Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
Definition: Irony |
IronyNoun1. Witty language used to convey insults or scorn; "he used sarcasm to upset his opponent"; "irony is wasted on the stupid". 2. Incongruity between what might be expected and what actually occurs: "the irony of Ireland's copying the nation she most hated". 3. A trope that involves incongruity between what is expected and what occurs. Source: WordNet 1.7.1 Copyright © 2001 by Princeton University. All rights reserved. |
Date "irony" was first used in popular English literature: sometime before 1550. (references) |
| Domain | Definition |
Literature | Irony A dissembling. (Greek, eiron, a dissembler, cironeia.) "So grave a body upon so solemn an occasion should not deal in irony, or explain their meaning by contraries." - Swift. Source: Brewer's Dictionary. |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)
Irony (Gr. είρωνεία (eironeia), from είρων (eiron): one who says less than he means, hypocrite, είρειν (eirein): to speak), a form of speech in which the real meaning is concealed or contradicted by the words used. Irony involves the perception that things are not what they are said to be or what they seem. Dramatic irony lies in the audience's deeper perceptions of a coming fate, which contrast with the character's perceptions.
H. W. Fowler, in Modern English Usage, had this to say of irony:
- Irony is a form of utterance that postulates a double audience, consisting of one party that hearing shall hear and shall not understand, and another party that, when more is meant than meets the ear, is aware, both of that 'more' and of the outsider's incomprehension.
Socratic Irony
The Greek word eironeia applied particularly to understatement in the nature of dissimulation. Such irony occurred especially and notably in the assumed ignorance which Socrates adopted as a method of dialectic, the "Socratic irony." Socratic irony involves a profession of ignorance that disguises a skeptical, non-committed attitude towards some dogma or universal opinion that lacks a basis in reason or in logic. Socrates' "innocent" inquiries expose step by step the vanity or illogicality of the proposition. The irony entertains those onlookers who know that Socrates is wiser than he permits himself to appear and who may perceive slightly in advance the direction the "naive" questioning will take. Fowler describes it:
- The two parties in his audience were, first, the dogmatist, moved by pity and contempt to enlighten this ignorance, and, secondly, those who knew their Socrates and set themselves to watch the familiar game in which learning should be turned inside out by simplicity.
Irony and sarcasm
Heavy-handed irony, in which a speaker emphatically states the flat opposite of the truth - perhaps with accompanying body language to deny the words - exemplifies the form of irony called sarcasm. People may particularly employ sarcasm for the purpose of ridicule, mockery or contempt, frequently uttering a sarcastic phrase.An example of sarcastic speech might be a response such as "Well done" or "Great job", said in an angry tone to a worker who has done something wrong. An ironic "Well done" would come when a fire-fighter across the street from a burning building sees a child on the window ledge and dashes across through traffic to catch the falling child in his arms. Both the speaker and the fire-fighter understand that "Well done" doesn't begin to express the half of it. They share a perception of irony.
Examples of ironic incidents might involve the eviction of a landlord from his or her home, or the death of an atheist killed by a falling cross. In the first case, an incongruity exists between what happens (the person is evicted) and what is expected (the person normally rents homes to others); in the second case, a strong contrast emerges between the person's beliefs and his or her apparent fate.
Use of irony
The word "irony" is frequently used figuratively, especially in such phrases as "the irony of fate," of an issue or result that seems to contradict normal expectations derived from the previous state or condition.In tragedy, what is called "tragic irony" becomes a device for heightening the intensity of a dramatic situation. Tragic irony particularly characterised the drama of ancient Greece, owing to the familiarity of the spectators with the legends on which so many of the plays were based. In this form of irony the words and actions of the characters belie the real situation, which the spectators fully realize. It may take several forms: the character speaking may realise the irony of his words while the rest of the actors may not; or he or she may be unconscious while the other actors share the knowledge with the spectators; or the spectators may alone realize the irony. Sophocles' Oedipus the King provides a classic example of tragic irony at its fullest and finest.
Irony may come to expression in inappropriate behavior. A witness to a scene involving threats of violence, for example, may perceive continued politeness on the part of the victim as increasingly ironic as it becomes increasingly inappropriate. Sometimes the "second" audience is the private self of the ironist.
When not recognised, irony can lead to misunderstanding. Even if an ironic statement is recognized as such, it often expresses less clearly what the speaker or writer wants to say than would a direct statement.
Misuse of the term "irony"
"Ironic" is often misused in common speech instead of the term "coincidental": "Oh, isn't that ironic! I was just about to call you!" Thus, one of Alanis Morissette's most famous songs, "Ironic", portrays a series of unfortunate or unusual events, trivial oddities that the singer presents to the listener with the refrain "isn't it ironic, don't you think?". Various enthusiastic Internet writers have taken it upon themselves to prove at great length that Morissette's examples meet the definition of irony or that they do not, which itself could be interpreted as ironic, to an observer aware of Alanis Morissette's subtext (because one would expect the examples to be ironic, thus the fact that they are not could be considered itself ironic). [1], [1]The importance of irony
Much postmodernism sees self-aware irony as central to its own operation.Some sociologistss see irony as fundamental to the operation of society.
See also
- jargon
External Link
- An article from The Guardian about irony in today's world
Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia under a copyleft GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) from the article "Irony."
Synonyms: IronySynonyms: caustic remark (n), sarcasm (n), satire (n). (additional references) |
| Context | Synonyms within Context (source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus). |
Disrespect | Vilipendency, vilification, contumely, affront, dishonor, insult, indignity, outrage, discourtesy; practical joking; scurrility, scoffing, sibilance, hissing, sibilation; irrision; derision; mockery; irony; (ridicule); sarcasm. |
Metaphor | Phrase; figure, trope, metaphor, enallage, catachresis; metonymy, synecdoche; autonomasia, irony, figurativeness; Adjective: image, imagery; metalepsis, type, anagoge, simile, personification, prosopopoeia, allegory, apologue, parable, fable; allusion, adumbration; application. |
Ridicule | Noun: ridicule, derision; sardonic smile, sardonic grin; irrision; scoffing; (disrespect); mockery, quiz, banter, irony, persiflage, raillery, chaff, badinage; quizzing; Verb: asteism. |
Untruth | Irony; half truth, white lie, pious fraud; mental reservation; (concealment). |
| Source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus. | |
Crosswords: Irony |
| English words defined with "irony": Aha, antiphrasis, Asteism ♦ deliberate, detected, dramatic irony ♦ indeed, ironist ♦ Marianne Craig Moore, Marianne Moore, Moore ♦ permeant, permeating, permeative, pervasive ♦ ridiculer ♦ satirist, studied ♦ The five wits. (references) |
| Specialty definitions using "irony": Irony of Fate ♦ O'Doherty ♦ Share and enjoy!, smurf. (references) |
| Etymologies containing "irony": ironical. (references) |
| Non-English Usage: "Irony" is also a word in the following language with the English translation in parentheses. Frisian (irony). |
| Domain | Usage | |
Screenplays | Fate, it seems, is not without a sense of irony. (The Matrix; writing credit: Andy Wachowski and Larry Wachowski.) The world changes, we do not, there lies the irony that finally kills us. (Interview With the Vampire; writing credit: Anne Rice) Why? Well for obvious reasons, anarchy, the only system of government that seemed to make any sense to us at all. And the irony was, well we had made it through (S.L.C. Punk!; writing credit: James Merendino.) Define irony. Irony is a bunch of idiots singing a song on plane made famous by a band that died in a plane crash (Con Air; writing credit: Scott Michael Rosenberg.) Yeah, yeah, I see the irony. (Seinfeld; writing credit: Andreas Lenze; Bea Schmidt) | |
Lyrics | You said that irony was the shackles of youth (What's The Frequency, Kenneth?; performing artist: R.E.M.) | |
Movie/TV Titles | The Irony of Justice (1916) | |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | ||
| Domain | Title |
Books | |
Theater & Movies | |
Music |
|
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
 |
| "Grater 1" by Erika Thorpe Commentary: "Well there's nothing much to say it's just a cheese grater....the irony of this object is that I'm allergic to dairy products so I use it not for cheese but for grating carrots." |
Source: photographs selected by the editor, with permission from the photographers. |
| Author | Quotation |
Edwin P. Whipple | Irony is an insult conveyed in the form of a compliment. |
Friedrich Schlegel | Irony is the form of paradox. Paradox is what is good and great at the same time. |
Rufus Choate | Neither irony nor sarcasm is argument. |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references. | |
| Title | Author | Quote |
Les Miserables | Hugo, Victor | He replaced his teeth by jests, his hair by joy, his health by irony, and his weeping eye was always laughing |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references. | ||
| Speaker | Phrase(s) |
Dennis Miller | You're a zealot if you can't see the blinding irony inherent in using force to convince other people that your belief about the unknowable is more accurate than their belief in the unknowable. |
Sela Ward | Which is a wonderful irony, I have property there. I go back every chance I get. One of the main reasons I actually wrote the book, agreed to write it having never wanted to do that in my life, very intimidating by the way to write a book. |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| "Irony" is generally used as a noun (singular) -- approximately 100.00% of the time. "Irony" is used about 938 times out of a sample of 100 million words spoken or written in English. Its rank is based on over 700,000 words used in the English language. Some parts-of-speech are not covered due to the samples used by the British National Corpus. (note: percents less than one-hundredth of one percent have been omitted) |
| Parts of Speech | Percent | Usage per 100 Million Words | Rank in English |
| Noun (singular) | 100% | 938 | 7,718 |
Source: compiled by the editor from several corpora; see credits.
Expressions using "irony": a touch of irony ♦ biting irony ♦ dramatic irony ♦ irony of fate ♦ nobody can touch him in irony ♦ socratic irony. Additional references. | |
| Hyphenated Usage | |
Beginning with "irony": irony-clad. | |
Ending with "irony": self-irony. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| The following statistics estimate the number of searches per day across the major English-language search engines as identified by various trade publications. Hyperlinks lead to commercial use of the expression at Amazon.com. |
| Language | Translations for "irony"; alternative meanings/domain in parentheses. | |
Albanian | ironi, i hekurt (iron). (various references) | |
Arabic | تهكم (deride, flippancy, gibe, jeer, mockery, persiflage, quip, ridicule, sarcasm, satire, taunt), تعبير ساخر (cynicism), سخرية (burlesque, derision, fling, gibe, humor, humour, jeer, lampoon, laughter, mockery, persiflage, quip, ridicule, rub, sarcasm, scoff, scorn, shy, snap, sneer, spoof, taunt, tee-hee, tehee, twit, wit). (various references) | |
Bulgarian | железен (ferreous, ferrous, iron), ирония. (various references) | |
Chinese | 諷刺 (satire), 反语 (ironic). (various references) | |
Czech | ironie. (various references) | |
Dutch | ironie. (various references) | |
Esperanto | ironio. (various references) | |
Faeroese | spei (acidness, sarcasm). (various references) | |
Farsi | پنهان سازی , مسخره (Clown, Dult, Fool, Hobbyhorse, Jeer, Mockery, Mower, Rustic, Sikt, Spoof, Witticism, Zany), گوشه وکنایه واستهزاء , وارونه گوءی , تمسخر (Derision, Scoff, Scorn, Sneer), سخریه (Satire), طنز (Jeer, Quip, Satire, Scoff), طعنه (Jape, Jeer, Jest, Quip, Rail, Sarcasm, Satire, Scoff, Sikt, Taunt). (various references) | |
Finnish | iva (derision, mockery). (various references) | |
French | ironie. (various references) | |
Frisian | irony. (various references) | |
German | Ironie. (various references) | |
Greek | ειρωνεία (sneer), ειρωνία. (various references) | |
Hebrew | לגלוג (derision, jeer, laugh at, mock, mockery, ridicule, sneer, taunt), אירוניה. (various references) | |
Hungarian | irónia, gúny (jest, mock, ridicule, sarcasm, scorn, taunt, taunting). (various references) | |
Indonesian | ejekan (derision, hooting, mockery, ridicule). (various references) | |
Italian | ironia. (various references) | |
Japanese Kanji | 諷刺 (innuendo, lampoon, sarcasm, satire), 反語 (antonym, rhetorical question, word in reverse), イメージ調査 (99.999999999 percent., bad bounce, bad hop, ear protector, ear valve, earmark, earphone, earring, eleven, eleven nines, eraser, eruption, Ile de France, illegal, Illinois, illumination, illumination control, illusion, illustrated map, illustration, illustrator, image change, image survey, in, include, income, income gain, income tax, increment, incremental, incremental business, incubate, incubation, incubator, ink, inn, Iran, Iraq, iridium, Iroquois, irrational, irregular, irregular bound, yearbook, year-round fashion), アイボリー板紙 (eyelash curler, eyeline, guide dog, iris, iron, ironical, ivory paper, Seeing Eye dog). (various references) | |
Japanese Katakana | ふうし (appearance, Confucius, demeanor, innuendo, lampoon, sarcasm, satire, term of address for a teacher, wind god), イロニー , アイロニー , はんご (antonym, rhetorical question, word in reverse). (various references) | |
Korean | 반어 (ironic, ironical). (various references) | |
Manx | gamlagh (speaking ironically), craid (derision, jeer, mockery, scoffing), amlaght. (various references) | |
Norwegian | ironi. (various references) | |
Papiamen | ironia. (various references) | |
Pig Latin | ironyay.(various references) | |
Portuguese | ironia (a fat lot of good, banter, dig, jerk, satire). (various references) | |
Romanian | ironie (severity, taunt), de fier (cast iron, iron, steely). (various references) | |
Russian | ирония (satire). (various references) | |
Serbo-Croatian | ironija, gvozden (iron). (various references) | |
Spanish | ironía. (various references) | |
Swedish | ironi. (various references) | |
Thai | ถ้อยคำแดกดัน. (various references) | |
Turkish | alay (banter, cortege, derision, fleet, fun, gag, gibe, jape, jeer, jest, jibe, joke, leg pull, mock, mockery, parade, persiflage, procession, quiz, regiment, regimental, ridicule, rub, scoff, sneer, taunt, teasing, troops in line, wipe). (various references) | |
Turkmen | kinaяa. (various references) | |
Ukrainian | іронія. (various references) | |
Vietnamese | sự mỉa mai (ironicalness), sự mỉa (ironicalness), sự châm biếm $Socratic, giống thép, giống gang. (various references) | |
Welsh | gwatwariaeth, gwatwareg (sarcasm, satire), eironi. (various references) | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various translation references. | ||
| Language | Period | Translations |
| Latin | 500 BCE-Modern | ahavva, inlusio, inlusiones, inlusionibus. (various references) |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references. | ||
Misspellings | |
"Irony" is suggested in spellcheckers for the following: erny, Eroni, eronym, frony, Hiranya, iony, iorn, irany, irent, irey, Irfon, irgon, Irini, Irion, irlon, iro, irone, ironey, ironia, ironie, ironly, irono, ironr, irro, Irun, itony, Itron, Kilrenny, krony, Oronya, Ortony, rion, Rioni, rony, Sironi, yony. (additional references) | |
| Source: compiled by the editor, based on several corpora (additional references). | |
| # of Phoneme Matches | Pronunciation | Word(s) rhyming with "irony" (pronounced ī"runē) |
| 4 | -r u n ē | tyranny. |
| 3 | -u n ē | accompany, aborigine, agony, balcony, botany, cacophony, colony, company, destiny, disharmony, larceny, ebony, Epiphany, felony, gluttony, harmony, hegemony, hominy, homogeny, intercompany, intracompany, litany, mahogany, misogyny, monotony, mutiny, neoteny, ontogeny, paleobotany, Peony, phylogeny, polygyny, polyphony, progeny, Saxony, scrutiny, simony, Symphony, Tiffany. |
Source: compiled by the editor (additional references); see credits. | ||
Scrabble® Enable2K-Verified Anagrams | |
| Words within the letters "i-n-o-r-y" | |
-1 letter: inro, iron, noir, nori, yoni. | |
-2 letters: ion, nor, rin, yin, yon. | |
-3 letters: in, no, on, or, oy, yo. | |
| Words containing the letters "i-n-o-r-y" | |
+1 letter: briony, rosiny. | |
+2 letters: cornily, cryonic, hornily, introfy, joinery, ribbony, signory, tyronic. | |
+3 letters: acrimony, agrimony, baryonic, boringly, bryonies, caryotin, cousinry, cronyism, cryonics, drypoint, enormity, foraying, glorying, gyration, hydronic, incisory, karyotin, minatory, minority, monitory, moronity, myrmidon, nitrosyl, nondairy, ordinary, punitory, pyranoid, pyrenoid, pyronine, renotify, rovingly, seignory, signiory, sonority, storying, stroying, thornily, thyroxin, tyrosine, vanitory, worrying. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. SCRABBLE® is a registered trademark. All intellectual property rights in and to the game are owned in the U.S.A and Canada by Hasbro Inc., and throughout the rest of the world by J.W. Spear & Sons Limited of Maidenhead, Berkshire, England, a subsidiary of Mattel Inc. Mattel and Spear are not affiliated with Hasbro. | |
| 1. Definition 2. Synonyms 3. Crosswords 4. Usage: Modern | 5. Usage: Commercial 6. Images: Slideshow 7. Images: Digital Art 8. Quotations: Familiar | 9. Quotations: Fiction 10. Quotations: Spoken 11. Usage Frequency 12. Expressions | 13. Expressions: Internet 14. Translations: Modern 15. Translations: Ancient 16. Derivations | 17. Rhymes 18. Anagrams 19. Bibliography |
Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
