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Born in Ohio in 1842, journalist, short-story writer and critic Ambrose Bierce developed into one of this country's most celebrated and cynical wits ? a merciless "American Swift" whose literary barbs were aimed at folly, self-delusion, politics, business, religion, literature and the arts. In this splendid "dictionary" of epigrams, essays, verses and vignettes, you'll find over 1,000 pointed definitions, e.g. Congratulation ("The civility of envy"), Coward ("One who in a perilous emergency thinks with his legs") and Historian ("A broad-gauge gossip"). Anyone who likes to laugh will love The Devil's Dictionary. Anyone looking for a bon mot to enliven their next speech, paper or conversation will have a field day thumbing through what H. L. Mencken called "some of the most gorgeous witticisms in the English language."
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Humor, English language, Semantics, Vocabulary, Dictionaries, American wit and humor, Humor (Nonfiction), Nonfiction, Reference, Grammar & Language Usage, Language Arts, Religion & Spirituality, English language, dictionaries, Adventure and adventurers, Buried treasure, Fiction, American literature, Play on words, English language, glossaries, vocabularies, etc., Modern Translations into Greek, humour, American Satire, Satire, american, English language -- Dictionaries -- Humor, English language -- Semantics -- Humor, Vocabulary -- Humor, Humor (grappigheden), Amerikaans, Anglais (Langue), DictionnairesShowing 13 featured editions. View all 312 editions?
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The Devil's Dictionary was begun in a weekly paper in 1881, and was continued in a desultory way at long intervals until 1906. In that year a large part of it was published in covers with the title The Cynic's Word Book, a name which the author had not the power to reject or happiness to approve. To quote the publishers of the present work: "This more reverent title had previously been forced upon him by the religious scruples of the last newspaper in which a part of the work had appeared, with the natural consequence that when it came out in covers the country already had been flooded by its imitators with a score of 'cynic' books - The Cynic's This, The Cynic's That, and The Cynic's t'Other. Most of these books were merely stupid, though some of them added the distinction of silliness. Among them, they brought the word "cynic" into disfavor so deep that any book bearing it was discredited in advance of publication."Meantime, too, some of the enterprising humorists of the country had helped themselves to such parts of the work as served their needs, and many of its definitions, anecdotes, phrases and so forth, had become more or less current in popular speech. This explanation is made, not with any pride of priority in trifles, but in simple denial of possible charges of plagiarism, which is no trifle. In merely resuming his own the author hopes to be held guiltless by those to whom the work is addressed - enlightened souls who prefer dry wines to sweet, sense to sentiment, wit to humor and clean English to slang.
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- Created May 11, 2024
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April 16, 2025 | Edited by MARC Bot | import existing book |
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May 11, 2024 | Edited by Lisa | Edited without comment. |
May 11, 2024 | Edited by Lisa | ocaid |
May 11, 2024 | Created by Lisa | Added new book. |