The Devil’s Dictionary: Z

zany, n. A popular +character in old Italian plays, who imitated with ludicrous incompetence the buffone, or clown, and was therefore the +ape of an ape; for the clown himself imitated the serious characters of the +play. The zany was progenitor to the specialist in humor, as we to-day have the +unhappiness to know him. In the zany we see an example of creation; in the +humorist, of transmission. Another excellent specimen of the modern zany is the +curate, who apes the rector, who apes the bishop, who apes the archbishop, who +apes the devil.

Zanzibari, n. An +inhabitant of the Sultanate of Zanzibar, off the eastern coast of Africa. The +Zanzibaris, a warlike people, are best known in this country through a +threatening diplomatic incident that occurred a few years ago. The American +consul at the capital occupied a dwelling that faced the sea, with a sandy +beach between. Greatly to the scandal of this official’s family, and against +repeated remonstrances of the official himself, the people of the city +persisted in using the beach for bathing. One day a woman came down to the edge +of the water and was stooping to remove her attire (a pair of sandals) when the +consul, incensed beyond restraint, fired a charge of bird-shot into the most +conspicuous part of her person. Unfortunately for the existing entente cordiale between two great +nations, she was the Sultana.

zeal, n. A certain +nervous disorder afflicting the young and inexperienced. A passion that goeth +before a sprawl.

When Zeal sought Gratitude for his reward
+He went away exclaiming: “O my Lord!”
+“What do you want?” the Lord asked, bending down.
+“An ointment for my cracked and bleeding crown.”

+ +

Jum Coople

zenith, n. The +point in the heavens directly overhead to a man standing or a growing cabbage. A +man in bed or a cabbage in the pot is not considered as having a zenith, though +from this view of the matter there was once a considerably dissent among the +learned, some holding that the posture of the body was immaterial. These were +called Horizontalists, their opponents, Verticalists. The Horizontalist heresy +was finally extinguished by Xanobus, the philosopher-king of Abara, a zealous +Verticalist. Entering an assembly of philosophers who were debating the matter, +he cast a severed human head at the feet of his opponents and asked them to +determine its zenith, explaining that its body was hanging by the heels +outside. Observing that it was the head of their leader, the Horizontalists +hastened to profess themselves converted to whatever opinion the Crown might be +pleased to hold, and Horizontalism took its place among fides defuncti.

Zeus, n. The chief +of Grecian gods, adored by the Romans as Jupiter and by the modern Americans as +God, Gold, Mob and Dog. Some explorers who have touched upon the shores of +America, and one who professes to have penetrated a considerable distance to +the interior, have thought that these four names stand for as many distinct +deities, but in his monumental work on Surviving Faiths, Frumpp insists that +the natives are monotheists, each having no other god than himself, whom he +worships under many sacred names.

zigzag, v.t. To +move forward uncertainly, from side to side, as one carrying the white man’s +burden. (From zed, z, and jag, +an Icelandic word of unknown meaning.)

He zedjagged so uncomen wyde
+Thet non coude pas on eyder syde;
+So, to com saufly thruh, I been
+Constreynet for to doodge betwene.

+ +

Munwele

zoology, n. The science +and history of the animal kingdom, including its king, the House Fly (Musca +maledicta). The father of Zoology was Aristotle, as is universally conceded, +but the name of its mother has not come down to us. Two of the science’s most +illustrious expounders were Buffon and Oliver Goldsmith, from both of whom we +learn (L’Histoire generale des animaux and A History of Animated Nature) +that the domestic cow sheds its horn every two years.