English language -- Dictionaries -- Humor; English language -- Semantics -- Humor; Vocabulary -- Humor
HOUSE, n. A hollow edifice erected for the habitation of man, rat,
mouse, beetle, cockroach, fly, mosquito, flea, bacillus and microbe.
_House of Correction_, a place of reward for political and personal
service, and for the detention of offenders and appropriations.
_House of God_, a building with a steeple and a mortgage on it.
_House-dog_, a pestilent beast kept on domestic premises to insult
persons passing by and appal the hardy visitor. _House-maid_, a
youngerly person of the opposing sex employed to be variously
disagreeable and ingeniously unclean in the station in which it has
pleased God to place her.
HOUSELESS, adj. Having paid all taxes on household goods.
HOVEL, n. The fruit of a flower called the Palace.
Twaddle had a hovel,
Twiddle had a palace;
Twaddle said: "I'll grovel
Or he'll think I bear him malice"--
A sentiment as novel
As a castor on a chalice.
Down upon the middle
Of his legs fell Twaddle
And astonished Mr. Twiddle,
Who began to lift his noddle.
Feed upon the fiddle-
Faddle flummery, unswaddle
A new-born self-sufficiency and think himself a [mockery.]
G.J.
HUMANITY, n. The human race, collectively, exclusive of the
anthropoid poets.
HUMORIST, n. A plague that would have softened down the hoar
austerity of Pharaoh's heart and persuaded him to dismiss Israel with
his best wishes, cat-quick.
Lo! the poor humorist, whose tortured mind
See jokes in crowds, though still to gloom inclined--
Whose simple appetite, untaught to stray,
His brains, renewed by night, consumes by day.
He thinks, admitted to an equal sty,
A graceful hog would bear his company.
Alexander Poke
HURRICANE, n. An atmospheric demonstration once very common but now
generally abandoned for the tornado and cyclone. The hurricane is
still in popular use in the West Indies and is preferred by certain
old-fashioned sea-captains. It is also used in the construction of
the upper decks of steamboats, but generally speaking, the hurricane's
usefulness has outlasted it.
HURRY, n. The dispatch of bunglers.
HUSBAND, n. One who, having dined, is charged with the care of the
plate.
HYBRID, n. A pooled issue.
HYDRA, n. A kind of animal that the ancients catalogued under many
heads.
HYENA, n. A beast held in reverence by some oriental nations from its
habit of frequenting at night the burial-places of the dead. But the
medical student does that.
HYPOCHONDRIASIS, n. Depression of one's own spirits.
Some heaps of trash upon a vacant lot
Where long the village rubbish had been shot
Displayed a sign among the stuff and stumps--
"Hypochondriasis." It meant The Dumps.
Bogul S. Purvy
HYPOCRITE, n. One who, professing virtues that he does not respect
secures the advantage of seeming to be what he despises.
I
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