| a. | 1. | Made or consisting of iron; partaking of iron; iron; |
| 2. | Resembling iron in taste, hardness, or other physical property. | |
| n. | 1. | |
| 1. | Dissimulation; ignorance feigned for the purpose of confounding or provoking an antagonist. | |
| 2. | A sort of humor, ridicule, or light sarcasm, which adopts a mode of speech the meaning of which is contrary to the literal sense of the words. |
| Noun | 1. | irony - witty language used to convey insults or scorn; "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 |
| 2. | irony - incongruity between what might be expected and what actually occurs; "the irony of Ireland's copying the nation she most hated" | |
| 3. | irony - a trope that involves incongruity between what is expected and what occurs |
IRONY, rhetoric. A term derived from the Greek, which signifies
dissimulation. It is a refined species of ridicule, which, under the mask of
honest simplicity or ignorance, exposes the faults and errors of others, by
seeming to adopt or defend them.
2. In libels, irony may convey imputations more effectually than direct
assertion, and render the publication libelous. Hob. 215; Hawk. B. 1, c. 73,
s. 4; 3 Chit. Cr. Law, 869, Bac. Ab. Libel, A 3.
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