The Devil's Dictionary

The Devil's Dictionary is a satirical dictionary written by American Civil War soldier, journalist, and short story writer Ambrose Bierce. Consisting of common words followed by "howlingly funny" definitions, the lexicon was written over three decades as a series of installments for magazines and newspapers. Bierce's witty definitions were imitated and plagiarized for years before he gathered them into books, first as The Cynic's Word Book in 1906 and then in a more complete version as The Devil's Dictionary in 1911.