Devil's Dictionary

<strong>History</strong> n. an account mostly false of events mostly unimportant which are brought about by rulers mostly knaves and soldiers mostly fools. <strong>Marriage</strong> n. The state or condition of a community consisting of a master a mistress and two slaves making in all two. <strong>Self-Esteem</strong> n. An erroneous appraisement.<br> These caustic aphorisms collected in <em>The Devil's Dictionary</em> helped earn Ambrose Bierce the epithets Bitter Bierce the Devil's Lexicographer and the Wickedest Man in San Francisco. First published as <em>The Cynic's Word Book</em> (1906) and later reissued under its preferred name in 1911 Bierce's notorious collection of barbed definitions forcibly contradicts Samuel Johnson's earlier definition of a lexicographer as a harmless drudge. There was nothing harmless about Ambrose Bierce and the words he shaped into verbal pitchforks a century ago--with or without the devil's help--can still draw blood today.