveler that is taken seriously. A Pilgrim Father was one
who, leaving Europe in 1620 because not permitted to sing psalms
through his nose, followed it to Massachusetts, where he could
personate God according to the dictates of his conscience.
PILLORY, n.
A mechanical device for inflicting personal distinction--
prototype of the modern newspaper conducted by persons of austere
virtues and blameless lives.
PIRACY, n.
Commerce without its folly- swaddles, just as God made it.
PITIFUL adj.
The state of an enemy of opponent after an imaginary encounter
with oneself.
PITY, n.
A failing sense of exemption, inspired by contrast.
PLAGIARISM, n.
A literary coincidence compounded of a discreditable priority
and an honorable subsequence.
PLAGIARIZE, v.
To take the thought or style of another writer whom one has
never, never read.
PLAGUE, n.
In ancient times a general punishment of the innocent for
admonition of their ruler, as in the familiar instance of Pharaoh
the Immune. The plague as we of to- day have the happiness to know
it is merely Nature's fortuitous manifestation of her purposeless
objectionableness.
PLAN, v.t.
To bother about the best method of accomplishing an accidental
result.
PLATITUDE, n.
The fundamental element and special glory of popular literature.
A thought that snores in words that smoke. The wisdom of a
million fools in the diction of a dullard. A fossil sentiment in
artificial rock. A moral without the fable. All that is mortal of
a departed truth. A demi- tasse of milk- and-mortality. The
Pope's- nose of a featherless peacock. A jelly- fish withering on
the shore of the sea of thought. The cackle surviving the egg. A
desiccated epigram.
PLATONIC adj.
Pertaining to the philosophy of Socrates. Platonic Love is a
fool's name for the affection between a disability and a
frost.
PLAUDITS, n.
Coins with which the populace pays those who tickle and devour
it.
PLEASE, v.
To lay the foundation for a superstructure of imposition.
PLEASURE, n.
The least hateful form of dejection.
PLEBEIAN, n.
An ancient Roman who in the blood of his country stained nothing
but his hands. Distinguished from the Patrician, who was a
saturated solution.
PLEBISCITE, n.
A popular vote to ascertain the will of the sovereign.
PLENIPOTENTIARY adj.
Having full power. A Minister Plenipotentiary is a diplomatist
possessing absolute authority on condition that he never exert
it.
PLEONASM, n.
An army of words escorting a corporal of thought.
PLOW, n.
An implement that cries aloud for hands accustomed to the
pen.
PLUNDER, v.
To take the property of another without observing the decent and
customary reticences of theft. To effect a change of ownership
with the candid concomitance of a brass band. To wrest the wealth
of A from B and leave C lamenting a vanishing opportunity.
POCKET, n.
The cradle of motive and the grave of conscience. In woman this
organ is lacking; so she acts without motive, and her conscience,
denied burial, remains ever alive, confessing the sins of
others.
POETRY, n.
A form of expression peculiar to the Land beyond the
Magazines.
POKER, n.
A game said to be played with cards for some purpose to this
lexicographer unknown.
POLICE, n.
An armed force for protection and participation.
POLITENESS, n.
The most acceptable hypocrisy.
POLITICS, n.
A strife of interests masquerading as a contest of principles.
The conduct of public affairs for private advantage.
POLITICIAN, n.
An eel in the fundamental mud upon which the superstructure of
organized society is reared. When we 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.
POLYGAMY, n.
A house of atonement, or expiatory chapel, fitted with several
stools of repentance, as distinguished from monogamy, which has
but one.
POPULIST, n.
A fossil patriot of the early agricultural period, found in the
old red soapstone underlying Kansas; characterized by an uncommon
spread of ear, which some naturalists contend gave him the power
of flight, though Professors Morse and Whitney, pursuing
independent lines of thought, have ingeniously pointed out that
had he possessed it he would have gone elsewhere. In the
picturesque speech of his period, some fragments of which have
come down to us, he was known as "The Matter with Kansas."
PORTABLE adj.
Exposed to a mutable ownership through vicissitudes of
possession.
PORTUGUESE, n.pl.
A species of geese indigenous to Portugal. They are
mostly without feathers and imperfectly edible, even when stuffed
with garlic.
POSITIVE adj.
Mistaken at the top of one's voice.
POSITIVISM, n.
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.
POSTERITY, n.
An appellate court which reverses the judgment of a popular
author's contemporaries, the appellant being his obscure
competitor.
POTABLE, n.
Suitable for drinking. Water is said to be potable; indeed, some
declare it our natural beverage, although even they find it
palatable only when suffering from the recurrent disorder known
as thirst, for which it is a medicine. Upon nothing has so great
and diligent ingenuity been brought to bear in all ages and in
all countries, except the most uncivilized, as upon the invention
of substitutes for water. To hold that this general aversion to
that liquid has no basis in the preservative instinct of the race
is to be unscientific-- and without science we are as the snakes
and toads.
POVERTY, n.
A file provided for the teeth of the rats of reform. The number
of plans for its abolition equals that of the reformers who
suffer from it, plus that of the philosophers who know nothing
about it. Its victims are distinguished by possession of all the
virtues and by their faith in leaders seeking to conduct them
into a prosperity where they believe these to be unknown.
PRAY, v.
To ask that the laws of the universe be annulled in behalf of a
single petitioner confessedly unworthy.
PRE- ADAMITE, n.
One of an experimental and apparently unsatisfactory race of
antedated Creation and lived under conditions not easily
conceived. Melsius believed them to have inhabited "the Void" and
to have been something intermediate between fishes and birds.
Little its known of them beyond the fact that they supplied Cain
with a wife and theologians with a controversy.
PRECEDENT, n.
In Law, a previous decision, rule or practice which, in the
absence of a definite statute, has whatever force and authority a
Judge may choose to give it, thereby greatly simplifying his task
of doing as he pleases. As there are precedents for everything,
he has only to ignore those that make against his interest and
accentuate those in the line of his desire. Invention of the
precedent elevates the trial- at-law from the low estate of a
fortuitous ordeal to the noble attitude of a dirigible
arbitrament.
PRECIPITATE adj.
Anteprandial.
Precipitate in all, this sinner
Took action first, and then his dinner.
Judibras
PREDESTINATION, n.
The doctrine that all things occur according to programme. This
doctrine should not be confused with that of foreordination,
which means that all things are programmed, but does not affirm
their occurrence, that being only an implication from other
doctrines by which this is entailed. The difference is great
enough to have deluged Christendom with ink, to say nothing of
the gore. With the distinction of the two doctrines kept well in
mind, and a reverent belief in both, one may hope to escape
perdition if spared.
PREDICAMENT, n.
The wage of consistency.
PREDILECTION, n.
The preparatory stage of disillusion.
PRE- EXISTENCE, n.
An unnoted factor in creation.
PREFERENCE, n.
A sentiment, or frame of mind, induced by the erroneous belief
that one thing is better than another.An ancient philosopher,
expounding his conviction that life is no better than death, was
asked by a disciple why, then, he did not die. "Because," he
replied, "death is no better than life."It is longer.
PREHISTORIC adj.
Belonging to an early period and a museum. Antedating the art and
practice of perpetuating falsehood.
PREJUDICE, n.
A vagrant opinion without visible means of support.
PRELATE, n.
A church officer having a superior degree of holiness and a fat
preferment. One of Heaven's aristocracy. A gentleman of God.
PREROGATIVE, n.
A sovereign's right to do wrong.
PRESBYTERIAN, n.
One who holds the conviction that the government authorities of
the Church should be called presbyters.
PRESCRIPTION, n.
A physician's guess at what will best prolong the situation with
least harm to the patient.
PRESENT, n.
That part of eternity dividing the domain of disappointment from
the realm of hope.
PRESENTABLE adj.
Hideously appareled after the manner of the time and place.In
Boorioboola- Gha a man is presentable on occasions of ceremony if
he have his abdomen painted a bright blue and wear a cow's tail;
in New York he may, if it please him, omit the paint, but after
sunset he must wear two tails made of the wool of a sheep and
dyed black.
PRESIDE, v.
To guide the action of a deliberative body to a desirable result.
In Journalese, to perform upon a musical instrument; as, "He
presided at the piccolo."
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.
PREVARICATOR, n.
A liar in the caterpillar estate.
PRICE, n.
Value, plus a reasonable sum for the wear and tear of conscience
in demanding it.
PRIMATE, n.
The head of a church, especially a State church supported by
involuntary contributions. The Primate of England is the
Archbishop of Canterbury, an amiable old gentleman, who occupies
Lambeth Palace when living and Westminster Abbey when dead. He is
commonly dead.
PRISON, n.
A place of punishments and rewards. The poet assures us that-- "Stone walls do not a prison make,"
but a combination of the stone wall, the political parasite
and the moral instructor is no garden of sweets.
PRIVATE, n.
A military gentleman with a field- marshal's baton in his
knapsack and an impediment in his hope.
PROBOSCIS, n.
The rudimentary organ of an elephant which serves him in place
of the knife- and-fork that Evolution has as yet denied him. For
purposes of humor it is popularly called a trunk.Asked how he
knew that an elephant was going on a journey, the illustrious Jo.
Miller cast a reproachful look upon his tormentor, and answered,
absently: "When it is ajar," and threw himself from a high
promontory into the sea. Thus perished in his pride the most
famous humorist of antiquity, leaving to mankind a heritage of
woe! No successor worthy of the title has appeared, though Mr. Edward bok, of The Ladies' Home Journal, is much
respected for the purity and sweetness of his personal
character.
PROJECTILE, n.
The final arbiter in international disputes. Formerly these
disputes were settled by physical contact of the disputants, with
such simple arguments as the rudimentary logic of the times could
supply-- the sword, the spear, and so forth. With the growth of
prudence in military affairs the projectile came more and more
into favor, and is now held in high esteem by the most
courageous. Its capital defect is that it requires personal
attendance at the point of propulsion.
PROOF, n.
Evidence having a shade more of plausibility than of
unlikelihood. The testimony of two credible witnesses as opposed
to that of only one.
PROOF- READER, n.
A malefactor who atones for making your writing nonsense by
permitting the compositor to make it unintelligible.
PROPERTY, n.
Any material thing, having no particular value, that may be held
by A against the cupidity of B. Whatever gratifies the passion
for possession in one and disappoints it in all others. The
object of man's brief rapacity and long indifference.
PROPHECY, n.
The art and practice of selling one's credibility for future
delivery.
PROSPECT, n.
An outlook, usually forbidding. An expectation, usually
forbidden.
PROVIDENTIAL adj.
Unexpectedly and conspicuously beneficial to the person so
describing it.
PRUDE, n.
A bawd hiding behind the back of her demeanor.
PUBLISH, n.
In literary affairs, to become the fundamental element in a cone
of critics.
PUSH, n.
One of the two things mainly conducive to success, especially in
politics. The other is Pull.
PYRRHONISM, n.
An ancient philosophy, named for its inventor. It consisted of
an absolute disbelief in everything but Pyrrhonism. Its modern
professors have added that.