A satiric lexicon first published as "The Cynic's Word Book" in 1906, and later reissued under the author's preferred titled in 1911. Ambrose Bierce was one of the most celebrated reporters of his era and built his literary reputation partly on this work.

The caustic aphorisms collected in "The Devil's Dictionary" helped earn Ambrose Bierce the epithets Bitter Bierce, the Devil's Lexicographer, and the Wickedest Man in San Francisco. The words he shaped into verbal pitchforks a century ago--with or without the devil's help--can still draw blood today.