Chap­ter A unfolds with Bierce’s famil­iar edge, start­ing with Abase­ment, which he defines not as humil­i­ty, but as cal­cu­lat­ed submission—particularly in con­texts of employ­ment or author­i­ty. Rather than depict­ing it as a virtue, he recasts it as a social strat­e­gy, where peo­ple learn to shrink them­selves in order to sur­vive pow­er dynam­ics. The sharp­ness of the def­i­n­i­tion cuts through the illu­sion of dig­ni­ty in hier­ar­chy. For Bierce, the act of low­er­ing one­self is not noble, but nec­es­sary in sys­tems built on dom­i­nance. This per­spec­tive sets the tone for the rest of the chap­ter: a lex­i­con where virtue and vice often switch roles.

Abdi­ca­tion is treat­ed not as a fail­ure, but as a moment of clarity—when a monarch real­izes the absurd weight of their sup­posed pow­er. Bierce cap­tures this with verse, using wit to show how step­ping down may be the only wise act in a ruler’s career. The imagery sug­gests that even thrones can feel like traps. Pow­er, instead of being lib­er­at­ing, becomes bur­den­some and absurd. He reminds us that con­trol often brings dis­com­fort, not pres­tige, and step­ping away is less cow­ardice than san­i­ty. Abdomen, by con­trast, dives into phys­i­cal­i­ty with humor. Men are shown to glo­ri­fy their bel­lies while women are shamed for theirs, a com­men­tary on gen­dered dou­ble stan­dards.

Con­tin­u­ing with Absent, Bierce sat­i­rizes how presence—or its lack—defines a woman’s val­ue in soci­ety. In a few words, he cri­tiques both objec­ti­fi­ca­tion and depen­dence, chal­leng­ing the notion that iden­ti­ty must be affirmed by oth­ers’ acknowl­edg­ment. Absolute, when applied to monar­chy, expos­es the illu­sion of omnipo­tence. The ruler’s word may be law, but Bierce sug­gests that the law is often wield­ed in igno­rance or cru­el­ty. Pow­er isn’t ques­tioned because it’s strong—but because no one dares to ques­tion it. He sub­tly points to how fear mas­quer­ades as loy­al­ty in polit­i­cal sys­tems.

Abstain­er draws atten­tion to how virtue can be worn like a badge. Bierce describes such indi­vid­u­als not as dis­ci­plined but as those who refrain from vice only to boast of it. The irony lies in the fact that the abstain­er’s restraint is less about con­trol and more about per­for­mance. With Advice, the cyn­i­cism deepens—Bierce likens it to some­thing freely giv­en but rarely tak­en, reveal­ing how often peo­ple offer coun­sel not to help, but to assert con­trol. He implies that advice is more about the speak­er than the lis­ten­er, a cur­ren­cy trad­ed for influ­ence rather than care. This entry ques­tions the sin­cer­i­ty behind words that are meant to guide but often serve to dom­i­nate.

Afflic­tion is treat­ed not as suf­fer­ing, but as the world’s nat­ur­al response to human­i­ty. Rather than view­ing pain as mis­for­tune, Bierce sug­gests it is the most pre­dictable part of liv­ing. With this, he shifts per­spec­tive from per­son­al tragedy to uni­ver­sal con­di­tion, hint­ing that suf­fer­ing is less about fail­ure and more about design. Alliance, often praised in pol­i­tics and diplo­ma­cy, is recast as a tem­po­rary truce made for mutu­al ben­e­fit, usu­al­ly dis­card­ed when incon­ve­nient. Bierce cri­tiques how loy­al­ty in alliances is shal­low, forged by con­ve­nience rather than prin­ci­ple. His­to­ry is full of such shifts—alliances bro­ken not by betray­al, but by strat­e­gy.

Ambi­tion is dis­sect­ed with sur­gi­cal pre­ci­sion. For Bierce, it is the desire to climb not for vision or progress, but for van­i­ty. The high­er one climbs, the less one sees of others—because ambi­tion, in his view, nar­rows per­spec­tive. Ances­tor is reimag­ined not as a noble lin­eage, but as a stranger from whom peo­ple steal pres­tige. Bierce’s sar­casm points to how her­itage is often invoked not to hon­or the past, but to bor­row author­i­ty. It’s not about remem­ber­ing, but lever­ag­ing. Ances­try becomes less about con­nec­tion and more about con­ve­nience.

In Auc­tion­eer, Bierce cap­tures the fusion of sales­man­ship and spec­ta­cle. The auc­tion­eer doesn’t just sell goods—he per­forms urgency, manip­u­lat­ing the crowd to inflate val­ue. It’s cap­i­tal­ism wrapped in charis­ma, and Bierce points to how eas­i­ly peo­ple are drawn into the illu­sion of scarci­ty. This manip­u­la­tion mir­rors oth­er forms of per­sua­sion through­out society—political speech­es, moral lec­tures, or legal promises—all designed to sway, not inform. The auc­tion becomes a metaphor for society’s broad­er mar­ket­place of influ­ence, where every­thing, includ­ing atten­tion and belief, is up for sale.

By the end of the chap­ter, Bierce has stripped away the pre­sumed dig­ni­ty of sev­er­al famil­iar terms. Each entry is a minia­ture reflec­tion on how lan­guage can both reveal and obscure. His satire invites read­ers to think critically—not only about def­i­n­i­tions, but about the inten­tions behind them. With sharp prose and bit­ing humor, he expos­es how words serve pow­er, ego, and tra­di­tion more than truth. What begins as a sim­ple dic­tio­nary trans­forms into a lit­er­ary scalpel, cut­ting through cen­turies of cul­tur­al pre­tense. Bierce does not seek to destroy mean­ing, but to reclaim it—from those who’ve used it to deceive.