D is for "The Devil's Dictionary" (No. 57 in a series)

The Devil's Dictionary is a satirical dictionary written by Ambrose Bierce (1842-c.1914, caricatured above by David Levine). Bierce was an American author who began the book as a newspaper serial. First published in 1906 as The Cynic's Word Book, it was retitled in 1911, using the name we know it by today, which is the title that Bierce preferred. Some of the definitions have not aged all that well, but many have.

DOG, n. A kind of additional or subsidiary Deity designed to catch the overflow and surplus of the world's worship. This Divine Being in some of his smaller and silkier incarnations takes, in the affection of Woman, the place to which there is no human male aspirant. The Dog is a survival—an anachronism. He toils not, neither does he spin, yet Solomon in all his glory never lay upon a door-mat all day long, sun-soaked and fly-fed and fat, while his master worked for the means wherewith to purchase the idle wag of the Solomonic tail, seasoned with a look of tolerant recognition.