The Devil's Dictionary: A and B

I recently picked up a Dover Thrift Edition (for $1.00!) of Ambrose Bierce's The Devil's Dictionary. It's simply wonderful. Here are my favorite "A" and "B" words.


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


Academe: An ancient shool where morality and philosophy were taught.


Academy: A modern school where football is taught.


Admiration: Our polite recognition of another's resemblance to ourselves.


Alliance: In international politics, the union of two thieves who have their hands so deeply in each other's pocket that they cannot separately plunder a third.


Architect: One who drafts a plan of your house, and plans a draft of your money.


Back: That part of your friend which it is your privilege to contemplate in your adversity.


Bigot: One who is obsinately and zealously attached to an opinion that you do not entertain.


Birth: The first and direst of all disasters.


Brain: An apparatus with which we think that we think. In our civilization, and under our republican form of government, brain is so highly honored that it is rewarded by exemption from the cares of office.


Bride: A woman with a fine prospect of happiness behind her.