SARDONIC

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does sardonic mean? 

• SARDONIC (adjective)
  The adjective SARDONIC has 1 sense:

1. disdainfully or ironically humorous; scornful and mocking

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

 Dictionary entry details 

• SARDONIC (adjective)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Disdainfully or ironically humorous; scornful and mocking

Synonyms:

sardonic; snarky

Context example:

a wry pleasure to be...reminded of all that one is missing

Similar:

sarcastic (expressing or expressive of ridicule that wounds)

 Context examples 

She watched us with a sardonic eye as we stepped from the brougham.

(The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

He was proud, sardonic, harsh to inferiority of every description: in my secret soul I knew that his great kindness to me was balanced by unjust severity to many others.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

At which direct defiance the stubborn sneer would reappear upon Professor Summerlee's face, and he would sit, shaking his sardonic head in unsympathetic silence, behind the cloud of his briar-root pipe.

(The Lost World, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

He continued to grin with a sardonic humour, with a cynical mockery and defiance.

(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)

The carriage stopped, the doctor alighted, walked swiftly back to where I had also halted, and told me in an excellent sardonic fashion that he feared the road was narrow, and that he hoped his carriage did not impede the passage of my bicycle.

(The Return of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

In their excitement they had unconsciously seized each other by the hand, and stood like two little children in the presence of a marvel, Challenger's cheeks bunched up into a seraphic smile, and Summerlee's sardonic face softening for the moment into wonder and reverence.

(The Lost World, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Arrows that continually glanced off from Mr. Rochester's breast and fell harmless at his feet, might, I knew, if shot by a surer hand, have quivered keen in his proud heart—have called love into his stern eye, and softness into his sardonic face; or, better still, without weapons a silent conquest might have been won.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

I knew not what wild beast we were about to hunt down in the dark jungle of criminal London, but I was well assured, from the bearing of this master huntsman, that the adventure was a most grave one—while the sardonic smile which occasionally broke through his ascetic gloom boded little good for the object of our quest.

(The Return of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)