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Ironical   /aɪrˈɑnɪkəl/   Listen
Ironical

adjective
1.
Characterized by often poignant difference or incongruity between what is expected and what actually is.  Synonym: ironic.  "It was ironical that the well-planned scheme failed so completely"
2.
Humorously sarcastic or mocking.  Synonyms: dry, ironic, wry.  "An ironic remark often conveys an intended meaning obliquely" , "An ironic novel" , "An ironical smile" , "With a wry Scottish wit"






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Ironical" Quotes from Famous Books



... upon immaturity, regarding it as something to be got over as rapidly as possible. Then the adult formed by such educative methods looks back with impatient regret upon childhood and youth as a scene of lost opportunities and wasted powers. This ironical situation will endure till it is recognized that living has its own intrinsic quality and that the business of education is with that quality. Realization that life is growth protects us from that so-called idealizing of childhood which in effect is nothing ...
— Democracy and Education • John Dewey

... mind, are agreed in proclaiming that the time of religion is over, of religion in all its forms, of religion in the largest sense of the word. Beneath the social disturbances of the day, beneath the discussions of science, beneath the anxiety of some and the sadness of others, beneath the ironical and more or less insulting joy of a few, we read at the foundation of many intellectual manifestations of our time these gloomy words: "Henceforth no more God for humanity!" What may well send a shudder ...
— The Heavenly Father - Lectures on Modern Atheism • Ernest Naville

... Lockhart was impatient of contradiction, and was prone to censure keenly those who had offended him. To strangers his manners were somewhat uninviting, and in society he was liable to periods of taciturnity. He loved the ironical and facetious; and did not scruple to indulge in ridicule even at the expense of his intimate associates. With many peculiarities of manner, and a temper somewhat fretful and impulsive, we have good authority for recording, that many unfortunate men of genius derived support from his bounty. ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various

... production, "the uncommon sale of this book" is stated as one reason for the publication; "above six thousand of them have been already vended."] In the same spirit he composed the "Guardian," in which Phillips's Pastorals were insidiously preferred to his own. Pope sent this ironical, panegyrical criticism on Phillips anonymously to the "Guardian," and Steele not perceiving the drift, hesitated to publish it, till Pope advised it. Addison detected it. I doubt whether we have discovered all the supercheries of this kind. After writing the finest works of genius, ...
— Calamities and Quarrels of Authors • Isaac D'Israeli

... Hsiang-yuen gave an ironical smile. "What do you know?" she exclaimed. "A genuine man of letters is naturally refined. But as for the whole lot of you, your poor and lofty notions are all a sham! You are most loathsome! We may now be frowzy and smelly, as we munch ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin

... This ironical sequence of things angered him like an impish trick from a fellow-creature. Like Prester John's, his table had been spread, and infernal harpies had snatched up the food. He went out of the house, and moved sullenly onward down the pavement till he came to the bridge at the bottom of ...
— The Mayor of Casterbridge • Thomas Hardy

... talking privately and earnestly with each one there. He sat amid silence; when a few barbs nervously applauded, the fraternity men of both factions, recovering themselves, raised a succession of ironical cheers. A shabby, frightened barb stood awkwardly, and in a trembling, weak voice seconded the nomination. There was an outburst of barb applause—strong, defiant. Pierson was anxiously studying ...
— The Cost • David Graham Phillips

... with ironical approval; 'stand here all day arguing while the candles burn out. You'll like it awfully when ...
— The Phoenix and the Carpet • E. Nesbit

... up." He quoted Manville Fenn and other writers of boys' adventure stories thirty or forty years old to show the dangers of Australia and his own indomitable courage in tackling them: he told of Captain Cook's heart and many other blood-curdling tales, and was greeted with ironical cheers and laughter. They explained to him at great length all about the civilization of Australia, and when, an hour after the Devon coast had dropped below the horizon he became miserably sea-sick, they formed a procession before him, carrying fire buckets, brandy and ...
— Captivity • M. Leonora Eyles

... bey himself, glasses, fez, and all, astride an Arab steed. We were to be taken for a drive. Toward the end of it we reached the flour-mill, the only modern edifice in this ancient town, and were ushered into the office to sit in a constrained circle, with the slightly ironical-looking young proprietor—accustomed, perhaps, to such visits—and his associates, while coffee and cigarettes were brought. The engineer, an Italian, welcomed us in French; the proprietor, who spoke nothing but Turkish, smiled inscrutably, and overhead, in several brass cages, ...
— Antwerp to Gallipoli - A Year of the War on Many Fronts—and Behind Them • Arthur Ruhl

... Malcourt bent forward saying something to her, but she rose while he was speaking, as though she had not heard him; and Hamil walked through the circle to where she stood. A number of very young men looked around at him with hostile eyes; Malcourt's brows lifted a trifle; then he shot an ironical glance at Shiela and, as the circle about her disintegrated, sauntered up, bland, debonair, ...
— The Firing Line • Robert W. Chambers

... Machiavelli or Robespierre possessed, but one stamped by the lowest, most miserable labor-conditions and outlook which American industrialism produces. To those who have seen at first-hand the life of the western casual laborer, any reflections on his gratitude or spiritual buoyancy seem ironical humor. ...
— An American Idyll - The Life of Carleton H. Parker • Cornelia Stratton Parker

... be found among a poet's weapons; which exercise seems to give him both relief and delight. Apart from these thrusts edged with personal bitterness, William Watson possesses a rarely used vein of ironical wit that immediately recalls Byron, who might himself have written some of the stanzas in The Eloping Angels. Faust requests Mephisto to procure for them both admission ...
— The Advance of English Poetry in the Twentieth Century • William Lyon Phelps

... second example the emphasis is ironical. The Spaniards pretended that they would protect the Peruvians if they would submit to them, whereas it was evident that they merely desired to plunder and destroy them. Thus their protection is ironically called "such protection as vultures give to ...
— McGuffey's Fifth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey

... the leader, with ironical courtesy, his grasp not relaxing one whit from the boy's arm. "Time leaves us scant opportunity for the smooth speech of the court. We must use all despatch in conveying your worshipful presence hence, to the safe custody ...
— In the Wars of the Roses - A Story for the Young • Evelyn Everett-Green

... performed in conjunction with other peoples which we cannot exterminate." ... (Quoted in the Times, March 2, 1915.) On April 11, 1915, there appeared another telling little article, "English and German, according to Professor Sombart." The article is quietly ironical over Professor Sombart, who brings us before the court on the old charge, that we are a nation of shopkeepers. "The traders' spirit, that is Englishdom." I confess that as an Englishman I have always ...
— The Better Germany in War Time - Being some Facts towards Fellowship • Harold Picton

... was expecting to see all the beauties of her bard melt away one by one in the acidity of criticism, like pearls in the cup of the Egyptian queen.— he agreeably disappointed her by merely saying with an ironical smile that the merits of such a poem deserved to be tried at a much higher tribunal; and then suddenly passed off into a panegyric upon all Mussulman sovereigns, more particularly his august and ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al

... this ironical statement were (to my mind) ignoble; first of all he resented my musical ability, secondly, my literary skill shamed him, for as he had put before me a badly composed circular letter, telling me to copy it one hundred times, I quite naturally improved the English.—However, ...
— A Son of the Middle Border • Hamlin Garland

... were Cyrus H. McCormick, C. W. Marsh, Charles B. Withington, and John F. Appleby. The name that stands foremost, of course, is that of McCormick, but each of the others made additions to his invention that have produced the present finished machine. It seems like the stroke of an ironical fate which decreed that since it was the invention of a Northerner, Eli Whitney, that made inevitable the Civil War, so it was the invention of a Southerner, Cyrus McCormick, that made inevitable the ending of that war ...
— The Age of Big Business - Volume 39 in The Chronicles of America Series • Burton J. Hendrick

... with an ironical nod and disappeared, doubtless to join the countesses of my preface and all the metaphorical creatures, so often employed by romance-writers as agents for the recovery or composition of ...
— Analytical Studies • Honore de Balzac

... with ironical gravity, and acknowledged the compliment with an expression of polite contempt that was altogether lost on its insensible subject. But Pathfinder had too much native courtesy, and was far too just-minded, to allow the attack to ...
— The Pathfinder - The Inland Sea • James Fenimore Cooper

... also spoke encouragingly to me. One of them, indeed, had appeared my enemy on my trial, accosting me in a courteous but ironical tone, while his look of insulting triumph seemed to belie his words. I would not make oath it was so, but my blood was then boiling, and I was trying to smother my passion. While they were praising me for my Christian patience, ...
— My Ten Years' Imprisonment • Silvio Pellico

... have his stuff again to the last pennyworth," young McMurrough returned with an ironical laugh, "and without payment at all! Or stay! Perhaps you'll ...
— The Wild Geese • Stanley John Weyman

... that a masterpiece was discovered at Beeding, in one of those unlikely places in which with ironical humour fine pictures so often hide themselves. It hung in a little general shop kept by an elderly widow. After passing unnoticed or undetected for many years, it was silently identified by a dealer who happened to be buying ...
— Highways & Byways in Sussex • E.V. Lucas

... he may answer for himself?" inquired Henry Grantham, whose attention had been aroused by the ironical remarks ...
— The Canadian Brothers - or The Prophecy Fulfilled • John Richardson

... of a backwoodsman, when asked if he would have cream and sugar. Some are unmistakably Eastern; as, "All deacons are good,—but there's odds in deacons"; "He's a whole team and the dog under the wagon"; "That's first-rate and a half"; "Handy as a pocket in a shirt" (ironical). Almost every county has some good die sinker in language, who mints phrases that pass into the currency of a whole neighborhood. We picked up two such the other day, both of the same coinage. The county-jail (the only stone building where all the dwellings were ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 25, November, 1859 • Various

... never appeared on the bridge'; by another he was nicknamed 'the Mole', because his activity could only be conjectured from the tracks which he left behind him. A third name current in Cape Town, 'the Blind Man,' was an ironical tribute to his exceptional astuteness in politics. His organ was 'the Afrikander Bond', a society formed partly for agricultural, partly for political purposes, a creature which like a chameleon has often changed ...
— Victorian Worthies - Sixteen Biographies • George Henry Blore

... considerable portion of Asia. His simple wants were easily supplied by the wild productions of the country, supplemented when needful by the proceeds of light manual labour. By degrees the self-contempt which had originally stung him to desperation took the form of an ironical compassion for the folly of mankind, and the restlessness which had at first impelled him to seek relief in a change of scene gave place to a spirit of curiosity and observation. He learned to mix freely with all orders of men, save one, and rejoiced to find ...
— The Twilight of the Gods, and Other Tales • Richard Garnett

... nettled by the coloured gentleman's refusal, and unbuttoned my wrath under the similitude of ironical submission. I knew nothing, I said, of the ways of American hotels; but I had no desire to give trouble. If there was nothing for it but to get to bed immediately, let him say the word, and though it was not my habit, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 2 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... there, heap big chief," he declared proudly, in guttural English. "Name Big Tiger. Me, they call Little Tiger." A shade of suspicion crept over his face. "You white you say you friend. More whites hid behind trees and shoot and kill many of Big Tiger's braves," he said with an ironical smile. ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely

... through and read many of those MSS. which I bitterly repent not having taken, for in that case the world would not have been deprived of many beautiful and valuable writings. I remember a poem of his written in the style of 'The House that Jack built,' the biting sarcasm of which, the ironical finesse—is beyond anything I have ever read. Many great people still living found their way into these verses. I begged Lady Burton to keep it, but her peasant confessor said 'Destroy it,' so it was burnt ...
— The Life of Sir Richard Burton • Thomas Wright

... plebeian farce and from scurrility to poetic elevation, finally in a frequent employment of the figure which the Greeks called [Greek: para prosdokian]. His poem is a parody of the Aristophanic type. 'Like a fantastically ironical magic tree, the world-subversive idea which lies at the root of it springs up with blooming ornament of thoughts, with singing nightingales and climbing chattering apes.'[202] To seek a central motive or a sober meaning in this caprice of the satirical imagination ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volumes 1 and 2 - The Catholic Reaction • John Addington Symonds

... the end of all this—it remembers the reply of the Russian Minister, couched in a tone of haughty sarcasm and of indignation that deigned to be ironical. There was then but one step to take, according to the views of the French Government, and that was action. They appealed to that England which had itself thus set the example of agitation on the subject; and England, wisely as I think, recurred to her traditionary policy, ...
— Selected Speeches on British Foreign Policy 1738-1914 • Edgar Jones

... building a house, Cuvier had observed two sparrows, that perched at a short distance, watching the industry of the two birds, not without interchanging between themselves some cries that appeared to Cuvier rather ironical. When the swallows departed for their country excursion, the sparrows took no pains to conceal their odious schemes; they impudently took possession of the nest, which was empty and without an owner to defend it, and established themselves there as though they had ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 3, August, 1850. • Various

... have done to Caesar, 'Hail, King of the Jews!' repeating again with clumsy iteration the stale jest which seems to them so exquisite. Then their mood changes, and naked ferocity takes the place of ironical reverence. Plucking the mock sceptre, the reed, from His passive hand, they strike the thorn-crowned Head with it, and spit on Him, while they bow in mock reverence before Him, and at last, when tired of their sport, tear off the purple, ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Mark • Alexander Maclaren

... draw from them great influence. The heroic, the holy, I lack. They are contemptuous. They fail in sympathy with humanity. The voice of nature they bring me to hear is not divine, but ghastly, hard, and ironical. They do not illuminate me: they do not edify me." Is not this the German of to-day? If Emerson were with us now he would see, as we all see, how the age of idealism and spiritual power in Germany ...
— The Last Harvest • John Burroughs

... to bestow so much liberality of invective on the Whigs of this kingdom as I find has been the fashion to do both in and out of Parliament. That you should pay compliments, in some tone or other, whether ironical or serious, to the minister from whose imbecility you have extorted what you could never obtain from his bounty, is not unnatural. In the first effusions of Parliamentary gratitude to that minister for the early and ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VI. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... strange, therefore, that the thousand-eyed philosophy of Shakspeare should have seemed a perfect monster to the one-eyed logic of Hume." Perhaps the finest answer to the charge that Shakspeare was an unregulated genius, full of great absurdities and great beauties, is contained in Hudson's ironical statement of it: "He has sometimes been represented as a sort of inspired and infallible idiot, who practiced a species of poetical magic without knowing what he did or why he did it; who achieved the greatest wonders of art, not by rational insight and ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII No. 6 June 1848 • Various

... signs of an ironical divinity's hand in the great drama of existence would find no small indication thereof in the stupendous question-mark that is called Christianity. That mankind should be on its knees before the very antithesis of what was the origin, the meaning and the law of the Gospels—that ...
— The Antichrist • F. W. Nietzsche

... Daudet's stories do not attain the tremendous impressiveness that Balzac's occasionally do, as, for example, in La Grande Breteche, nor has his clear-cut art the almost disconcerting firmness, the surgeon-like quality of Maupassant's; but the author of the ironical Elixir of Father Gaucher and of the pathetic Last Class, to name no others, could certainly claim with Musset that his glass was his own, and had no reason to ...
— The Nabob • Alphonse Daudet

... aloud ironical laugh. His white hair and beard bristled about his dark face, and he showed all his ...
— Saracinesca • F. Marion Crawford

... eloquent plea for mutual concession, Douglas was repeatedly interrupted by Wigfall of Texas, whose State was at the moment preparing to leave the Union. In ironical tones, Wigfall begged to be informed upon what ground the senator based his hope and belief that the Union would be preserved. Douglas replied, "I see indications every day of a disposition to meet this question now and consider what is necessary ...
— Stephen A. Douglas - A Study in American Politics • Allen Johnson

... the blow without flinching and merely bowed to the judge. There was the usual "sensation in Court." Women's voices were heard saying "Shame!" "Shame!" "Three cheers for Vivie Warren," and a slightly ironical "Three cheers for David Whatyoumay-callem Williams." The judge uttered the usual unavailing threats of prison for those who profaned the majesty of the Court; Honoria, Rossiter, Praed (in tears), Bertie Adams, looking white ...
— Mrs. Warren's Daughter - A Story of the Woman's Movement • Sir Harry Johnston

... circumstance as offering a new encouragement to the design that she had in view. Mad Jack could not only understand a responsibility, but could prove himself worthy of it. The superintendent smiled, and said, in his finely ironical way, "I never denied, madam, ...
— Jezebel • Wilkie Collins

... Roudier, and all those people who now came to her house as they might come to a cafe, to swagger and learn the latest news. She had noticed the free-and-easy manner in which these people entered her drawing-room, and it had made her take a dislike to them. Even the marquis, with his ironical politeness, was beginning to displease her. To triumph alone, therefore, to keep the cake for themselves, as she expressed it, was a revenge which she fondly cherished. Later on, when all those ill-bred persons presented themselves, hats off, before Monsieur ...
— The Fortune of the Rougons • Emile Zola

... deputy Zebul, left his residence at Arumah and approached the city. In a fine bit of realism we are told how Gaal observed the approaching foe and was told by Zebul, "You see the shadow of the hills as men,'' and as they drew nearer Zebul's ironical remark became a taunt, "Where is now thy mouth? is not this the people thou didst despise? go now and fight them!'' This revolt, which Abimelech successfully quelled, appears to be only an isolated episode. Another account ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia

... to make of the ironical old gentleman. It seemed to her that he was hostile, but she could take no offence at what he said. Moreover, as he was Mallow's uncle, she did not wish to quarrel with him. With a graceful gesture she indicated a glass of champagne. "Will you not ...
— The Secret Passage • Fergus Hume

... the representative of the people within twenty-four hours, he being responsible on his head for the punctual execution of the present order."—Ibid., AF., II. 135. (Orders of Saint-Just and Lebas, Strasbourg, Brumaire 10, year II.) The following is equally ironical; the rich of Strasbourg are represented as "soliciting a loan on opulent persons and severe measures" against ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 4 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 3 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine

... wish to get out of the Cathedral had finally decided him, his wish once more to walk through the streets of Toledo, that he had not seen during his seclusion in the cloister, and without anyone being able to take notice of him. Besides, the ironical situation tickled him extremely, that he of all men with his round religious denials should be the one to pilot the God of ...
— The Shadow of the Cathedral • Vicente Blasco Ibanez

... is in him the power of the cause,' a saying in which theology and philosophy are blended and reconciled; not omitting to observe the deep insight into human nature which is shown by the repetition of the same thought 'All philosophers are agreed that mind is the king of heaven and earth' with the ironical addition, 'in this way truly they magnify themselves.' Nor let us pass unheeded the indignation felt by the generous youth at the 'blasphemy' of those who say that Chaos and Chance Medley created the world; or the ...
— Philebus • Plato

... similar circumstance, in their mutual difficulties arising from their intrigues; and, after serious reflection, it seemed as if the clever, subtle mind of her friend, full of experience and sound judgment, answered her in her ironical tone of voice: "All these insignificant young people are poor and greedy of gain. They require gold and incomes to keep alive their means of amusement; it is by interest you must gain them over." And Anne of Austria adopted this plan. Her purse ...
— The Vicomte de Bragelonne - Or Ten Years Later being the completion of "The Three - Musketeers" And "Twenty Years After" • Alexandre Dumas

... was an ironical laugh, and he once more resumed his homeward journey, leaving Mike standing pale and ...
— North, South and Over the Sea • M.E. Francis (Mrs. Francis Blundell)

... the cheerful clatter of crockery, accompanied by a savoury incense, and talk and laughter. He imagined the girl making fun of his sentimental reasons for staying on deck; but, too proud to meet her ironical glances, stayed doggedly where he was, resolving to be off by the first train in the morning. He was roused from his gloom by a slight touch on his arm, and, turning sharply, saw the girl by ...
— Many Cargoes • W.W. Jacobs

... great strain. The sleek young manservant in an alpaca jacket, who said "Sir" whenever you looked at him, and who had seized upon and unpacked Billy's most private Gladstone bag without even asking if he might do so, and put away and displayed Billy's things in a way that struck Billy as faintly ironical, was unexpected. And it was unexpected that the brown suit, with its pockets stuffed with Billy's personal and confidential sundries, had vanished. And apparently a bath in a bathroom far down the corridor was prescribed for him in the morning; ...
— The Research Magnificent • H. G. Wells

... all would be at an end, and that soon. Already he saw the cold, ironical eyes which his associates would turn upon him, and their amusement over his downfall. Some of them he knew were playing high on that gambling-table kept open all day long at the Bourse, or in private houses at the clubs, and anywhere and ...
— The Collection of Antiquities • Honore de Balzac

... refused three times to my certain knowledge; why, he doesn't deny it—proud to let the country know his devotion to the most charming of her sex," and he gave an ironical little nod for which she exchanged ...
— The Bondwoman • Marah Ellis Ryan

... signs of hypochondria that some began covertly to pass jokes on him. Certain others, who were more acute, suspected that he was harbouring and devising in his mind some terrible enterprise.' The Prologue to Lorenzino's own comedy of 'Aridosiso' brings the sardonic, sneering, ironical man vividly before us. He calls himself 'un certo omiciatto, che non e nessun di voi che veggendolo non l'avesse a noia, pensando che egli abbia fatto una commedia;' and begs the audience to damn his play to save him the tedium of writing another. Criticised by the light of his subsequent ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece • John Addington Symonds

... unfamiliar. The master at once recognized it as Ben Dabney, otherwise known as "Uncle Ben," a good-humored but not over-bright miner, who occupied a small cabin on an unambitious claim in the outskirts of Indian Spring. His avuncular title was evidently only an ironical tribute to his amiable incompetency and heavy good-nature, for he was still a young man with no family ties, and by reason of his singular shyness not even a visitor in the few families of the neighborhood. As the master looked up, he had an irritating recollection that Ben ...
— Cressy • Bret Harte

... drawing-room, shook the old curtains with their rigid folds, seemed to splash the walls, the large upholstered chairs, the solemn furniture fixed in the same position for the past century, with a hail of words, rebounding, impudent, ironical, and crushing. ...
— A Comedy of Marriage & Other Tales • Guy De Maupassant

... [of the much-talked-of purposiveness of nature or of the much-talked-of beneficence of the Creator] have, unfortunately, as little real foundation as the favorite phrase, 'the moral order of the universe,' which is illustrated in an ironical way by the history of all nations.... If we contemplate the common life and the mutual relations between plants and animals (man included), we shall find everywhere, and at all times, the very opposite of that kindly and peaceful social life which the ...
— The Theories of Darwin and Their Relation to Philosophy, Religion, and Morality • Rudolf Schmid

... into a slimy quagmire, in which every step forward was a conscious effort. There was little singing in either Companies (A. and D.), during the short march to the train conveying the party to near a shell-infested area where the said party would partake of its outdoor picnic. "Party"—the ironical humour of it! ...
— Norman Ten Hundred - A Record of the 1st (Service) Bn. Royal Guernsey Light Infantry • A. Stanley Blicq

... Duc de Fronsac never failed, when he came to pay his respects to the Queen at her toilet, to turn the conversation upon Trianon, in order to make some ironical remarks on my father-in-law, of whom, from the time of his appointment, he always spoke as "my colleague Campan." The Queen would shrug her shoulders, and say, when he was gone, "It is quite shocking to find so little a man in the son of the ...
— Memoirs Of The Court Of Marie Antoinette, Queen Of France, Complete • Madame Campan

... And ironical ladies and gents from all parts of the United States wrote me on postal cards, begging that I should name the other four. Let us leave the cynics to their little pleasantries, and make our appeal to ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 1 of 14 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Good Men and Great • Elbert Hubbard

... ironical; its bitterness but reflecting the terrible disappointment he had suffered. Such a fearful disillusionment, such a blasting of life-long hopes and aspirations, such an uprooting of age-old tradition might have excused a vastly greater demonstration on the ...
— The Gods of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... at the pistol under Cleggett's hand, and from the pistol to Cleggett's face, with ironical gravity, before he spoke. "I should have thought, from the way you cling to that pistol, that perhaps your nerves might be a little weak ...
— The Cruise of the Jasper B. • Don Marquis

... a pity—from one point of view," remarked Theron, still with the ironical smile on his lips. "You seemed to enter upon the new life with such deliberation and fixity of purpose, too! I can imagine the regrets your withdrawal will cause, in certain quarters. I only hope that it will ...
— The Damnation of Theron Ware • Harold Frederic

... of the floor, full of her own peculiar injured dignity, not answering, but making a low ironical reverence. Mary Seaton fell on her knees, clung to the Queen's dress, and declared that while she lived, she would not ...
— Unknown to History - A Story of the Captivity of Mary of Scotland • Charlotte M. Yonge

... orchestra, floated in through the half-closed persiennes of his room, and later mingled with his dreams, tinging them, perhaps, with some of that indefinable plaintiveness, a sort of sadness essentially ironical, with which all dance music, even the most extravagant, ...
— A Comedy of Masks - A Novel • Ernest Dowson and Arthur Moore

... their judgment, and not content with a calm and judicial refutation of the document submitted to them, they attacked warmly the exaggerations, contradictions, and misrepresentations of Catholic doctrine of which Luther had been guilty, and succeeded in imparting to their reply a bitter and ironical tone more likely to widen than to heal the division. At the request of the Emperor they modified it very considerably, confining themselves entirely to a brief and dispassionate examination of the individual points raised by Melanchthon, and in its modified form their refutation ...
— History of the Catholic Church from the Renaissance to the French • Rev. James MacCaffrey

... nearest to him, pushing it ahead, and at last, just as they came opposite the cleft, steering his own log into its place. The next second it shot quivering forth into the sluice, and Henderson, with a sudden cold sweat jumping out all over him, circled slowly past the awful cleft. A shout of ironical congratulation came to him from the watchers on the brink above. But he hardly heard it, and heeded it not at all. He was striving frantically, paddling forward with one hand and backward with the other, to steer his sluggish, deep-floating ...
— The Backwoodsmen • Charles G. D. Roberts

... pocket and placed it in his own, and if all this took place under a sign—even in the section reserved for cavalhieros of approved raiment—solemnly warning passengers against "batadores de carteiras," or pickpockets—well, it was an ironical coincidence whose humor Bell did ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, May, 1930 • Various

... tragic pathos in the face of death. The facts of his life are summed up, and the features of his character are brought out as if by accident in the course of the defence. The conversational manner, the seeming want of arrangement, the ironical simplicity, are found to result in a perfect work of art, which ...
— Apology - Also known as "The Death of Socrates" • Plato

... a rug with her toe, so as to disclose the threadbare breadth that it concealed, and she threw an ironical eye upon a sort of massive and convoluted buffet which displayed a number of antique Dresden figurines and a pair of old candelabra compounded of tarnished gilt and broken prisms. "And in the Park," she added, ...
— With the Procession • Henry B. Fuller

... chase; while every once in a while down would tumble some lubberly urchin, or unskillful performer, or new beginner, coming into harder contact with the frozen element than was pleasant, and seeing stars in the daytime, while bursts of laughter and ironical invitations to try it again, greeted his misfortune. In another place were girls on small sleighs or sleds, capable of holding two or three, whirled along by half-a-dozen skaters with great rapidity; while, holding on to handkerchiefs, were others drawn upon their feet at less ...
— The Lost Hunter - A Tale of Early Times • John Turvill Adams

... always hoped that when the fire would come it would be in the midst of a recitation; and Sleepy constantly failed to prepare himself at all, in the hope that at the critical moment he would be rescued from flunking by a call to higher duties. But fate was ironical, and after two or three weeks of this nerve-wearing existence the Volunteers began ...
— The Dozen from Lakerim • Rupert Hughes

... Lyttelton's despatch, that they "cannot be expected to entertain the most cordial feelings towards the Government." In Ireland, also, is a "political system which admittedly has its difficulties," ironical euphemism for a system whose analogue in the Transvaal could have been used by the subject race, had they so willed, to bring civil government to a standstill, without the means of furnishing anything better, and which under the Act of Union can be, and has been, used to dislocate the Parliamentary ...
— The Framework of Home Rule • Erskine Childers

... precipitated into this. No matter that it was utterly irreconcilable with the nature of things and course of events that the wretched honourable gentleman could possibly produce a Precedent for this—William Barnacle would nevertheless thank the honourable gentleman for that ironical cheer, and would close with him upon that issue, and would tell him to his teeth that there Was NO Precedent for this. It might perhaps have been objected that the William Barnacle wisdom was not high wisdom or the earth it bamboozled would never have been made, or, if ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens

... or not, my dear Elinor, girls do gad—there is no doubt about that. I'm sorry I have not seen William. He is too busy, I suppose," with a slightly ironical intonation. "Goodbye!" ...
— The Arbiter - A Novel • Lady F. E. E. Bell

... forward by the right-hand lane, which ascended a hill, the left winding away under a plantation. The pit-a-pat of their horses' hoofs lessened up the slope; and the ironical directing-post stood in solitude as before, holding out its blank arms to the raw breeze, which brought a snore from the wood as if Skrymir the Giant ...
— Wessex Tales • Thomas Hardy

... from mouth to mouth; and all the ladies, as if of one accord, regarded the Captain with looks of the most ironical contempt. ...
— Evelina • Fanny Burney

... to whom the name told nothing, looked at the man and noticed in his face, the expression of which was now very gentle, the signs of underlying ferocity; irregular teeth gave to the mouth, the lips blood-red, an ironical expression full of evil audacity; the dark and prominent cheek-bones had something animal about them. The man was of middle height, with strong shoulders, a thick-set neck, and the large hairy hands of violent men capable ...
— The Village Rector • Honore de Balzac

... are we to say of the second and far more important passage, the conclusion of the tragedy, the 'unhappy ending,' as it is called, though the word 'unhappy' sounds almost ironical in its weakness? Is this too a blot upon King Lear as a stage-play? The question is not so easily answered as might appear. Doubtless we are right when we turn with disgust from Tate's sentimental alterations, from his marriage of Edgar and Cordelia, and from that cheap moral which every one of ...
— Shakespearean Tragedy - Lectures on Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth • A. C. Bradley

... not hesitate for a moment to give this people credit for their religiousness. True, their neighbours, Greeks like Polybius, approved of it only with an ironical smile on their lips, as we may smile at the devoted formalism of extreme Catholic or Protestant, while we secretly—if we have some sympathy with strangely varying human nature—admire the confidence and regularity that we cannot ourselves claim. At the moment where I have thus ...
— The Religious Experience of the Roman People - From the Earliest Times to the Age of Augustus • W. Warde Fowler

... voice was ironical. "But remember what I tell you. The Picard woman is subtle, and Michaud is subtle." Simpson had crossed the threshold, and only half heard the consul's next remark. "Voodoo is more subtle than both of them together. ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1921 • Various

... who study our native art," remarked the apothecary with an ironical smile, and stopped. Jason Philip likewise stopped, and looked in a dazed, distraught way at the bronze man with the two geese. Some boys were playing ball close by the fountain. When they saw the three men looking at it, they quit playing, came up, and looked at the fountain and the ...
— The Goose Man • Jacob Wassermann

... personal troubles, generally, place fictions of all kinds in an impertinent light. To our usual working mood the world is apt to seem M. Turgeneff's hard world, and when, at moments, the strain and the pressure deepen, the ironical element figures not a little in our form of address to those short-sighted friends who have whispered that it is an ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. X (of X) - America - II, Index • Various

... much pained as touched by the unaffected humility which had so accepted and carried out my ironical comparison, "one simple magnet-key would unlock the breast whose secrets seem so puzzling; but it has hardly a name in your tongue, and cannot ...
— Across the Zodiac • Percy Greg

... had completely outdone us, and that they were enjoying their victory in a manner intended to convey their ironical appreciation of our small effort to rob them. The more we considered the matter, the ...
— When Life Was Young - At the Old Farm in Maine • C. A. Stephens

... seemed to say to him that he must on no account stand in the schoolmaster's way with Sue. Phillotson was perhaps twenty years her senior, but many a happy marriage had been made in such conditions of age. The ironical clinch to his sorrow was given by the thought that the intimacy between his cousin and the schoolmaster had been brought about entirely ...
— Jude the Obscure • Thomas Hardy

... long-stretching island, Under Niagara, the cataract falling like a veil over my countenance, Upon a door-step, upon the horse-block of hard wood outside, Upon the race-course, or enjoying picnics or jigs or a good game of base-ball, At he-festivals, with blackguard gibes, ironical license, bull-dances, drinking, laughter, At the cider-mill tasting the sweets of the brown mash, sucking the juice through a straw, At apple-peelings wanting kisses for all the red fruit I find, At musters, beach-parties, friendly bees, huskings, ...
— Leaves of Grass • Walt Whitman

... their departure. But at last the Mayhews, father and son, set off on foot to walk home over the moonlit mountains; the doctor tucked himself and his daughter into his high gig, and drove off with a sweeping ironical bow to Rose, who had stood on the steps teasing him to the last; and Robert Elsmere offered to escort the Miss Leyburns ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... of the woods, and there is ever a mischievous, bantering, half-ironical undertone in his lay, as if he were conscious of mimicking and disconcerting some envied songster. Ambitious of song, practicing and rehearsing in private, he yet seems the least sincere and genuine of the sylvan minstrels, as if he had taken up music only to be in the fashion, or not ...
— Bird Stories from Burroughs - Sketches of Bird Life Taken from the Works of John Burroughs • John Burroughs

... the eyes of an artist. My intelligence remains skeptical. What, then, do I believe in? I do not know. And what is it I hope for? It would be difficult to say. Folly! I believe in goodness, and I hope that good will prevail. Deep within this ironical and disappointed being of mine there is a child hidden—a frank, sad, simple creature, who believes in the ideal, in love, in holiness, and all heavenly superstitions. A whole millennium of idyls sleeps in my heart; I am a pseudo-skeptic, ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 2 • Charles Dudley Warner

... after them, and Denver added an ironical promise that the foreman had no doubt he would keep. "I'll look out for Nora—Darling." There was a drawling pause between the first and second names. "I'll ce'tainly see that she don't have any time ...
— Wyoming, a Story of the Outdoor West • William MacLeod Raine

... an ironical smile, "perhaps you have taken time by the forelock, and already promised to be ...
— Sunrise • William Black

... Stilton and Miss Fetters were confirmed by a number of circumstances which I need not describe. That he should treat his wife in a harsh, ironical manner, which the poor woman felt, but could not understand, did not surprise me; but at other times there was a treacherous tenderness about him. He would dilate eloquently upon the bliss of living in accordance with the spiritual ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 6, No. 38, December, 1860 • Various

... and she sometimes fell asleep as soon as she stretched her body on their warm surfaces. She used to wonder at her own inactivity. She could lie there hour after hour in the sun and listen to the strident whir of the big locusts, and to the light, ironical laughter of the quaking asps. All her life she had been hurrying and sputtering, as if she had been born behind time and had been trying to catch up. Now, she reflected, as she drew herself out long upon the rugs, it was as if she were waiting ...
— Song of the Lark • Willa Cather

... said Monsieur de Vaudrey, looking round at the crowd with a mixture of calm assurance and ironical contempt—'I thank you, in my nephew's name, for having burned the absurd tree which obstructed the entrance to his chateau; you planted it, and it was for ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 379, May, 1847 • Various

... since whether that is not as ironical a judgment as ever was passed. Am I wise? Is wisdom attained by reading in big books and writing on paper? Solomon remarks that wisdom dwells with prudence and finds out knowledge of witty inventions; that the wisdom of the prudent is to understand ...
— The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne • William J. Locke

... Burke entered Trinity College, Dublin. He graduated B.A. in 1748; M.A., 1751. In 1750 he came to London, to the Middle Temple. In 1756 Burke became known as a writer, by two pieces. One was a pamphlet called "A Vindication of Natural Society." This was an ironical piece, reducing to absurdity those theories of the excellence of uncivilised humanity which were gathering strength in France, and had been favoured in the philosophical works of Bolingbroke, then lately published. Burke's other work published ...
— Thoughts on the Present Discontents - and Speeches • Edmund Burke

... me to go on again. And this I did indeed attempt to do, but it sounded so ill-founded and so stupid as well that I soon grew silent again. Krespel gloated over my embarrassment, whilst a malicious ironical smile flitted across his face. Then he grew very grave, and addressed me in solemn tones. "Young man, no doubt you think I am foolish, insane; that I can pardon you, since we are both confined in the same mad-house; and you only blame me for ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors: German • Various

... appoint his successor. He reminded them that the question of peace or war lay not with himself, but with them; and that the world would denounce as guilty those with whom rested the responsibility. He concluded with an observation which, in its humility, seemed sufficiently ironical, that if they had quite finished the perusal of the despatches from Madrid to his address, which they had intercepted, he should be thankful for an opportunity of reading them himself. He expressed a hope, therefore, that they ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... Agatha had an ironical answer on the very tip of her tongue: but something in the clear, "good" eye of Nathanael repressed her little wickedness. So she only whispered to Emma that for various reasons she had wished ...
— Agatha's Husband - A Novel • Dinah Maria Craik (AKA: Dinah Maria Mulock)

... Dicky, "I guess it's my tailor. He lives in Bond Street;" but this was artless and not ironical. Miss Cora went further. "I should have taken Mr. Dod for an Englishman," she said, at which the miscalculated Mr. ...
— A Voyage of Consolation - (being in the nature of a sequel to the experiences of 'An - American girl in London') • Sara Jeannette Duncan

... aversion with which they regarded him broke forth as soon as the crisis seemed to be over. Some of them attacked him about the accounts of the Pay Office. Some of them rudely interrupted him when speaking, by laughter and ironical cheers. He was naturally desirous to escape from so disagreeable a situation, and demanded the peerage which had been promised as the reward ...
— Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... ecclesiastical, that, they have found it necessary to provide rewards and honours for such advances in learning and piety as may best enable the clergy to serve the interests of the Church of Christ,' a remark which we might have thought ironical did we not know the temper of the times.—See ...
— The English Church in the Eighteenth Century • Charles J. Abbey and John H. Overton

... rode on in their wake, in a state of dismay and bewilderment. Nigel and Lord Marmion were together at so great an interval that he could not fall back on them, nor learn from them who these brothers were. And there was something in the ironical suppressed pity with which Harry had spoken of his prospects with the King of Scots, that terrified him all the more, because he knew that Sir James and Nigel would both hold it unworthy of him to have spoken freely of his own sovereign with an Englishman. Would ...
— The Caged Lion • Charlotte M. Yonge

... not delivered quite so continuously as it is printed here. On the contrary, it was subject to many interruptions, mostly of an ironical nature, the allusions to "a present" to be given for the girl and to the proposed marriage ceremony being received with screams of ...
— The People Of The Mist • H. Rider Haggard

... in The Heroine; Peacock's Nightmare Abbey; his praise of C.B. Brown in Gryll Grange; The Mystery of the Abbey, and its misleading title; Crabbe's satire in Belinda Waters and The Preceptor Husband; his ironical attack on the sentimental heroine in The Borough; his appreciation of folktales; ...
— The Tale of Terror • Edith Birkhead

... constant interpolation of side remarks and comments, queries of a politely ironical nature to the reader, in the regular approved fashion of English novels, Gogol added after the tenth chapter a defiant epilogue, in which he explained his reasons for dealing with fact rather than with ...
— Essays on Russian Novelists • William Lyon Phelps

... turbulent thought strongly repressed. It was difficult to define the color of his deep-set, somewhat sunken eyes, which now flashed with southern fire, and were now veiled, so that one seemed to be looking into an abyss. A slight mustache and pointed beard partly concealed the ironical smile that played on his passionate lips. The natural grace of good manners and quiet but admirably cut clothes completed the young man's exterior, behind which, in spite of all his reticence, could be divined a haughty and exceptional nature. A more profound psychologist ...
— The Most Interesting Stories of All Nations • Julian Hawthorne

... without noticing the friendly hand that Florrie held out, Gabriella was conscious of an ironical inclination to laugh. Though she felt no bitter personal resentment against Florrie—for, after all, Florrie had not been able to hurt her—there struggled in her bosom an indignation more profound, more moving, than any merely personal emotion could be. Her resentment was directed not ...
— Life and Gabriella - The Story of a Woman's Courage • Ellen Glasgow

... repeats my husband, with the slightest possible ironical accent. Then we go to church. It is too near to drive, so we all walk. The church-yard elms are out in fullest leaf above our heads. There are so many leaves, and they are so close together, that they hide the great brown rooks' nests. They do not hide the rooks themselves. It would take a good deal ...
— Nancy - A Novel • Rhoda Broughton

... resolved to lavish his blood and his treasure, though he should have to pawn his crown and drain his kingdom, for to overthrow the tyranny of the Ottomans, and open to himself in this way the kingdom of Heaven." The King of England gave a somewhat ironical reply to this chivalrous address, merely asking whether the King of France would consent not to dispose of the heiress of Brittany's hand, save on the condition of not marrying her himself. The ambassadors shuffled out of the question by saying that their master was so far from any ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume III. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot

... of all others should be little Madge. He had intimated that she had become imbued with sentimentality and aspirations after ideals, and was hoping to meet a male embodiment of these traits, which he regarded as prominently lackadaisical. Her merry and half ironical laugh was not the natural response of a woman of the ...
— A Young Girl's Wooing • E. P. Roe

... the vain hope of acquiring thereby earnestness and innocence of spirit; but he has studied the best tragic models in a reverent spirit, and allowed his muse to work out her own salvation. That grim ironical humor which infuses such bitter strength into the speeches of Isbrand was always scoffing at his own verses, and nipping the blossoms of his genius in the bud. "I believe I might have met with some success as a retailer of small coal," he writes to Mr. Kelsall, "or a writer of long-bottomed ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 12, No. 32, November, 1873 • Various

... again: yells of approval from the Left, catcalls and ironical laughter from the Right. At this point a new and most effective noise-maker was pressed into service. Each desk has an extension, consisting of a removable board eighteen inches long, six wide, and a half-inch thick. A member pulled one of these out ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... shrugged his shoulders slightly. This affair had hopelessly and unreasonably complicated his existence for him. One absurdity more or less in the development did not matter—all absurdity was distasteful to him; but, urbane as ever, he produced a faintly ironical smile, and said in his calm voice, "It certainly will do away to some extent with the ...
— A Set of Six • Joseph Conrad

... the hall to the drawing-room, she left the group about the door to welcome him. "Weren't you surprised," she asked him with an ironical laugh, "at the people, I mean—all ages and kinds? You see Parker had to be appeased. He didn't want to stay, and I don't know why he should. So we gave him Laura Lindsay." She nodded good-naturedly in the direction of a young girl, whose sharp thin little face was turned joyfully ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick

... her an ironical bow. "Thanks for this testimonial of respect. You're right. It wouldn't. I'm going to marry Joe Power's daughter, Deo volente because she is the most interesting woman I know and the most ...
— The Vision Spendid • William MacLeod Raine

... on late in the evening, and he stuck to his text like a clergyman. He quoted from Hansard to prove that Mr. Gladstone did not know what he was talking about; he blazed out against the Parnellites till they were called to order. The ironical members who ...
— Better Dead • J. M. Barrie

... cannot say. You should be better acquainted with her movements than I," was the ironical response. "You do not suppose I have been altogether blind to your infatuation, do you? If you choose to go walking and flirting with a girl on Cornish moors you must expect to be observed. As a matter of fact I thought it rather a good move on your part, ...
— The Moon Rock • Arthur J. Rees

... the world WHICH CONCERNS US—be a fiction? And to any one who suggested: "But to a fiction belongs an originator?"—might it not be bluntly replied: WHY? May not this "belong" also belong to the fiction? Is it not at length permitted to be a little ironical towards the subject, just as towards the predicate and object? Might not the philosopher elevate himself above faith in grammar? All respect to governesses, but is it not time that philosophy should ...
— Beyond Good and Evil • Friedrich Nietzsche

... quite what he meant it to be; he did not intend it to be ironical, as it was. "It's a snap for the Pool, all right. It gives them a cinch on the best of the range, and all the water. I didn't give milord credit ...
— Her Prairie Knight • B.M. Sinclair, AKA B. M. Bower

... "honor" thrusting in its nose. Miss Vivian, in her own good time, would doubtless mention to Gordon the little incident of Siena. It was Bernard's fancy, for a moment, that he already knew it, and that the remark he had just uttered had an ironical accent; but this impression was completely dissipated by the tone in which he added—"All ...
— Confidence • Henry James

... are acquainted) we may remark that in relation to that whole class of subjects, to which the present essay has reference, we know of no writer of the present day whose contributions are more numerous or more valuable. The highly ingenious ironical brochure, entitled 'Historic Doubts relative to Napoleon Buonaparte;' the Essays above mentioned, 'On some of the Peculiarities of the Christian Religion;' those 'On some of the Dangers to Christian Faith,' and on the 'Errors of Romanism;' the work on the 'Kingdom of Christ,' not to ...
— Reason and Faith; Their Claims and Conflicts • Henry Rogers

... old Buchanan came in his carriage to escort his successor to the inaugural ceremony, where it was the ironical fate of Chief Justice Taney to administer the oath to a President who had already gone far to undo his great work. Yet a third notable Democrat was there to do a pleasant little act. Douglas, Lincoln's defeated rival, placed himself with a fine ostentation by his side, and, observing ...
— Abraham Lincoln • Lord Charnwood

... murmured the niece; for she knew that he was rather sarcastic, and she was afraid that something ironical was coming. ...
— Christmas Every Day and Other Stories • W. D. Howells

... persons spoke well of him,—spoke well not only of his talents, but of his honourable character. His general nickname amongst them was "HONEST GORDON." Kenelm at first thought this sobriquet must be ironical; not a bit of it. It was given to him on account of the candour and boldness with which he expressed opinions embodying that sort of cynicism which is vulgarly called "the absence of humbug." The man was certainly no hypocrite; he affected no beliefs which he ...
— Kenelm Chillingly, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... marry a good man, Auntie, they're so dull! If not her lover in deed he was in desire Importance of mundane matters became increasingly grave Intolerable to be squeezed out slowly, without a say youself Ironical, which is fatal to expansiveness Ironically mistrustful Is anything more pathetic than the faith of the young? It was their great distraction: To wait! Know how not to grasp and destroy! Law takes a low view of human nature Let her come ...
— Quotations from the Works of John Galsworthy • David Widger

... with his French coat reaching no farther than the middle of his thigh, his campaign wig that surpasses all description, and a languishing leer upon his countenance, in which there seemed to be something arch and ironical. The ring, which he put upon her finger, he had concealed till the moment it was used. He now produced it with an air of self-complacency. It was a curious antique, set with rose diamonds: he told us afterwards, it had been in the family ...
— The Expedition of Humphry Clinker • Tobias Smollett

... stranger still, perhaps, that he liked my society. For hours of the day he would talk with me about Milton or Gothic architecture; for hours of the night he would go where I have no wish to follow him, even in speculation. He was a man with a long, ironical face, and close red hair; he was by class a gentleman, and could walk like one, but preferred, for some reason, to walk like a groom carrying two pails. He looked like a sort of super-jockey; as if some archangel had gone on the Turf. And I shall never forget the half-hour ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Maisie Ward

... he was not quite prepared for this; but it was amusing and would pass the time. He murmured a sentence of half ironical deprecation, and Mr. ...
— A First Family of Tasajara • Bret Harte

... one at a time, but both at the same time—I will fight both or none. If you are my superior officer, you must descend," replied Jack, with an ironical sneer, "to meet me, or I will not descend to meet that fellow, whom I believe to have been ...
— Mr. Midshipman Easy • Captain Frederick Marryat

... with one faultlessly-clad leg crossed on the other, and his ebony stick reposing against the arm of his chair, raised his clear ironical eyes to ...
— The Fruit of the Tree • Edith Wharton

... exclaimed the old man. "See there; a spot of grease floating in the bouillon, and there, another and another! In fact, here is an 'Archipelago of Greece!'" This witticism was relieved by an ironical ...
— The Strollers • Frederic S. Isham

... policy was sincerely peaceful, alike in aim and in tone, during the first six months of the year; and the piling up of armaments which then went on from the Urals to the Pyrenees may be regarded as an unconsciously ironical tribute paid by the Continental Powers to ...
— The Development of the European Nations, 1870-1914 (5th ed.) • John Holland Rose

... of Constable Richard L. Swift, fully answered all expectations. As Miss Anthony stepped forward to open the meeting, she was greeted with a broadside of hisses and ironical applause. When Mrs. Stanton began her address her voice was drowned in jeers and groans and, although she persevered for some time, she was unable to complete a single sentence. Rev. May attempted to speak and was met by yells, and stamping of feet. A Southerner ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 1 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper

... captain with a very puzzling expression, though, in the main, his countenance appeared to be ironical ...
— Wyandotte • James Fenimore Cooper

... Atlantic coast far to the north of the plantations of Raleigh and Baltimore. From this root sprang the colonies of Massachusetts, Connecticut, Vermont and Rhode Island, and later the States of New Hampshire and Maine. It would be putting it with ironical mildness to say that the Pilgrim Fathers did not imitate the tolerant example of the Catholic refugees. Religious persecution had indeed been practised by all parties in the quarrels of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries; ...
— A History of the United States • Cecil Chesterton

... the Devil, for all I cared for you," said the old man, with the contempt which he no longer cared to make ironical. "But I guess you better go back to your office, and go to work as if nothing had happened—till something does happen. I shall close the paper out as soon as I can. I was thinking of doing that just before you came in. I was thinking of taking you into the law business with ...
— A Modern Instance • William Dean Howells

... to an end; if you want me, here I am I never stop anyone from doing anything I shan't marry a good man, Auntie, they're so dull! If not her lover in deed he was in desire Importance of mundane matters became increasingly grave Intolerable to be squeezed out slowly, without a say yourself Ironical, which is fatal to expansiveness Ironically mistrustful Is anything more pathetic than the faith of the young? It was their great distraction: To wait! Know how not to grasp and destroy! Law takes a low view of human nature Let her come to me as she will, when she will Little notion of how ...
— Quotes and Images From The Works of John Galsworthy • John Galsworthy

... them closely, especially liking to stand on top of a cage and see the life below,—an agitated life it was apt to be when he was there. Thus he sometimes stood on the goldfinch's cage and noticed every motion with great interest, yet with an indescribably ironical air, as if he said, "My dear sir, is that the way you eat?" He showed particular interest in seed-eating birds, apparently not understanding how they could enjoy such food. Though full of bluster and pretense, he was as gentle as any bird in the room, never presumed ...
— In Nesting Time • Olive Thorne Miller

... months; but the present is a peculiarly remarkable instance. The phrase, in itself, was ambiguous. One might have supposed "the good old cause" to be the cause of Royalty and the Stuarts. This was an ironical advantage; for the phrase was a Republican, and even a Regicide, invention. It meant, as we have passingly explained, the pure Republican constitution which had been founded on the Regicide and which lasted till Cromwell's dissolution of the Rump on the 20th of ...
— The Life of John Milton, Volume 5 (of 7), 1654-1660 • David Masson

... not heed his ironical remarks; she sat gazing vacantly into space, but the look on her face was not pleasant ...
— The Northern Light • E. Werner

... awakening from his blind rage to the fact of what he was doing. His mouth shut like a trap, and beads of perspiration broke out upon his forehead. His eyes lowered before the ironical gaze of his companion. Thus he sat for a moment a prey to futile regrets. His anger had undone him. The sound of a short laugh fell upon his ears, and, as though drawn by a magnet, his eyes were once more turned on the ...
— The Hound From The North • Ridgwell Cullum

... his insisting too much or too little. In such a case the nicest sense of proportion might be at fault; and how easy to fall into the error of taking her resistance for a test of his sincerity! Whichever way she turned, an ironical implication confronted her: she had the exasperated sense of having walked into the trap ...
— The Greater Inclination • Edith Wharton

... seek idolatrous enchantments, or to prophesy falsely, but to be no other than an ill-disposed prophet of the true God; and intimates that God's answer the second time, permitting him to go, was ironical, and on design that he deceived [which sort of deception, by way of punishment for former crimes, Josephus never scruples to admit, as ever esteeming such wicked men justly and providentially deceived]. But perhaps we had better keep here close to ...
— The Antiquities of the Jews • Flavius Josephus

... if the latter heard them he made no sign, but accepted the ball from Blair without fumbling it, much to the surprise of the onlookers. Among these were Clausen and Cloud, their mouths prepared for the burst of ironical laughter that was expected to ...
— The Half-Back • Ralph Henry Barbour



Words linked to "Ironical" :   dry, incongruous, humorous, irony, humourous, wry



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