Definition of the Day – April 30, 2024

War, n. A by-product of the arts of peace.  The most menacing political condition is a period of international amity.  […] “In time of peace prepare for war” has a deeper meaning than is commonly discerned; it means, not merely that all things earthly have an end – that change is the one immutable and eternal law – but that the soil of peace is thickly sown with seeds of war and singularly suited to their germination and growth. […]  Let us have a little less of “hands across the sea,” and a little more of that elemental distrust that is the security of nations.  War loves to come like a thief in the night; professions of eternal amity provide the night. 

• Ambrose Bierce, The Devil’s Dictionary

Definitions of the Day – April 27, 2024

Virtues, n. pl. Certain abstentions.

Vituperation, n. Satire, as understood by dunces and all such as suffer from an impediment in their wit.

• Ambrose Bierce, The Devil’s Dictionary

Definition of the Day – April 19, 2024

Valor, n. A soldierly compound of vanity, duty and the gamblerʼs hope.

            “Why have you halted?” roared the commander of a division at Chickamauga, who had ordered a charge; “move forward, sir, at once.”

            “General,” said the commander of the delinquent brigade, “I am persuaded that any further display of valor by my troops will bring them into collision with the enemy.”

• Ambrose Bierce, The Devil’s Dictionary

Definition of the Day – April 17, 2024

Usage, n.  The First Person of the literary Trinity, the Second and Third being Custom and Conventionality.  Imbued with a decent reverence for this Holy Triad an industrious writer may hope to produce books that will live as long as the fashion.

• Ambrose Bierce, The Devil’s Dictionary

Definitions of the Day – April 13, 2024

Urbanity, n.  The kind of civility that urban observers ascribe to dwellers in all cities but New York.

Uxoriousness, n.  A perverted affection that has strayed to oneʼs own wife.

• Ambrose Bierce, The Devil’s Dictionary

Definitions of the Day – April 10, 2024

Understanding, n.  A cerebral secretion that enables one having it to know a house from a horse by the roof on the house.  Its nature and laws have been exhaustively expounded by Locke, who rode a house, and Kant, who lived in a horse.

Unitarian, n.  One who denies the divinity of a Trinitarian.

• Ambrose Bierce, The Devil’s Dictionary

Definitions of the Day – April 7, 2024

Ultimatum, n. In diplomacy, a last demand before resorting to concessions.

Un-American, adj. Wicked, intolerable, heathenish.

• Ambrose Bierce, The Devil’s Dictionary

Definitions of the Day – April 4, 2024

Type, n. Pestilent bits of metal suspected of destroying civilization and enlightenment, despite their obvious agency in this incomparable dictionary. 

Tzetze, (or Tsetse) Fly, n.  An African insect (Glossina morsitans) whose bite is commonly regarded as natureʼs most efficacious remedy for insomnia, though some patients prefer that of the American novelist (Mendax interminabilis). 

• Ambrose Bierce, The Devil’s Dictionary