The Devil’s Dictionary994 terms |
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I
- Ichor
- n. A fluid that serves the gods and goddesses in place of
blood.
Fair Venus, speared by Diomed,
Mary Doke
Restrained the raging chief and said:
”Behold, rash mortal, whom you’ve bled —
Your soul’s stained white with ichorshed!” - Iconoclast
- n. A breaker of idols, the worshipers whereof are imperfectly gratified by the performance, and most strenuously protest that he unbuildeth but doth not reedify, that he pulleth down but pileth not up. For the poor things would have other idols in place of those he thwacketh upon the mazzard and dispelleth. But the iconoclast saith: “Ye shall have none at all, for ye need them not; and if the rebuilder fooleth round hereabout, behold I will depress the head of him and sit thereon till he squawk it.”
- Idiot
- n. A member of a large and powerful tribe whose influence in human affairs has always been dominant and controlling. The Idiot’s activity is not confined to any special field of thought or action, but “pervades and regulates the whole.” He has the last word in everything; his decision is unappealable. He sets the fashions and opinion of taste, dictates the limitations of speech and circumscribes conduct with a dead-line.
- Idleness
- n. A model farm where the devil experiments with seeds of new sins and promotes the growth of staple vices.
- Ignoramus
- n. A person unacquainted with certain kinds of knowledge
familiar to yourself, and having certain other kinds that you know
nothing about.
Dumble was an ignoramus,
Borelli
Mumble was for learning famous.
Mumble said one day to Dumble:
”Ignorance should be more humble.
Not a spark have you of knowledge
That was got in any college.”
Dumble said to Mumble: “Truly
You’re self-satisfied unduly.
Of things in college I’m denied
A knowledge — you of all beside.” - Illuminati
- n. A sect of Spanish heretics of the latter part of the sixteenth century; so called because they were light weights — cunctationes illuminati.
- Illustrious
- adj. Suitably placed for the shafts of malice, envy and detraction.
- Imagination
- n. A warehouse of facts, with poet and liar in joint ownership.
- Imbecility
- n. A kind of divine inspiration, or sacred fire affecting censorious critics of this dictionary.