Sarcasm vs. Irony

Main Difference

The main difference between Sarcasm and Irony is that the Sarcasm is a sharp, bitter, or cutting expression or remark; a bitter gibe or taunt and Irony is a rhetorical device, literary technique, or situation in which there is an incongruity between the literal and the implied meaning.

• Sarcasm

  Sarcasm is “a sharp, bitter, or cutting expression or remark; a bitter gibe or taunt”. Sarcasm may employ ambivalence, although sarcasm is not necessarily ironic. Most noticeable in spoken word, sarcasm is mainly distinguished by the inflection with which it is spoken and is largely context-dependent.

• Irony

  Irony (from Ancient Greek εἰρωνεία eirōneía, meaning ‘dissimulation, feigned ignorance’), in its broadest sense, is a rhetorical device, literary technique, or event in which what appears, on the surface, to be the case, differs radically from what is actually the case.

  Irony can be categorized into different types, including: verbal irony, dramatic irony, and situational irony. Verbal, dramatic, and situational irony are often used for emphasis in the assertion of a truth. The ironic form of simile, used in sarcasm, and some forms of litotes can emphasize one’s meaning by the deliberate use of language which states the opposite of the truth, denies the contrary of the truth, or drastically and obviously understates a factual connection. Other forms, as identified by historian Connop Thirlwall, include dialectic and practical irony.