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by Ambrose Bierce

　　OATH,n. In law, a solemn appeal to the Deity, made binding upon the conscienceby a penalty for perjury.OBLIVION, n. The state or condition in which the wicked ceasefrom struggling and the dreary are at rest. Fame's eternal dumping ground.Cold storage for high hopes. A place where ambitious authors meet theirworks without pride and their betters without envy. A dormitory withoutan alarm clock.

　　OBSERVATORY, n. A place where astronomers conjecture away theguesses of their predecessors.

　　OBSESSED, p.p. Vexed by an evil spirit, like the Gadarene swineand other critics. Obsession was once more common than it is now. Arasthustells of a peasant who was occupied by a different devil for every dayin the week, and on Sundays by two. They were frequently seen, alwayswalking in his shadow, when he had one, but were finally driven away bythe village notary, a holy man; but they took the peasant with them, forhe vanished utterly. A devil thrown out of a woman by the Archbishop ofRheims ran through the trees, pursued by a hundred persons, until theopen country was reached, where by a leap higher than a church spire heescaped into a bird. A chaplain in Cromwell's army exorcised a soldier'sobsessing devil by throwing the soldier into the water, when the devilcame to the surface. The soldier, unfortunately, did not.

　　OBSOLETE, adj. No longer used by the timid. Said chiefly of words.A word which some lexicographer has marked obsolete is ever thereafteran object of dread and loathing to the fool writer, but if it is a goodword and has no exact modern equivalent equally good, it is good enoughfor the good writer. Indeed, a writer's attitude toward "obsolete"words is as true a measure of his literary ability as anything exceptthe character of his work. A dictionary of obsolete and obsolescent wordswould not only be singularly rich in strong and sweet parts of speech;it would add large possessions to the vocabulary of every competent writerwho might not happen to be a competent reader.

　　OBSTINATE, adj. Inaccessible to the truth as it is manifest inthe splendor and stress of our advocacy. The popular type and exponentof obstinacy is the mule, a most intelligent animal.

　　OCCASIONAL, adj. Afflicting us with greater or less frequency.That, however, is not the sense in which the word is used in the phrase"occasional verses," which are verses written for an "occasion,"such as an anniversary, a celebration or other event. True, they afflictus a little worse than other sorts of verse, but their name has no referenceto irregular recurrence.

　　OCCIDENT, n. The part of the world lying west (or east) of theOrient. It is largely inhabited by Christians, a powerful subtribe ofthe Hypocrites, whose principal industries are murder and cheating, whichthey are pleased to call "war" and "commerce." These,also, are the principal industries of the Orient.

　　OCEAN, n. A body of water occupying about two-thirds of a worldmade for man -- who has no gills.

　　OFFENSIVE, adj. Generating disagreeable emotions or sensations,as the advance of an army against its enemy. "Were the enemy's tacticsoffensive?" the king asked. "I should say so! " repliedthe unsuccessful general. "The blackguard wouldn't come out of hisworks!"

　　OLD, adj. In that stage of usefulness which is not inconsistentwith general inefficiency, as an _old man_. Discredited by lapse of timeand offensive to the popular taste, as an _old_ book.

　　"Old books? The devil take them!" Goby said.

　　"Fresh every day must be my books and bread."

　　Nature herself approves the Goby rule

　　And gives us every moment a fresh fool.

　　Harley Shum

　　OLEAGINOUS, adj. Oily, smooth, sleek. Disraeli once describedthe manner of Bishop Wilberforce as "unctuous, oleaginous, saponaceous."And the good prelate was ever afterward known as Soapy Sam. For everyman there is something in the vocabulary that would stick to him likea second skin. His enemies have only to find it.

　　OLYMPIAN, adj. Relating to a mountain in Thessaly, once inhabitedby gods, now a repository of yellowing newspapers, beer bottles and mutilatedsardine cans, attesting the presence of the tourist and his appetite.

　　His name the smirking tourist scrawls

　　Upon Minerva's temple walls,

　　Where thundered once Olympian Zeus,

　　And marks his appetite's abuse.

　　Averil Joop

　　OMEN, n. A sign that something will happen if nothing happens.

　　ONCE, adv. Enough.

　　OPERA, n. A play representing life in another world, whose inhabitantshave 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 leadsinto the jail yard.

　　OPPORTUNITY, n. A favorable occasion for grasping a disappointment.

　　OPPOSE, v. To assist with obstructions and objections.

　　How lonely he who thinks to vex

　　With bandinage the Solemn Sex!

　　Of levity, Mere Man, beware;

　　None but the Grave deserve the Unfair.

　　Percy P. Orminder

　　OPPOSITION, n. In politics the party that prevents the Governmentfrom

　　running amuck by hamstringing it. The King of Ghargaroo, who had beenabroad to study the science of government, appointed one hundred of hisfattest subjects as members of a parliament to make laws for the collectionof revenue. Forty of these he named the Party of Opposition and had hisPrime Minister carefully instruct them in their duty of opposing everyroyal measure. Nevertheless, the first one that was submitted passed unanimously.Greatly displeased, the King vetoed it, informing the Opposition thatif they did that again they would pay for their obstinacy with their heads.The entire forty promptly disemboweled themselves. "What shall wedo now?" the King asked. "Liberal institutions cannot be maintainedwithout a party of Opposition." "Splendor of the universe,"replied the Prime Minister, "it is true these dogs of darkness haveno longer their credentials, but all is not lost. Leave the matter tothis worm of the dust." So the Minister had the bodies of his Majesty'sOpposition

　　embalmed and stuffed with straw, put back into the seats of power andnailed there. Forty votes were recorded against every bill and the nationprospered. But one day a bill imposing a tax on warts was defeated --the members of the Government party had not been nailed to their seats!This so enraged the King that the Prime Minister was put to death, theparliament was dissolved with a battery of artillery, and government ofthe people, by the people, for the people perished from Ghargaroo.

　　OPTIMISM, n. The doctrine, or belief, that everything is beautiful,including what is ugly, everything good, especially the bad, and everythingright that is wrong. It is held with greatest tenacity by those most accustomedto the mischance of falling into adversity, and is most acceptably expoundedwith the grin that apes a smile. Being a

　　blind faith, it is inaccessible to the light of disproof -- an intellectualdisorder, yielding to no treatment but death. It is hereditary, but fortunatelynot contagious.

　　OPTIMIST, n. A proponent of the doctrine that black is white.A pessimist applied to God for relief. "Ah, you wish me to restoreyour hope and cheerfulness," said God."No," replied thepetitioner, "I wish you to create something that would justify them.""The world is all created," said God, "but you have overlookedsomething -- the mortality of the optimist."

　　ORATORY, n. A conspiracy between speech and action to cheat theunderstanding. A tyranny tempered by stenography.

　　ORPHAN, n. A living person whom death has deprived of the powerof filial ingratitude -- a privation appealing with a particular eloquenceto all that is sympathetic in human nature. When young the orphan is commonlysent to an asylum, where by careful cultivation of its rudimentary senseof locality it is taught to know its place. It is then instructed in thearts of dependence and servitude and eventually turned loose to prey uponthe world as a bootblack or scullery maid.

　　ORTHODOX, n. An ox wearing the popular religious joke.

　　ORTHOGRAPHY, n. The science of spelling by the eye instead ofthe ear. Advocated with more heat than light by the outmates of everyasylum for the insane. They have had to concede a few things since thetime of Chaucer, but are none the less hot in defence of those to be concededhereafter.

　　A spelling reformer indicted

　　For fudge was before the court cicted.

　　The judge said: "Enough --

　　His candle we'll snough,

　　And his sepulchre shall not be whicted."

　　OSTRICH, n. A large bird to which (for its sins, doubtless) naturehas denied that hinder toe in which so many pious naturalists have seena conspicuous evidence of design. The absence of a good working pair ofwings is no defect, for, as has been ingeniously pointed out, the ostrichdoes not fly.

　　OTHERWISE, adv. No better.

　　OUTCOME, n. A particular type of disappointment. By the kind ofintelligence that sees in an exception a proof of the rule the wisdomof an act is judged by the outcome, the result. This is immortal nonsense;the wisdom of an act is to be juded by the light that the doer had whenhe performed it.

　　OUTDO, v.t. To make an enemy.

　　OUT-OF-DOORS, n. That part of one's environment upon which nogovernment has been able to collect taxes. Chiefly useful to inspire poets.

　　I climbed to the top of a mountain one day

　　To see the sun setting in glory,

　　And I thought, as I looked at his vanishing ray,

　　Of a perfectly splendid story.

　　'Twas about an old man and the ass he bestrode

　　Till the strength of the beast was o'ertested;

　　Then the man would carry him miles on the road

　　Till Neddy was pretty well rested.

　　The moon rising solemnly over the crest

　　Of the hills to the east of my station

　　Displayed her broad disk to the darkening west

　　Like a visible new creation.

　　And I thought of a joke (and I laughed till I cried)

　　Of an idle young woman who tarried

　　About a church-door for a look at the bride,

　　Although 'twas herself that was married.

　　To poets all Nature is pregnant with grand

　　Ideas -- with thought and emotion.

　　I pity the dunces who don't understand

　　The speech of earth, heaven and ocean.

　　Stromboli Smith

　　OVATION, n. n ancient Rome, a definite, formal pageant in honorof one who had been disserviceable to the enemies of the nation. A lesser"triumph." In modern English the word is improperly used tosignify any loose and spontaneous expression of popular homage to thehero of the hour and place.

　　"I had an ovation!" the actor man said,

　　But I thought it uncommonly queer,

　　That people and critics by him had been led

　　By the ear.

　　The Latin lexicon makes his absurd

　　Assertion as plain as a peg;

　　In "ovum" we find the true root of the word.

　　It means egg.

　　Dudley Spink

　　OVEREAT, v. To dine.

　　Hail, Gastronome, Apostle of Excess,

　　Well skilled to overeat without distress!

　　Thy great invention, the unfatal feast,

　　Shows Man's superiority to Beast.

　　John Boop

　　OVERWORK, n. A dangerous disorder affecting high public functionarieswho want to go fishing.

　　OWE, v. To have (and to hold) a debt. The word formerly signifiednot indebtedness, but possession; it meant "own," and in theminds of debtors there is still a good deal of confusion between assetsand liabilities.

　　OYSTER, n. A slimy, gobby shellfish which civilization gives menthe hardihood to eat without removing its entrails! The shells are sometimesgiven to the poor.