The Devil’s Dictionary994 terms |
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M4
- Me
- pro. The objectionable case of I. The personal pronoun in English has three cases, the dominative, the objectionable and the oppressive. Each is all three.
- Meander
- n. To proceed sinuously and aimlessly. The word is the ancient name of a river about one hundred and fifty miles south of Troy, which turned and twisted in the effort to get out of hearing when the Greeks and Trojans boasted of their prowess.
- Medal
- n. A small metal disk given as a reward for virtues, attainments or services more or less authentic. It is related of Bismark, who had been awarded a medal for gallantly rescuing a drowning person, that, being asked the meaning of the medal, he replied: “I save lives sometimes.” And sometimes he didn’t.
- Medicine
- n. A stone flung down the Bowery to kill a dog in Broadway.
- Meekness
- n. Uncommon patience in planning a revenge that is worth
while.
M is for Moses,
The Biographical Alphabet
Who slew the Egyptian.
As sweet as a rose is
The meekness of Moses.
No monument shows his
Post-mortem inscription,
But M is for Moses
Who slew the Egyptian. - Meerschaum
- n. (Literally, seafoam, and by many erroneously supposed
to be made of it.) A fine white clay, which for convenience in
coloring it brown is made into tobacco pipes and smoked by the workmen
engaged in that industry. The purpose of coloring it has not been
disclosed by the manufacturers.
There was a youth (you’ve heard before,
This woeful tale, may be),
Who bought a meerschaum pipe and swore
That color it would he!He shut himself from the world away,
Nor any soul he saw.
He smoke by night, he smoked by day,
As hard as he could draw.His dog died moaning in the wrath
Of winds that blew aloof;
The weeds were in the gravel path,
The owl was on the roof.“He’s gone afar, he’ll come no more,”
The neighbors sadly say.
And so they batter in the door
To take his goods away.Dead, pipe in mouth, the youngster lay,
Nut-brown in face and limb.
“That pipe’s a lovely white,” they say,
“But it has colored him!”The moral there’s small need to sing —
Martin Bulstrode
’Tis plain as day to you:
Don’t play your game on any thing
That is a gamester too. - Mendacious
- adj. Addicted to rhetoric.
- Merchant
- n. One engaged in a commercial pursuit. A commercial pursuit is one in which the thing pursued is a dollar.
- Mercy
- n. An attribute beloved of detected offenders.