English Dictionary

SARCASTIC

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does sarcastic mean? 

SARCASTIC (adjective)
  The adjective SARCASTIC has 1 sense:

1. expressing or expressive of ridicule that woundsplay

  Familiarity information: SARCASTIC used as an adjective is very rare.


 Dictionary entry details 


SARCASTIC (adjective)


Sense 1

Meaning:

Expressing or expressive of ridicule that wounds

Similar:

barbed; biting; mordacious; nipping; pungent (capable of wounding)

black; grim; mordant (harshly ironic or sinister)

corrosive (spitefully sarcastic)

sardonic; snarky (disdainfully or ironically humorous; scornful and mocking)

satiric; satirical (exposing human folly to ridicule)

saturnine (bitter or scornful)

Also:

critical (marked by a tendency to find and call attention to errors and flaws)

disrespectful (exhibiting lack of respect; rude and discourteous)

Attribute:

caustic remark; irony; sarcasm; satire (witty language used to convey insults or scorn)

Antonym:

unsarcastic (not sarcastic)

Derivation:

sarcasm (witty language used to convey insults or scorn)


 Context examples 


"Is she sarcastic, and sarcastic to me!" it seemed to say.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

Like enough, he returned; though there's a sarcastic meaning in that observation for an amiable piece of innocence like my young friend.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

Mr. Bennet was so odd a mixture of quick parts, sarcastic humour, reserve, and caprice, that the experience of three-and-twenty years had been insufficient to make his wife understand his character.

(Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen)

His tall, gaunt, stringy figure is insensible to fatigue, and his dry, half-sarcastic, and often wholly unsympathetic manner is uninfluenced by any change in his surroundings.

(The Lost World, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Besides my work in the cabin, with its four small state-rooms, I was supposed to be his assistant in the galley, and my colossal ignorance concerning such things as peeling potatoes or washing greasy pots was a source of unending and sarcastic wonder to him.

(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)

He paused—and growing cooler in a moment, added, with only sarcastic dryness, If Mr. Perry can tell me how to convey a wife and five children a distance of an hundred and thirty miles with no greater expense or inconvenience than a distance of forty, I should be as willing to prefer Cromer to South End as he could himself.

(Emma, by Jane Austen)

Tom repeated his resolution of going to him early on the morrow; and though Julia, who had scarcely opened her lips before, observed, in a sarcastic manner, and with a glance first at Maria and then at Edmund, that the Mansfield theatricals would enliven the whole neighbourhood exceedingly, Edmund still held his peace, and shewed his feelings only by a determined gravity.

(Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen)

I'm going to have the little carriage, and Baptiste can drive, so you'll have nothing to do but hold your umbrella, and keep your gloves nice, returned Amy, with a sarcastic glance at the immaculate kids, which were a weak point with Laurie.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)

A sneer, however, whether covert or open, had now no longer that power over me it once possessed: as I sat between my cousins, I was surprised to find how easy I felt under the total neglect of the one and the semi- sarcastic attentions of the other—Eliza did not mortify, nor Georgiana ruffle me.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

Yes, there is your 'boite' at last: take it into a corner, you genuine daughter of Paris, and amuse yourself with disembowelling it, said the deep and rather sarcastic voice of Mr. Rochester, proceeding from the depths of an immense easy-chair at the fireside.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)



 Learn English with... Proverbs 
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