dramatic irony

American  

[druh-mat-ik ahy-ruh-nee, ahy-er-nee] / drəˈmæt ɪk ˈaɪ rə ni, ˈaɪ ər ni /

noun

1. irony that is inherent in speeches or a situation of a drama and is understood by the audience but not grasped by the characters in the play.

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dramatic irony British  

noun

1. theatre the irony occurring when the implications of a situation, speech, etc, are understood by the audience but not by the characters in the play

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Etymology

Origin of dramatic irony

First recorded in 1905–10

Compare meaning

How does dramatic-irony compare to similar and commonly confused words? Explore the most common comparisons:

• situational irony vs. dramatic irony

Example Sentences

Still, there’s a bittersweet dramatic irony at play because the reader can recognize that Camille is, at least sometimes, yet another of Sailor’s tools.

From Los Angeles Times • Aug. 8, 2025

In a piece of tragically dramatic irony, after a lifetime of imposing his literary opinions on the world, Gilman was rendered unable to speak in his final years.

From Washington Post • Feb. 14, 2023

In “Leopoldstadt,” Stoppard takes dramatic irony — the audience’s grasp of what the characters cannot see — to such an extreme that it becomes the subject itself.

From New York Times • Oct. 2, 2022

Obviously you can't trade too much in dramatic irony, because there's history, but it's definitely the intention to show that these things creep up on us.

From Salon • Apr. 5, 2020

Some love stories are tragedies—epics, spanning years, and built on dramatic irony, wars, Russian winters, and hours of film.

From "Love, Hate & Other Filters" by Samira Ahmed