Adolescence: A stage between infancy and adultery.

This quip is characteristic of Ambrose Bierce’s satirical lexicon in *The Devil’s Dictionary*, a work he developed over many years in newspaper columns before it appeared in book form in the early twentieth century. Bierce, a journalist and veteran of the American Civil War, specialized in caustic definitions that expose hypocrisy and puncture sentimental language. The entry for “Adolescence” belongs to his broader project of mocking social pieties—here, the era’s moralizing discourse about youth and “coming of age.” By defining the term as a mere interval between “infancy” and “adultery,” Bierce turns a neutral developmental category into a cynical joke about adult vice and social corruption.

Bierce’s definition hinges on a pun: “adolescence” is framed not as a bridge to adulthood but as a corridor leading toward “adultery.” The humor depends on shock and compression—reducing a complex life stage to a single insinuation about sexual temptation and moral lapse. As with many of Bierce’s definitions, the line suggests that society’s supposedly respectable adult world is riddled with vice, and that maturation often means learning (or inheriting) adult hypocrisy rather than attaining wisdom. The joke also undercuts idealized narratives of youthful innocence by implying that the seeds of adult transgression are already present in the transition to maturity.