ironical
AmericanOther Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of ironical
Explanation
Something that's ironical is wryly funny, especially because it doesn't match up with your expectations. It would be ironical to name your enormous Great Dane "Tiny." You can describe this kind of humor, situation, or literary device as either ironical or ironic — in the US it's more common to use the latter. A famously ironical passage from "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner" goes like this: "Water, water, everywhere, Nor any drop to drink.” In other words, it's ironical that despite being surrounded by water, the mariner is thirsty. The word comes from the Greek eironikos, "putting on a feigned ignorance."
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Knight has taken the novel’s Gothic elements and smeared them over whatever was light or comical or ironical in the original.
From Los Angeles Times ● Mar. 24, 2023
Nine years her senior, he was brimming with the confident, ironical charm bestowed by élite English schools.
From The New Yorker ● May 13, 2019
It was, Notaro recalls in a deadpan voice that hovers between ironical understatement and embarrassment about all the drama, “a pretty crazy time”.
From The Guardian ● Jun. 11, 2016
If someone else wrote this book, it’d just be a historical novel, but Vonnegut has all these different ironical layers that turn it into something else.
From Washington Post ● Nov. 1, 2015
Our Father takes their ironical and self-interested tone to indicate a lack of genuine grief.
From "The Poisonwood Bible" by Barbara Kingsolver
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
