释义 |
ironically, adv.|aɪˈrɒnɪkəlɪ| [f. prec. + -ly2. Cf. Gr. εἰρωνικῶς, L. īrōnice, F. ironiquement.] 1. In an ironical manner; by way of irony.
1576Fleming Panopl. Epist. 211 note, It may be spoken eironically, for familiar friends use jeasting nowe and then, in their letters. 1649Roberts Clavis Bibl. 109 Ironically bidding them cry to their idols for help. 1731Swift On his Death 309 Although ironically grave, He sham'd the fool, and lash'd the knave. 1866Geo. Eliot F. Holt Introd., Saying that there had been fine stories—meaning, ironically, stories not altogether creditable to the parties concerned. †2. With dissimulation or personation. Obs. rare.
1682Sir T. Browne Chr. Mor. iii. §20 Though the World be histrionical and most Men live ironically, yet be thou what thou singly art, and personate only thy self.
▸ In weakened, typically parenthetical use, often opening a sentence: paradoxically, curiously, unexpectedly, coincidentally.
1907E. Wharton Fruit of Tree ii. xii. 187 He had done very little with the opportunity... What he had done with it..had landed him, ironically enough, in the ugly impasse of a situation from which no issue seemed possible. 1947Life 17 Nov. 11/2 One of the chief reasons for this marked-down bonanza is, ironically, the fact that Peru is economically less self-sufficient than many countries. 1968Etc. June 186 Ironically, it will be the lower-class male who is most likely to be the first to achieve the freudian concept of sexual maturity. 1974W. Foley Child in Forest ii. ii. 84 My new master had..a patronising distaste for servants, and all the ‘lower orders’. Ironically, he had married ‘beneath him’. 1986Today 9 July 9/1 The Yard was responding to claims that a Caribbean gang—ironically called The Yardies—has moved into London's Brixton area. 1997B. Rowlands Which? Guide to Complementary Med. 153 Homeopaths believe that this succussion confers the therapeutic effect on the solution and that, ironically, the weaker the solution the more effective it is. |