Name: The Devil's Dictionary
ISBN: 9781306336628

The Devil's Dictionary

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.

What Hacker News says

Y_YMay 2025

I like the cut of your jib. May I propose:

Ovaltine Window: You view all politics with distaste because you are drinking a sorry substitute for a cup of tea.

Overtime Window: Rather than continue working extra hours you decide to self-defenestrate

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Further reading:

Ambrose Bierce - The Devil's Dictionary, https://www.gutenberg.org/files/972/972-h/972-h.htm

Douglas Adams - The Meaning of Liff, https://ia601202.us.archive.org/18/items/calibre_library_76....

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l0b0Jan 2020

*The Devil's Dictionary[1] by Ambrose Bierce, a collection of sarcastic definitions, some of which are still funny today:

> LOGIC, n. The art of thinking and reasoning in strict accordance with the limitations and incapacities of the human misunderstanding.

> SELF-EVIDENT, adj. Evident to one's self and to nobody else.

[1] http://thedevilsdictionary.com/

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yesenadamSep 2019

All the essays of Emerson, GK Chesterton, Hazlitt, Oscar Wilde, RL Stevenson, William James

Every book by Nietzsche (except Zarathustra).

La Bruyere - Characters

Charles Mackay - Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds

Ambrose Bierce - The Devil's Dictionary

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SlipperySlopeJan 2015

This is a wonderfully hilarious work of sarcasm, on a level similar to the Devil's Dictionary by Ambrose Bierce.

I chose one item to see what was changed ...

https://github.com/The-Feminist-Software-Foundation/ToleranU...

See you for yourself and have a laugh.

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JohnHaugelandOct 2014

Most of my writing is learned from reading.

A lot of perceived quality is by subconscious shibboleth: they'll think better of you if you don't make the slight errors other people make. Go consume Ambrose Bierce's Devil's Dictionary.

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pacaroMay 2013

I have always enjoyed Ambrose Bierce's definition of a monad in "The Devil's Dictionary"

"MONAD, n. The ultimate, indivisible unit of matter. (See Molecule.) According to Leibnitz, as nearly as he seems willing to be understood, the monad has body without bulk, and mind without manifestation -- Leibnitz knows him by the innate power of considering. He has founded upon him a theory of the universe, which the creature bears without resentment, for the monad is a gentlmean. Small as he is, the monad contains all the powers and possibilities needful to his evolution into a German philosopher of the first class -- altogether a very capable little fellow. He is not to be confounded with the microbe, or bacillus; by its inability to discern him, a good microscope shows him to be of an entirely distinct species."

http://bierce.thefreelibrary.com/The-Devils-Dictionary/13-1

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