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Sarcasm   Listen
noun
Sarcasm  n.  A keen, reproachful expression; a satirical remark uttered with some degree of scorn or contempt; a taunt; a gibe; a cutting jest. "The sarcasms of those critics who imagine our art to be a matter of inspiration."
Synonyms: Satire; irony; ridicule; taunt; gibe.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Sarcasm" Quotes from Famous Books



... the marquis immediately answered, 'That he thanked his excellency for his good advice, and as his excellency had also a worthy and deserving father, he hoped he would likewise copy so bright an original and tread in all his steps.' This was a severe sarcasm, as the ambassador's father had betrayed his master in a manner that was quite shameful. He acted the same part in Scotland, which Sunderland did in England. They pushed on king James the IId. to take violent and unconstitutional ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Vol. IV • Theophilus Cibber

... was never published, for being sent by the ambitious strippling to a popular magazine, was only heard of again under the head of "respectfully declined," accompanied by some severe and cutting remarks, to the effect that the writer had better look to his grammar and orthography, which uncalled for sarcasm, cruelly, but effectually extinguished what might, perhaps, have been a light, that, in the future, might had illumined the world ...
— Clemence - The Schoolmistress of Waveland • Retta Babcock

... card-parties and dances; there were Christy's Minstrels and the Hutchinson family; and some of the more intellectual circles had conversaziones where the best talent displayed itself. Still, Barnum could not be crowded out. No sarcasm withered him; and his variety was infinite. It was a safe place for mothers to go and take their children. The men had formed several ambitious clubs, and were ...
— A Little Girl of Long Ago • Amanda Millie Douglas

... the behavior, as Dickens did, amuses us; to study only the motive at the root of the behavior, as George Eliot does, saddens us. The humor of Mrs. Poyser and the wit of Mrs. Transome only deepen the pathos by relieving it. There is hardly a sarcasm in these books but has its ...
— The Essays of "George Eliot" - Complete • George Eliot

... not, Billy," retorted Aunt Hannah, a little tartly, and with a touch of sarcasm most unlike her gentle self. "I'm sure I shouldn't wish to fill this infant's plastic mind with anything so appalling as trivial inaccuracies. May I be pardoned for suggesting, however," she went on as the baby's whimper threatened to become a ...
— Miss Billy Married • Eleanor H. Porter

... neck grew crimson and his eyes hard. "Lookin' fer something?" he asked with bitter sarcasm, his hands under the bar. Johnny grinned hopefully and a sudden tenseness took possession of him as he watched for ...
— The Boy Scouts Book of Campfire Stories • Various

... and that 'Mr Able' meant anyone able to furnish it. It is not exactly a satisfactory solution, and as to the reference to Tiverton, though it may be complimentary, one doubts whether it does not carry more than a suspicion of sarcasm. ...
— Devon, Its Moorlands, Streams and Coasts • Rosalind Northcote

... guy that sleeps up there and he'll throw a bucket of water out on us for disturbin' him," said the other with quiet sarcasm. "Besides, this is no place for ...
— The Rose in the Ring • George Barr McCutcheon

... so," replied Mr. Woodward, in deep sarcasm. "Of course you want to shield the boy all you can, but I 'm sure in my mind ...
— True to Himself • Edward Stratemeyer

... she asked with cool sarcasm. "And it's just as safe a gamble that he is a coward ...
— Six Feet Four • Jackson Gregory

... expelled from his throne by Ferdinand of Castile and Aragon; as he rode off he halted on a hill called "The Last Sigh of the Moor," and wept as he looked back on the Alhambra, while his mother added to his bitterness with the cutting sarcasm, "Weep as a woman for a throne you have not been able to defend as a man"; died shortly after in Africa, recklessly throwing away his life on a ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood

... month or two is all. Those crowds that cheered us, they were proud of us and sorry for us, because we'd been out thirty years and they never expected us back at all. But it was inconvenient for Spaceport." Bitter sarcasm tinged his voice. "They actually had to postpone the regular monthly Trans-Galactic run to let us in with ...
— Homesick • Lyn Venable

... the Rules of Billiards on the wall that balanced a coloured advertisement of Tommy Dodd whisky, and recited the rule on vibration. Herbert strenuously denied that any such phenomenon had taken place, and when James appealed to its author he was met with such an outburst of elephantine sarcasm that he refrained ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, January 21st, 1920 • Various

... Stung with this sarcasm, and flushed with wine, I forgot my prudence. Snatching the guitar from him, after a prelude which created the greatest astonishment of all present, I commenced one of my most successful airs: I sang it in my best style, and it electrified the whole party. Shouts proclaimed my victory, ...
— The Pacha of Many Tales • Frederick Marryat

... that by flattery one can most readily render oneself agreeable; so conscientiously she set to work to flatter in season and out. I am sure she meant to give pleasure, but the effect produced was that of thinly veiled sarcasm. ...
— Paul Kelver • Jerome Klapka, AKA Jerome K. Jerome

... bit of sarcasm, "if he was well enough off to buy a cake of soap once a term, it wouldn't be so bad. I believe when he wants a wash he goes down to Mrs Wisdom and ...
— The Cock-House at Fellsgarth • Talbot Baines Reed

... may be right: but from Cleve Country we had no recruits; not we, though the Austrians had, [with a slight sarcasm of tone]. ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XXI. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle

... been patrons of this species of magic, which is very useful to them in the exercise of their profession. Thus a South Slavonian housebreaker sometimes begins operations by throwing a dead man's bone over the house, saying, with pungent sarcasm, "As this bone may waken, so may these people waken"; after that not a soul in the house can keep his or her eyes open. Similarly, in Java the burglar takes earth from a grave and sprinkles it round the house which ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer

... up with me, yuh say?" the other observed, with sarcasm in his tones. "Wall now yuh see me, p'raps yuh don't jest like my looks. If so be I thort them coward hounds up-river sent yuh down hyah tuh spy on us, an' inform thet rail-rid sheriff how he cud git tuh cotch us on the sly, I'd jest lay a cowhide acrost ...
— Chums in Dixie - or The Strange Cruise of a Motorboat • St. George Rathborne

... word was the kind of sarcasm which a man of his type in an earlier generation might have applied to the 'earnestness' of ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... meeting with a shepherdess, "the other day" (l'autrier, the word with which the poem usually begins). A dialogue then follows between the knight and the shepherdess, in which the former sues for her favours successfully or otherwise. The irony or sarcasm which enables the shepherdess to hold her own in the encounter is far removed from the simplicity of popular poetry. The Leys d'Amors mentions other forms of the same genre such as vaqueira (cowherd), auqueira (goose girl), of which a specimen of the first-named alone has survived. ...
— The Troubadours • H.J. Chaytor

... as you'd call it that," said Winnie with a faint suspicion of sarcasm. "I may be too finicky and if I am, may I be forgiven for troubling you. But when it comes to sleeping in the same room with six sore-eyed kittens and in the same bed with a mangy street dog, I think something should be done ...
— Rosemary • Josephine Lawrence

... and conviction. He had sacrificed an enviable position to that inner voice of duty which he now proclaimed as the sovereign law over all written or spoken words. But he was assailing the cherished beliefs of those before him, and of Christendom generally; not with hard or bitter words, not with sarcasm or levity, rather as one who felt himself charged with a message from the same divinity who had inspired the prophets and evangelists of old with whatever truth was in their messages. He might be wrong, but his words carried the evidence of his own serene, ...
— Ralph Waldo Emerson • Oliver Wendell Holmes

... bursting shells, were for many weeks, with one day's startling break, to be the sole preoccupation of the defenders. The enemy, even on this first day of January, were not willing to leave the garrison in doubt as to their presence, although, despite the possible touch of sarcasm, there was a grim sort of friendliness in their reminder. It again took the form of blind shells—this time fired from the Free State batteries—inscribed "Compliments of the Season." The sarcasm (writes ...
— Four Months Besieged - The Story of Ladysmith • H. H. S. Pearse

... existence, when its editor experienced the difficulty of writing freely in those troublous times, as he had to apologize for a too bold censure of the action of the dominant party in the Legislature. But this contretemps did not prevent him continuing in that vein of sarcasm of which he was a master, and evoking, consequently, the ire of the leading Liberals of those days—Stuart, Vanfelson, Papineau, Viger, and others. One of the results of his excessive freedom of speech was an attempt ...
— The Intellectual Development of the Canadian People • John George Bourinot

... Catiline had failed. It was the turning-point of Cicero's life. Before his consulship he had not irrevocably taken a side. No public speaker had more eloquently shown the necessity for reform; no one had denounced with keener sarcasm the infamies and follies of senatorial favorites. Conscience and patriotism should have alike held him to the reforming party; and political instinct, if vanity had left him the use of his perception, would have led him in the same direction. Possibly before he received the votes of the patricians ...
— Caesar: A Sketch • James Anthony Froude

... Porson, and, with self-assumed superiority, thinking to annihilate the old Grecian, exclaimed "We have no opinion of his scholarship." Irate at this stupid pronunciamento against so renowned a man, young Landor looked up, and, with a sarcasm the point of which was not in the least blunted by age, retorted, "We, my Lord?" Of course such unheard of audacity and contempt of my Lord Bishop's capacity for criticism was severely reprobated by Landor ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 102, April, 1866 • Various

... child, if you knew what a mortal chill comes over me, what suffering I endure in seeing my simplest words this taken up and hurled back at me with suspicion and sarcasm! By that course you deprive yourself of the only happiness there is in the world—perfect love. You kill all delicate and lofty sentiment in the hearts of those who love you; soon you will believe in nothing ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet

... no mistaking the significance of his words. The implication was clear, even though veiled in the heaviest sarcasm. He had the satisfaction of seeing the colour ebb from her cheek. Her face being averted, he missed the swift flicker of pain that rushed to her eyes and, departing, took away with it the soft light that had glowed in them the ...
— West Wind Drift • George Barr McCutcheon

... Brudenell deliberately completed the work of superintending the "snugging" of the canoes for the night. He heard his friend's charges, and smiled his retorts with pointed sarcasm. And Jessie understood, for she knew these two, and their great friendship. And Dr. Bill—well, she regarded him as a sort of delightful uncle who never told her of her faults, or recommended his own methods of performing ...
— The Triumph of John Kars - A Story of the Yukon • Ridgwell Cullum

... conclusions. I take no offence, and attempt no retort. No man makes a quarrel with me over the counterpane that covers a mother, with her new-born infant at her breast. There is no epithet in the vocabulary of slight and sarcasm that can reach my personal sensibilities in such a controversy. Only just so far as a disrespectful phrase may turn the student aside from the examination of the evidence, by discrediting or dishonoring the witness, does it call for ...
— Medical Essays • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

... Her voice ran to sarcasm. 'I can't say I know you. You're a perfect stranger to me, and I don't believe I've ever set eyes ...
— England, My England • D.H. Lawrence

... still were, but with a slow unhealthy lustre; their keenness was turned to perpetual outlook, their restlessness to a haggard want. As for the humour which once gleamed there (which people who fear it call sarcasm) it had been succeeded by stares of terror, and then mistrust, and shrinking. There was none of the interest in mankind, which is needful even ...
— Lorna Doone - A Romance of Exmoor • R. D. Blackmore

... not meet his eyes; but she suspected him of something like sarcasm. She could not be sure, for his tone was agitating ...
— A Touch Of Sun And Other Stories • Mary Hallock Foote

... shivered to atoms like glass, as the ancients thought it was, Godefroid could not have been more astonished. Shocking thoughts came into his mind, and then a reaction more terrible still when, before the sarcasm he was about to utter had left his lips, he saw Monsieur Alain in a corner of ...
— The Brotherhood of Consolation • Honore de Balzac

... said Patches, with bitter sarcasm, "poor Yavapai Joe is not so much different from hundreds of men that I know. By their ...
— When A Man's A Man • Harold Bell Wright

... more Cantos of Don Juan, and am hovering on the brink of another (the ninth). The reason I want the stanzas again which I sent you is, that as these cantos contain a full detail (like the storm in Canto Second) of the siege and assault of Ismael, with much of sarcasm on those butchers in large business, your mercenary soldiery, it is a good opportunity of gracing the poem with * * *. With these things and these fellows, it is necessary, in the present clash of philosophy and tyranny, to throw away the scabbard. I know it is against fearful ...
— Life of Lord Byron, With His Letters And Journals, Vol. 5 (of 6) • (Lord Byron) George Gordon Byron

... new-fangled notion? I never heard before of cooling people off when they've got a fever. In my time, the hotter you were, the hotter you were made to be, till you got cool naturally. I suppose," with half-interested sarcasm, "that you'd give her cold water to drink ...
— Up the Hill and Over • Isabel Ecclestone Mackay

... whoever sports with their destiny, betrays a cruel, if not a wicked mind. They have already been the prey of disappointments the most agonizing to the mind; let them not be the objects of unmeaning contempt or impious sarcasm. There was a time when the morning of life rose upon them in all its enchantment and beauty. Every thing around them smiled, and their yet unwithered hopes were alive to every delightful impression. ...
— Female Scripture Biographies, Vol. II • Francis Augustus Cox

... Sarcasm is a species of Irony used when any one jibes at another with a pretence of smiling. As Achilles, in the ...
— Essays and Miscellanies - The Complete Works Volume 3 • Plutarch

... by that time all that there is to look for—the daily diminishing interest in your doings, the poorly assumed attention as you attempt to talk over some plan for the future; then the yawn, and by degrees, the covert sneer, the little sarcasm, and finally, the frank, open stare of boredom. Ah, Duke, when you all carry out your repressive legislation against women of evil lives, don't fail to include in your schedule the Unsympathetic Wives. They are the women whose victims show the sorriest scars; ...
— The Notorious Mrs. Ebbsmith • Arthur Wing Pinero

... sympathy, as for a man of his own race and breeding; for Lambert, Abbot of Sheering, came of the great Norman house of Clare, which had taken Stephen's side in the Civil War, a fact which did not prevent the aristocratic abbot from talking with gentle satire and occasional bitter sarcasm about the ...
— Via Crucis • F. Marion Crawford

... mebbe you know more'n I do about it," retorted Jimmy, with withering sarcasm, little suspecting how much more his brother did know. "Mebbe you heard what Nan said to ...
— The Bishop's Shadow • I. T. Thurston

... say." The clerk's voice was heavy with sarcasm. "Well, I'll just make a li'l' bet with you. If the North-West Mounted start to arrest Bully West or to empty his liquor-kegs, they'll go right through with the job. They're go-getters, ...
— Man Size • William MacLeod Raine

... and see?" he suggested, with kindly sarcasm. His assumed carelessness scarcely veiled his own interest ...
— Master of the Vineyard • Myrtle Reed

... notices which appeared in the press after Miss Macnaughtan's death. Some of them allude to her wit, her energy and vivacity, the humour which was "without a touch of cynicism"; others, to her inexhaustible spirit, her geniality, and the "powers of sarcasm, which she used with strong reserve." Others, again, see through to the faith and philosophy which lay behind her humour, "Scottish in ...
— My War Experiences in Two Continents • Sarah Macnaughtan

... his new honors badly, and the inability to express their dissatisfaction by means of violence had a bad effect on the tempers of the crew. Sarcasm they did try, but at that the cook could more than hold his own, and, although the men doubted his ability at first, he was able to prove to them by actual experiment that he could cook worse than ...
— Short Cruises • W.W. Jacobs

... employed it in burlesque or more society verse; but Byron alone has employed it triumphantly, for he has made it the vehicle of thoughts grave as well as gay, of "black spirits and white, red spirits and grey," of sparkling fancy, bitter sarcasm, and tender memories. He has swept into the pages of his poem the experience of thirty years of a life so crowded with vitality that our sense of the plethora of power which it exhibits makes us ready to ...
— Byron • John Nichol

... Donkin, with a touch of sarcasm in his voice; 'feyther and me has settled many puzzles; it's been a loss to Government as they hannot been here for profiting by our wisdom. We've done away wi' taxes and press-gangs, and many a plague, and beaten t' French—i' our ...
— Sylvia's Lovers — Complete • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell

... to speak with sarcasm. "Nothing at all. I have only just been listening to an account of the way in which your mother speaks of me to her friends. I ought to be flattered, of course, that she notices me at all! But I think I shall have to ask you to ...
— Sir George Tressady, Vol. I • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... amount of description, can depict the wrath of an author in a paroxysm of mortified vanity, nor the energy which he discovers when stung by the poisoned darts of sarcasm; but, on the other hand, the man that is roused to fighting-fury by a personal attack usually subsides very promptly. The more phlegmatic race, who take these things quietly, lay their account with the oblivion which speedily overtakes the spiteful ...
— A Distinguished Provincial at Paris • Honore de Balzac

... said Frank, with cool sarcasm, "that you should be inconvenienced about your meals. Perhaps you will excuse it, as my poor mother is so sick that she requires extra attention from the servants. Deborah, if possible, don't let Mark wait much longer. It ...
— Making His Way - Frank Courtney's Struggle Upward • Horatio Alger, Jr.

... the way?" she asked, addressing her husband, after one steady look at Lady Jane. "This lady appears to be an old friend of yours." There was a tone of sarcasm in that allusion to the parasol, which might develop into a tone of jealousy at ...
— Man and Wife • Wilkie Collins

... of sarcasm than respect in the "Docteur en musique"; Beethoven is related to have said that he had taken some lessons from Haydn, but had never learnt anything from him. Nevertheless he paid heed to his teacher's music. ...
— The Pianoforte Sonata - Its Origin and Development • J.S. Shedlock

... them each a bow, courtly enough, but there was no smile—not even an affectation of cordiality. Sir Bale, however, was chatty, and did not seem to care much what he said, or what people thought of him; and there was a suspicion of sarcasm in what he said that the rustic literality of good Mrs. Bedel ...
— J. S. Le Fanu's Ghostly Tales, Volume 3 • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu

... out of timidity. He wrote on as if nothing had happened, altering 'The Tinker's Wedding' to a more unpopular form, but writing a beautiful serene 'Deirdre,' with, for the first time since his 'Riders to the Sea,' no touch of sarcasm or defiance. Misfortune shook his physical nature while it left his intellect and his moral nature untroubled. The external self, the mask, the persona was a shadow, character ...
— Synge And The Ireland Of His Time • William Butler Yeats

... to sea?" said Bill in gentle sarcasm. Bill's aversion to the sea amounts almost to malevolence. She is a ...
— Aliens • William McFee

... intelligence, which would make up for his ignorance of many matters; but what could be expected of a man who was ignorant and stupid too? The cunning Norman knew well the effect this strange parallel would have; and it is indeed inconceivable how damaging his sarcasm proved. A short time afterwards, D'Antin, wishing also to please, but more imprudent, insulted the son of Chamillart so grossly, and abused the father so publicly, that he was obliged afterwards to ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XIV., His Court and The Regency, Complete • Duc de Saint-Simon

... of sarcasm naturally caused some amusement at the expense of the rival proprietor, but in less than an hour he neatly turned the tables by pasting the following retort ...
— More Toasts • Marion Dix Mosher

... and in particular the sermon, were thus sure to become offences: "Here, in my island, I 'peak," he once observed to me. "My chieps no 'peak—do what I talk." He looked at the missionary, and what did he see? "See Kanaka 'peak in a big outch!" he cried, with a strong ring of sarcasm. Yet he endured the subversive spectacle, and might even have continued to endure it, had not a fresh point arisen. He looked again, to employ his own figure; and the Kanaka was no longer speaking, he was doing worse—he was building a copra-house. The king was touched ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 18 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... old man, perceiving at once the sarcasm of my remark, "you are right. I shall never beat ...
— Corea or Cho-sen • A (Arnold) Henry Savage-Landor

... exulting titter over the sarcasm among the girls, in which Rebecca did not join; then the party kept on. The indignant clamor waxed loud in a moment; they scarcely waited for the old man's back to be turned on his return to ...
— Pembroke - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman

... are marked by a fiery yet careful style, Oriental richness of imagery, and originality and independence of thought. He wrote as social reformer, and attacked with unrivaled power of sarcasm all manner of cant, sham, and red-tape. His works betray the disappointment of a defeated idealist. He was a man of marked individuality, and strongly attracted or repelled others. For the last few years of his life he ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 11 • Various

... should invade my house at such an hour, this matter must indeed be of singular importance," he said stiffly. Then, in a voice quivering with sarcasm, he enquired: ...
— A Nest of Spies • Pierre Souvestre

... interest Captain Giles seemed to be taking in it. But he was puffing at a short wooden pipe now, and looked so guileless, dense, and commonplace, that it seemed hardly worth while to puzzle him either with truth or sarcasm. ...
— The Shadow-Line - A Confession • Joseph Conrad

... the sarcasm," counseled Harry; "it strikes me that we are in a pretty tight fix right now. That fellow won't do a thing but make it interesting for us if he ...
— Boy Scouts Mysterious Signal - or Perils of the Black Bear Patrol • G. Harvey Ralphson

... on our back board walk and yelled to Poetry and Dragonfly, and said, "I'll be there in about an hour! I've got to finish tomorrow's dishes first! Better go on down the hill and tell the gang I'll be there in maybe an hour or two," which is what is called sarcasm. ...
— Shenanigans at Sugar Creek • Paul Hutchens

... saying that this young man would have to be taken down, and he was sorry that the task devolved upon him. He made what was called one of his 'slasher-gaff' speeches, dealing much in ridicule and sarcasm. Lincoln stood near him, with his arms folded, never interrupting him. When Forquer was done, Lincoln walked to the stand, and replied so fully and completely that his friends bore him from ...
— McClure's Magazine, March, 1896, Vol. VI., No. 4. • Various

... of control, for the firing soon stopped, the Germans thinking, and with reason, that they had bagged me. Some proud Boche airman is wearing an iron cross on my account. Perhaps the whole crew of dare-devils has been decorated. However, no unseemly sarcasm. We would pounce on a lonely Hun just as quickly. There is no chivalry in ...
— High Adventure - A Narrative of Air Fighting in France • James Norman Hall

... among the great masters of English composition. Walter Savage Landor is reported to have said of an author whom he knew in his youth, "My friend wrote excellent English, a language now obsolete." Had "The Marble Faun" appeared before he uttered this sarcasm, the wit of the remark would have been pointless. Hawthorne not only writes English, but the sweetest, simplest, and clearest English that ever has been made the vehicle of equal depth, variety, and subtilty of thought ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 31, May, 1860 • Various

... and had heard many tales of old James Grieve, the lad's grandfather—a sort of Puritan reaction, the reaction of his race and stock against 'lewdness.' Louie's complete independence, however, and the distance she preserved between his amusements and hers, left David no other weapon than sarcasm, which he employed freely. His fine sensitive mouth took during these weeks a curve half mocking, half bitter, which changed the ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... Isabel, "he has about the extent of one's pocket-handkerchief—the small ones with lace borders." Her humour had lately turned a good deal to sarcasm, but in a moment she was ashamed of exercising it on so innocent an object as Pansy's suitor. "He's very kind, very honest," she presently added; "and he's not such a ...
— The Portrait of a Lady - Volume 2 (of 2) • Henry James

... "That sarcasm, my dear Lisbeth, has lost its sting. I am going, my dear children, to put an end to the false position in which I have so long been placed; I have come, like a good father, to announce my approaching ...
— Cousin Betty • Honore de Balzac

... the truth, ignorance of it, or falsifying the record. And in addition to this work, which is authority, his "Additional Notes" glow with an energy and perspicuity of style which lead me to conclude that Dr. Moore works admirably under the spur, and that his refined sarcasm, unanswerable logic, and critical accuracy give him undisputed place amongst the ablest writers of ...
— History of the Negro Race in America From 1619 to 1880. Vol 1 - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George W. Williams

... for hero-worship, in this woman, who repressed as far as she had power, the feeling and passion that sometimes had their way, though immediately subdued and chastened, and sent back to the durance in which all feeling was held. But her poem on Queen Elizabeth has here and there a quiet sarcasm, and at one point at least rises into a fine scorn of the normal ...
— Anne Bradstreet and Her Time • Helen Campbell

... stood steady under his superior's sarcasm. "But I was chief teleradio operator at Greenwich before being promoted to the Province of America. And what they don't know at Greenwich they don't ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, August 1930 • Various

... and Cacus of his rival Baccio Bandanelli,—we seem to live again in those days, with which Cellini has made us so familiar:—and almost naturally regard the back of the bending figure, to note if its muscles warrant the stinging sarcasm of Cellini, which we are told at once dispelled the pride of the ...
— A Love Story • A Bushman

... circumstances of his course in Congress this quality was stimulated to such a degree that parliamentary history does not show his equal as a gladiator. (p. 229) His power of invective was extraordinary, and he was untiring and merciless in his use of it. Theoretically he disapproved of sarcasm, but practically he could not refrain from it. Men winced and cowered before his milder attacks, became sometimes dumb, sometimes furious with mad rage before his fiercer assaults. Such struggles ...
— John Quincy Adams - American Statesmen Series • John. T. Morse

... after which he passed his handkerchief over his face, streaming with perspiration, foam, and blood, and taking the two horses by the bridles, quietly led them to the stable. I found the Count at the table; he had recovered his good humor; he discharged several arrows of playful sarcasm at my "heresies" in matters of history. It was not without effort that I answered him, for at this moment he inspired me with an aversion that I could hardly conceal. But I felt bound to recognize the victory which he had gained over himself in abridging ...
— Stories of Modern French Novels • Julian Hawthorne

... scornfully. 'A share in the Pactolus!' she echoed, with bitter sarcasm, 'A modest request truly. After squandering my fortune, dragging me through the mire, and treating me like a slave, this man expects to be rewarded. Listen to me, Randolph Villiers,' she said, fiercely, ...
— Madame Midas • Fergus Hume

... careless in his dress, his hands in his pockets as a rule, and strenuous only in smoking or in sleep; with a large, full skull, a humorous twinkle in his cold, blue eye, a soft, low voice, expressing every kind of thought in the same, sometimes plaguily douce tone; a great power of quiet and telling sarcasm, large capacity of listening to and of enjoying other men's talk, ...
— Spare Hours • John Brown

... basis upon which Voltaire and Rousseau built in France. What wonder that the one with his pungent sarcasm, popular style and display of philosophy, and the other with his morbid sentimentalism, should become the real monarchs not only of their own land, but of cultivated circles throughout the Continent? There was not the slightest sympathy between these two men, for they hated ...
— History of Rationalism Embracing a Survey of the Present State of Protestant Theology • John F. Hurst

... dealt he had decorated both nostrils and replaced the princess in his waistcoat pocket,—always on his left side. A gentleman of the "good" century (in distinction from the "grand" century) could alone have invented that compromise between contemptuous silence and a sarcasm which might not have been understood. He accepted poor players and knew how to make the best of them. His delightful equability of temper made many ...
— An Old Maid • Honore de Balzac

... and expressive of criminal desires and of extreme cruelty. And so it was with most of his comrades. They varied in height, in age, in social status and in colouring. But upon all their faces was the same frigid expression, a sort of thin hatefulness touched with sarcasm. The man wandered on among them and saw it everywhere, on the lips of a youth in rags, in the eyes of an old woman in a bonnet, lurking in the wrinkles of a labourer, at rest upon the narrow brow of a doctor, alive in the puffed-out wax of an attorney's bloated features. Yes, it was easy to recognise ...
— Tongues of Conscience • Robert Smythe Hichens

... becoming gravity; was temperate in his diet; a great student; seldom spoke, unless spoken to, but always to the purpose; and almost all the anecdotes recorded of him, except by himself, are full of pride and sarcasm. He was so swarthy, that a woman, as he was going by a door in Verona, is said to have pointed him out to another, with a remark which made the saturnine poet smile—"That is the man who goes to hell whenever he pleases, and ...
— Stories from the Italian Poets: With Lives of the Writers, Volume 1 • Leigh Hunt

... his own loss of a few hundreds in his new occupation of mourning the loss of thousands; and his erect, stiff, statue-like carriage, and long melancholy face, as he stood at the portals of those who had entered the portals of the next world, were but too often a sarcasm upon the grief of the inheritors. Even grief is worth nothing in this trafficking world unless it is paid for. Jonathan buried many, and at last buried his wife. So far all was well; but at last he buried his master, the undertaker, which was not ...
— The Pirate and The Three Cutters • Frederick Marryat

... the girl awed the young man, for never before had he seen her so serious and determined. In most, of their previous interviews she had met his advances with evasion or sarcasm, but these Hurry had mistaken for female coquetry, and had supposed might easily be converted into consent. The struggle had been with himself, about offering, nor had he ever seriously believed it possible that Judith would ...
— The Deerslayer • James Fenimore Cooper

... you think with us, Henry," says the viscountess, with ever so little of sarcasm in her tone: "Beatrix is best out of this house whilst we have our guest in it, and as soon as this morning's business is done, she ought to ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray

... This sarcasm on Richards morals would have had more weight, if the author had before confined himself to deliver nothing but the precise truth. He does not seem to be more exact in what relates to the penance itself. Richard, by his proclamation, taxed mistress Shore with plotting treason in confederacy ...
— Historic Doubts on the Life and Reign of King Richard the Third • Horace Walpole

... not quite catch the mild sarcasm, but he breathed more freely when they were out of sight of camp. "He's sure a white Mexican," he told Andy. "I kind o' hate to leave him, ...
— The Ridin' Kid from Powder River • Henry Herbert Knibbs

... My sarcasm nettled Marshall. "He told me that he had never been a waiter at all until he came here; he was simply looking for an opportunity to find something really congenial. He was fresh from Canton. In Hoboken!" Tom Marshall leaned toward me aggressively. "Why, man, he has ...
— David Malcolm • Nelson Lloyd

... and sensitive delicacy of the poor creature did not permit her to remain a minute more in this dwelling, where the most secret recesses of her soul had been laid open, profaned, and exposed no doubt to sarcasm and contempt. She did not think of demanding justice and revenge from Mdlle. de Cardoville. To cause a ferment of trouble and irritation in this house, at the moment of quitting it, would have appeared to her ingratitude towards her benefactress. She did not seek ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue

... to military usages to read all communications captured from the enemy," remarked Miss Osborne with a slight tinge of sarcasm in her tone, "but it seems sacrilege that these private letters ...
— Raiding with Morgan • Byron A. Dunn

... yet thankful for small mercies," commented the Master with gentle sarcasm. He had learnt in his long life to economise anger. But he frowned as he dipped a pen in the ink-pot and made the correction; for he was dainty about his manuscripts as about all the furniture of life, and a blot or an erasure annoyed ...
— Brother Copas • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... divert the Captain's ill-humour, by starting new subjects: but he left to her all the trouble of supporting them, and leant back in his chair in gloomy silence, except when any opportunity offered of uttering some sarcasm upon the French. Finding her efforts to render the evening agreeable were fruitless, Mrs. Mirvan proposed a party to Ranelagh. Madame Duval joyfully consented to it; and the Captain though he railed against the dissipation of the women, did not oppose it; and therefore Maria and I ...
— Evelina • Fanny Burney

... this question, speaking with apparent good humor but with a tinge of sarcasm in his voice: "My dear young lady, your own disposition to secrecy—a quality quite necessary in a detective—should show you the absurdity of your question. Can we be too careful in these days of espionage? No emissary of the Kaiser must know ...
— Mary Louise and the Liberty Girls • Edith Van Dyne (AKA L. Frank Baum)

... do. But he had a singularly vivid eye. It was of the deepest black, and such was the intensity of its expression in his more impassioned moments, that it was scarcely an exaggeration to say that it shot fire. Still, a stranger would have regarded him chiefly as a humorist, from the glances of sly sarcasm, and even of open ridicule which he cast round the court during the pleadings of some of his "learned brethren." But, in that court his true faculties were known; and the moment of his rising, careless as was his attitude, and listless the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 57, No. 356, June, 1845 • Various

... this is Peter Van Dorn, my beloved nephew." The Zar was speaking and the chilly sarcasm in which the words were uttered belied the friendliness they ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, December 1930 • Various

... mind not inappropriately. One—where Cobbs "wished with all his heart there was any impossible place where them two babies could have made an impossible marriage, and have lived impossibly happy ever afterwards." The other—where, with genial sarcasm, Boots propounds this brace of opinions by way of general summing up—"Firstly, that there are not many couples on their way to be married who are half as innocent as them two children. Secondly, that it would be a jolly good thing for a great many couples on their ...
— Charles Dickens as a Reader • Charles Kent

... time to reply to his cruel sarcasm, a fresh swell of the besiegers' trumpets, and a loud burst of shouts and warcries from the battlement announced a fresh attack. The smith rushed from the room instantly with Rufus at his heels, and Julia had already made one step toward the window, intending to attempt ...
— The Roman Traitor (Vol. 2 of 2) • Henry William Herbert

... of playing into the hands of the Lutherans, whom he hated. But he was a cynic, and a cynic's eyes are not the best through which to see things. The monks offended him, and he poured out upon them, not the vials of his wrath but the sharp vinegar of sarcasm. His favourite, oft-recurring themes, the ignorance, immorality, and greed to be found in monasteries, the quarrelsomeness and worldliness of the friars would lead the unwary to suppose that there was not a religious community left where the rule was kept and the religious led commonly respectable ...
— Studies from Court and Cloister • J.M. Stone

... little answer to this sarcasm. Indeed, she had scarce opened her lips from the time of Mrs. Ellison's coming into the room, and had grown particularly grave at the mention of the masquerade. Amelia imputed this to her being left out of the party, a matter which is often no small mortification ...
— Amelia (Complete) • Henry Fielding

... And that is what happened in the great debate we have referred to. Senator Hammond appeared on the platform in a filmy costume made up of alternate strips of the Constitution of the United States and the Monroe Doctrine. Wit, sarcasm, irony followed one another in quick succession over his mobile features and fairly oozed from his fingers and toes. Yet it was evident that while he could appeal to the minds of the spectators he had no power to sway their emotions. ...
— The Patient Observer - And His Friends • Simeon Strunsky

... closely as they had watched the man and the woman. There was something in the face that commanded respect. The broad high forehead, the eyes flashing with scornful mirth, and the thin lips curling with such a whimsical mixture of kindliness and sarcasm, bespoke a man of mind. Since reaching Rio, Dupleisis had searched for these three, and he liked this one the best. Reed took out his eye-glass, and, adjusting it carefully on his nose, surveyed Dupleisis deliberately ...
— Trifles for the Christmas Holidays • H. S. Armstrong

... and their credentials either altogether rejected by some, or at least received "cum grano salis." Bruce of Kinnaird forms the most remarkable example of this kind, and the caricature of Baron Munchausen consigned the whole to sarcasm and ridicule; and yet the time is come when the more remarkable circumstances and phenomena mentioned by this traveller, verified by Lord Valentia, Mr. Salt, &c. are received as well accredited facts. The curious phenomenon mentioned by Cockburn finds an interesting and beautiful ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 17, No. 471, Saturday, January 15, 1831 • Various

... a touch of sarcasm in the voice, but Elizabeth was too much occupied to notice it; and as the squire and his dogs took the road to the park, she turned, with the letter still open in her hand, and went thoughtfully from room to room, seeking her brother. There was no deeper motive ...
— The Hallam Succession • Amelia Edith Barr

... it too onct," replied Frenchy with sarcasm. "Went and lugged fifty pound of it all th' way to th' assay office—took me two days! an' that there four-eyed cuss looks at it and snickers. Then he takes me by di' arm an' leads me to th' window. 'See that pile, ...
— Hopalong Cassidy's Rustler Round-Up - Bar-20 • Clarence Edward Mulford

... is a species of didactic poetry. It is the use of wit, irony, and sarcasm to ridicule foibles, vices, or evils of any kind. Three kinds of satire may be distinguished: personal satire, which is directed against individuals, and usually springs from malignant or unworthy motives; partisan satire, which aims to make an opposing party or ...
— Elementary Guide to Literary Criticism • F. V. N. Painter

... unbelief, vice, and sensuality. The apostle traces back the horrible depravity of the heathen world, which he depicts with a pen as sharp as that of Juvenal, but with none of Juvenal's bitterness and vitriolic sarcasm, to a distorted and false conception of the being and attributes of God. He does not, for an instant, concede that this distorted and false conception is founded in the original structure and constitution of the human soul, and that this moral ignorance is necessary and inevitable. This mutilated ...
— Sermons to the Natural Man • William G.T. Shedd

... At this terrible sarcasm Lady Lochleven took a step towards Mary Stuart, holding in her hand the knife which she had just been using to cut off a piece of meat brought her to taste; but the queen rose up with so great a calm and with such majesty, that either from involuntary respect ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - MARY STUART—1587 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE

... not to be coerced. Her mouth grew more puckered, her eyes more serious, and her tongue sharper; for though anger, as she found, was useless, sarcasm was potent, and in time Miriam gave up the battle. But she did not intend to forgive Mildred Caniper for a single injury, and even now that she was almost woman she refused her own responsibility. Notya had arranged her life, and the evil of it, at least, should be laid ...
— Moor Fires • E. H. (Emily Hilda) Young

... instantaneous and responsive touch; the next, on occasion, a Jove-like sternness settles on his face, and, with a facility of expression bewildering to less gifted tongues, scathing invective, cutting sarcasm, or bitter irony impress upon an offender the gravity of a breach of discipline. Withal, he is modest. He appreciates his own power, but there is no undue display of that appreciation, no vainglorious boasting over achievements which read like a fairy-tale. Fittest to lead or follow, idol of ...
— The Gatlings at Santiago • John H. Parker

... seem so damn friendly an' oncurious down here in this Big Bend country, I don't mind sayin' yes—I am in on the dodge," he replied, with deliberate sarcasm. ...
— The Lone Star Ranger • Zane Grey

... interested you wouldn't call on me when I invited you," said Helen, with poorly veiled sarcasm. It was this that made her bitter; she could never forget that she had asked this man to come to see her, and ...
— The Last Trail • Zane Grey

... written with much wit, ingenuity, audacity, and acrimony. In this, as in his first controversy, he was opposed to antagonists whose knowledge of the subject in dispute was far superior to his; but in this, as in his first controversy, he imposed on the multitude by bold assertion, by sarcasm, by declamation, and, above all, by his peculiar knack of exhibiting a little erudition in such a manner as to make it look like a great deal. Having passed himself off on the world as a greater master of classical learning than Bentley, he now ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 3. (of 4) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... recognises him as the first man of the time, and he subscribed his mite for the erection of a statue to him. It was the satire and mockery in Voltaire which irritated Rousseau more than the doctrines or denial of doctrine which they cloaked; in his eyes sarcasm was always the veritable dialect of the evil power. It says something for the sincerity of his efforts after equitable judgment, that he should have had the patience to discern some of the fundamental merit of the most remorseless and ...
— Rousseau - Volumes I. and II. • John Morley

... with exactness in Moore's Digest of International Law[236], but without comment as to motives, and, more briefly, in Bernard's Neutrality of Great Britain during the American Civil War[237], at the conclusion of which the author writes, with sarcasm, "I refrain from any comment on this negotiation[238]." Nicolay and Hay's Lincoln, and Rhodes' United States, give the matter but passing and inadequate treatment. It was reviewed in some detail in the American ...
— Great Britain and the American Civil War • Ephraim Douglass Adams

... footsteps approaching, and then rose to welcome her visitor. A woman twenty years her senior, bright, capable, energetic, with a shrewd face and kindly eyes whose keen glance was quick to pierce the flimsy veil of humbug, and a tongue whose good-natured sarcasm had made more than one pretender ...
— A Beautiful Possibility • Edith Ferguson Black

... been circulated, and stating briefly the real circumstances of the case. For some time my letter seemed to produce the intended effect,—but, unluckily, the original story was too tempting a theme for humour and sarcasm to be so easily superseded by mere matter of fact. Accordingly, after a little time, whenever the subject was publicly alluded to,—more especially by those who were at all "willing to wound,"—the old falsehood was, for the sake of its ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. II - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore

... you've got me into! Of course you don't care—you and your darned old flying machine! I wish it had busted itself all to pieces! And you too! And Sandy's stampeded after Jake, and I'm just glad of it!" She gulped, forced back further angry-little-girl storming, and recovered her young-lady sarcasm. ...
— Skyrider • B. M. Bower

... to me that Robert Phillips was seen walking across Richmond Park the other afternoon in company with Miss Joan Allway, formerly one of our contributors.' Is that going to end his political career?" retorted Joan with fine sarcasm. ...
— All Roads Lead to Calvary • Jerome K. Jerome

... mingled bitterness and sarcasm. "Right, Jimmy. Levuka is much like the other place, and I'll get experience there, if I ...
— The Ebbing Of The Tide - South Sea Stories - 1896 • Louis Becke

... thing in them but the point. This omission did not arise from the want either of memory or of humour, but solely from a deficiency in the malice natural to all jesters. He could not persuade his lips to repeat a sarcasm hurting even the dead or the ungrateful; and when he came to the drop of gall which should have given zest to the story, the milk of human kindness broke its barrier despite himself, and washed it away. He was a fine wreck, a little prematurely broken by ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 14, No. 379, Saturday, July 4, 1829. • Various

... tolerably often from Livingstone during my absence. His letters were very amusing, containing all sorts of news, and remarks on men and manners. They would have pleased me more if they had not indicated a vein of sarcasm deepening ...
— Guy Livingstone; - or, 'Thorough' • George A. Lawrence

... forgotten the Scotch invasion of 1745. Since that time the Scotch had been regarded with general disfavor; Scotch poverty and Scotch greediness for the good things of England had furnished constant topics for raillery and sarcasm; and more than one demagogue and political writer had sought popularity by pandering to the prevailing taste for attacks on the whole nation. Foremost among these was Mr. John Wilkes, member for Aylesbury, a man of broken fortunes and still more damaged character, ...
— The Constitutional History of England From 1760 to 1860 • Charles Duke Yonge

... think the vital principle in such a constitution would burn out sooner than in others, like a flame fed by alcohol. She was older than myself, and yet had no more apparent reflection than a child of five years old. It was impossible to make her angry. The gravest rebuke, the most cutting sarcasm, were received with a merry twinkle of the eye or a rich swell of laughter. She was bold, masculine, wild, and free, and I feared her as much as I would the wild-cat, after whom the doctor had christened her,—yet there was something about her that I liked. It was probably the interest she professed ...
— Ernest Linwood - or, The Inner Life of the Author • Caroline Lee Hentz

... with your work," barked Strong. "You're too smart! Know too much!" He stopped short and then added softly with biting sarcasm, "Why do you ...
— Stand by for Mars! • Carey Rockwell



Words linked to "Sarcasm" :   humor, humour, satire, caustic remark, wit, wittiness, sarcastic



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