ironize

American  

[ahy-er-nahyz] / ˈaɪ ərˌnaɪz /

especially British,, ironise

verb (used with object)

ironized, ironizing

1. to make ironical.

2. to add iron (to a substance).

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verb (used without object)

ironized, ironizing

1. to use irony or speak ironically.

ironize British  

/ ˈaɪrəˌnaɪz /

verb

1. (intr) to use or indulge in irony

2. (tr) to make ironic or use ironically

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Other Word Forms

• ironist
  noun

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Etymology

Origin of ironize

First recorded in 1635–45; from Greek eirōnízesthai “to pretend ignorance, dissemble, understate; treat with sarcasm”; see origin at irony ¹ ( def. ), -ize ( def. )

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Example Sentences

See Examples For:

ironize ironized ironizing

My self-deprecating commentary—“nothing more embarrassing than being complimented on your Twitter thread”—never quite manages to ironize itself out of what it is: a plea for attention among infinite other pleas for attention.

From The Verge ● Sep. 12, 2018

I suppose its general intent is to serve for a woman who wants to distinguish, and perhaps to ironize, her participation in the entrenched trend of military wear by professing unconcern with style.

From The New Yorker ● Jun. 21, 2018

We have become used to titles that ironize or undercut what we are looking at, providing conceptual scaffolding for feeble visual ideas, or weak punch lines to duller jokes.

From The New Yorker ● Jun. 12, 2017

In Teutonic techno pokerface, the track makes Kraftwerk-like fun of smartphone marketing, a definite nose-tweak to Ocean’s sponsors at Apple, serving to ironize and queer the very medium that’s delivering the music.

From Slate ● Aug. 22, 2016

To casually and sloppily take down, to ironize, to sneer comes very naturally to us, we can do it in our sleep, but to care, to try, to want, are harder.

From Slate ● Oct. 27, 2011

Social media’s mantra “lol nothing matters” was elevated to religion, the 21st century’s efficient, ironized update to existentialism.

From New York Times ● Jan. 19, 2021

This might work if the clichés were ironized or if the characters had inner lives, but the stock scenarios are deployed in earnest, and inside the characters’ heads we find bundles of pat insecurities.”

From Los Angeles Times ● May 17, 2017

Few had bothered to consider that the original tweet was nothing but the sort of stupid, ironized joke that savvy Twitter users major in.

From Salon ● May 7, 2017

In an era of ironized jabs, there’s something refreshing about a creator who’s willing to underline his point in furious black marker.

From The New Yorker ● Dec. 29, 2014

Shooting herself in character as B-movie archetypes and ironized fashion icons, old masters and grand dames, she is a hall-of-fame conceptualist.

From Slate ● Feb. 27, 2012

He had both an absolute commitment to what a line required and a way of gently ironizing that line.

From Seattle Times ● Nov. 3, 2023

But Osunde is also irreverent, casting a critical, ironizing eye on those who are both religious and powerful.

From Los Angeles Times ● Mar. 20, 2022

“To me, these girls are ironizing the whole question of power. Do they have it, don’t they have it, what is it to have it, and does it matter?” he says.

From The Guardian ● Dec. 4, 2019

If Roy Lichtenstein took pulp comics into the gallery, ironizing and domesticating their tropes for an audience of connoisseurs, 7 Miles a Second inverts the process.

From Slate ● Mar. 1, 2013

The bounder must have known, as he sat smoking his cigar and ironizing on the ruins of empires, that the safe and settled little world to which they both belonged was already in a blaze.

From The Best Short Stories of 1917 and the Yearbook of the American Short Story by Edward J. (Edward Joseph Harrington) O'Brien

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