The Devil’s Dictionary994 terms |
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B4
- Blackguard
- n. A man whose qualities, prepared for display like a box of berries in a market — the fine ones on top — have been opened on the wrong side. An inverted gentleman.
- Blank-verse
- n. Unrhymed iambic pentameters — the most difficult kind of English verse to write acceptably; a kind, therefore, much affected by those who cannot acceptably write any kind.
- Body-snatcher
- n. A robber of grave-worms. One who supplies the
young physicians with that with which the old physicians have supplied
the undertaker. The hyena.
“One night,” a doctor said, “last fall,
I and my comrades, four in all,
When visiting a graveyard stood
Within the shadow of a wall.”While waiting for the moon to sink
We saw a wild hyena slink
About a new-made grave, and then
Begin to excavate its brink!”Shocked by the horrid act, we made
Bettel K. Jhones
A sally from our ambuscade,
And, falling on the unholy beast,
Dispatched him with a pick and spade.” - Bondsman
- n. A fool who, having property of his own, undertakes to become responsible for that entrusted to another to a third. Philippe of Orleans wishing to appoint one of his favorites, a dissolute nobleman, to a high office, asked him what security he would be able to give. “I need no bondsmen,” he replied, “for I can give you my word of honor.” “And pray what may be the value of that?” inquired the amused Regent. “Monsieur, it is worth its weight in gold.”
- Bore
- n. A person who talks when you wish him to listen.
- Botany
- n. The science of vegetables — those that are not good to eat, as well as those that are. It deals largely with their flowers, which are commonly badly designed, inartistic in color, and ill- smelling.
- Bottle-nosed
- adj. Having a nose created in the image of its maker.
- Boundary
- n. In political geography, an imaginary line between two nations, separating the imaginary rights of one from the imaginary rights of the other.
- Bounty
- n. The liberality of one who has much, in permitting one who
has nothing to get all that he can.
A single swallow, it is said, devours ten millions of insects
Henry Ward Beecher
every year. The supplying of these insects I take to be a signal
instance of the Creator’s bounty in providing for the lives of His
creatures.