|
irony
has definitions from the field of rhetoric
|
|
| 1 |
[ noun ] witty language used to convey insults or scorn
Synonyms Examples "he used sarcasm to upset his opponent" "irony is wasted on the stupid" "Satire is a sort of glass, wherein beholders do generally discover everybody's face but their own"--Johathan Swift Used in print (William G. Pollard, Physicist and Christian....)The tragic irony of the play is that the very belief in and concern with a devil who could be met in the woods and combatted with formulae set_out in books was the very thing that prevented them from detecting the real devil when he came among them . (Howard Nemerov, "Themes and Methods: The Early...)The first sentence , with its platitudinous irony , announces an emblematic intent : `` The way to the churchyard ran_along beside the highroad , ran beside it all_the_way to the end ; that_is_to_say , to the churchyard '' . (Guy Bolton, The Olympians....)With a pardonable irony Shelley wrote to the father who had publicly disowned his daughter : (James Thurber, "The Future, If Any, of Comedy,"...)`` The political and intellectual Left began fighting humor and comedy years ago , because they fear things they do not understand and cannot manage , such_as satire and irony , such_as humor and comedy . Related terms |
| 2 |
[ noun ] incongruity between what might be expected and what actually occurs
Examples : "the irony of Ireland's copying the nation she most hated" Used in print (Edward E. Kelly, S.J., "Christian Unity in England"...)One of the ironies of the present crusade for Christian unity is that there are not , relatively speaking , many real Christians to unite . (Guy Endore, Voltaire! Voltaire!...)Oh , the irony and the bitterness of_it ! Related terms |
| 3 |
[ noun ] (rhetoric) a trope that involves incongruity between what is expected and what occurs
Related terms |
| * |
|