The Devil’s Dictionary994 terms |
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O2
- Offensive
- adj. Generating disagreeable emotions or sensations, as the advance of an army against its enemy. “Were the enemy’s tactics offensive?” the king asked. “I should say so!” replied the unsuccessful general. “The blackguard wouldn’t come out of his works!”
- Old
- adj. In that stage of usefulness which is not inconsistent with
general inefficiency, as an old man. Discredited by lapse of time
and offensive to the popular taste, as an old book.
“Old books? The devil take them!” Goby said.
Harley Shum
“Fresh every day must be my books and bread.”
Nature herself approves the Goby rule
And gives us every moment a fresh fool. - Oleaginous
- adj. Oily, smooth, sleek. Disraeli once described the manner of Bishop Wilberforce as “unctuous, oleaginous, saponaceous.” And the good prelate was ever afterward known as Soapy Sam. For every man there is something in the vocabulary that would stick to him like a second skin. His enemies have only to find it.
- Olympian
- adj. Relating to a mountain in Thessaly, once inhabited by
gods, now a repository of yellowing newspapers, beer bottles and
mutilated sardine cans, attesting the presence of the tourist and his
appetite.
His name the smirking tourist scrawls
Averil Joop
Upon Minerva’s temple walls,
Where thundered once Olympian Zeus,
And marks his appetite’s abuse. - Omen
- n. A sign that something will happen if nothing happens.
- Once
- adv. Enough.
- Opera
- n. A play representing life in another world, whose
inhabitants have no speech but song, no motions but gestures and no
postures but attitudes. All acting is simulation, and the word
simulation is from simia, an ape; but in opera the actor takes for
his model Simia audibilis (or Pithecanthropos stentor) — the ape
that howls.
The actor apes a man — at least in shape;
The opera performer apes and ape. - Opiate
- n. An unlocked door in the prison of Identity. It leads into the jail yard.
- Opportunity
- n. A favorable occasion for grasping a disappointment.