n.
Pronunciation: ' ī -r ə -n ē also ' ī (- ə )r-n ē
Function: noun
Inflected Form: plural -nies
Etymology: Latin ironia, from Greek eir ō nia, from eir ō n dissembler
Date: 1502
1 : a pretense of ignorance and of willingness to learn from another assumed in order to make the other's false conceptions conspicuous by adroit questioning ― called also Socratic irony
2 a : the use of words to express something other than and especially the opposite of the literal meaning b : a usually humorous or sardonic literary style or form characterized by irony c : an ironic expression or utterance
3 a (1) : incongruity between the actual result of a sequence of events and the normal or expected result (2) : an event or result marked by such incongruity b : incongruity between a situation developed in a drama and the accompanying words or actions that is understood by the audience but not by the characters in the play ― called also dramatic irony tragic irony
synonyms see WIT