[1] It has been called "howlingly funny",[2] and Wall Street Journal columnist Jason Zweig said in an interview that The Devil's Dictionary is "probably the most brilliant work of satire written in America.

A small handful have witty definitions and became widely quoted, but they were infrequent exceptions to Johnson's learned and serious explanations of word meanings.

He called it "The Demon's Dictionary", and it appeared in the San Francisco News Letter and California Advertiser of 11 December 1875.

One of the most substantial was written by Harry Ellington Brook, the editor of a humor magazine called The Illustrated San Francisco Wasp.

Brook's continuing column of serialized satirical definitions was called "Wasp's Improved Webster in Ten-Cent Doses".

[12] After Bierce left The Wasp, he was hired by William Randolph Hearst to write for his newspaper The San Francisco Examiner in 1887.

[14] In September 1903, Bierce wrote letters to his friend Herman George Scheffauer mentioning he was thinking about a book of his satirical definitions "regularly arranged as in a real dictionary.

On 19 March 1906 Bierce signed a contract with Doubleday, Page & Co. for publication of his book, but without his preferred title The Devil's Dictionary.

[19] Bierce explained to poet and playwright George Sterling: “They (the publishers) won't have The Devil's Dictionary [as a title].

Here in the East the Devil is a sacred personage (the Fourth Person of the Trinity, as an Irishman might say) and his name must not be taken in vain.”[20] Bierce's publishers quickly discovered that they would not be able to use The Cynic's Dictionary for the title either.

To create a typescript for Neale to publish, Bierce first marked up a copy of The Cynic's Word Book with changes and a few additions.

[28] In 1909 publisher Walter Neale began issuing individual volumes in the 12-volume set The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce.

However, in late 1913 or early 1914 the periodical The London Opinion paid Neale for the right to reprint definitions of 787 words from The Devil's Dictionary.

[31] Youth is the true Saturnian Reign, the Golden Age on earth again, when figs are grown on thistles, and pigs betailed with whistles and, wearing silken bristles, live ever in clover, and cows fly over, delivering milk at every door, and Justice is never heard to snore, and every assassin is made a ghost and, howling, is cast into Baltimost!

Some reviewers praised Bierce's book, such as the anonymous critic for the Los Angeles Herald, who wrote: “It is a dictionary of misdefinitions, funny, witty and with an abiding background of humor, a tinge of real philosophy yet never degenerating into cheapness.

It represents a deliberate pose consistently maintained, it is pervaded with a spirit of what a large proportion of readers in a Christian country would pronounce irreverent, it tells us nothing new and can hardly be conceived of as an inspiration for higher or nobler living.

But it is undeniably entertaining reading.”[48] The Athenaeum Journal, one of the most widely circulated literary periodicals in the world, gave The Devil's Dictionary lengthier consideration and observed: “Dealing with a wide range of topics as well as a great number of words, it presents a sort of summary index of the author’s characteristic views as well as his literary aptitudes and poses.

Substantial intellectual value belongs to a great many entries that deal with a few large groups of subjects (politics, philosophy, &c.) that are individually too long for quotation.”[49] Seven years after the book's publication H. L. Mencken, the most influential American literary critic during the first quarter of the twentieth century, praised The Devil's Dictionary highly: “There you will find the most brilliant stuff, first and last, that America has ever produced.

[52] The New York Times reviewed one reprinted edition: “It is a tour de force of no mean proportions, because it is possible to read it from cover to cover without being bored, so amusing are his unexpected turns of caustic humor, so brilliant his flagitious wit and so diverting the verses and dicta of non-existent philosophers as ‘Father Cassalasca Jape, S. J.’, with which he illustrates them.”[53] After receiving attention from reviewers in newspapers and commercial magazines, The Devil's Dictionary started to receive analyses from scholars in dissertations and academic journals.

[56] In an often-cited essay, French author Jacques Sternberg categorized the caustic wit of The Devil's Dictionary as an example of humor noir.

[60] In addition, the many imitators and successors of The Devil's Dictionary occasionally included thoughtful comments on Bierce's achievement.

[61] Scholars came to agree that The Devil's Dictionary is “of primary importance to any study, understanding, or appreciation of Ambrose Bierce.”[62] Critics noted that the Dictionary's definitions are frequently quoted, both with and without attribution, so several of Bierce's observations have been absorbed into American culture, familiar to and repeated by people who have no idea where the witticisms originated.

Critics also noticed that Bierce used his humorous dictionary as a vehicle for moral instruction, as “… he often induced the readers to reexamine the validity of their own thinking.”[63] A critical consensus has evolved that considers The Devil's Dictionary as “An American masterpiece of cynical wit”[64] and "… probably the most brilliant work of satire written in America.