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THE DEVIL'S DICTIONARY Ambrose Bierce - Sunny Hills High School

THE DEVIL'S DICTIONARY Ambrose Bierce - Sunny Hills High School

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<strong>Ambrose</strong> <strong>Bierce</strong> The Devil’s Dictionary<br />

WIT, n. The salt with which the American humorist spoils his<br />

intellectual cookery by leaving it out.<br />

WITCH, n. (1) Any ugly and repulsive old woman, in a wicked league<br />

with the devil. (2) A beautiful and attractive young woman, in<br />

wickedness a league beyond the devil.<br />

WITTICISM, n. A sharp and clever remark, usually quoted, and seldom<br />

noted; what the Philistine is pleased to call a "joke."<br />

WOMAN, n.<br />

An animal usually living in the vicinity of Man, and having a<br />

rudimentary susceptibility to domestication. It is credited by<br />

many of the elder zoologists with a certain vestigial docility<br />

acquired in a former state of seclusion, but naturalists of the<br />

postsusananthony period, having no knowledge of the seclusion,<br />

deny the virtue and declare that such as creation's dawn beheld,<br />

it roareth now. The species is the most widely distributed of all<br />

beasts of prey, infesting all habitable parts of the globe, from<br />

Greeland's spicy mountains to India's moral strand. The popular<br />

name (wolfman) is incorrect, for the creature is of the cat kind.<br />

The woman is lithe and graceful in its movement, especially the<br />

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