SARCASM

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does sarcasm mean? 

• SARCASM (noun)
  The noun SARCASM has 1 sense:

1. witty language used to convey insults or scorn

  Familiarity information: SARCASM used as a noun is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• SARCASM (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Witty language used to convey insults or scorn

Classified under:

Nouns denoting communicative processes and contents

Synonyms:

caustic remark; irony; sarcasm; satire

Context example:

Satire is a sort of glass, wherein beholders do generally discover everybody's face but their own

Hypernyms ("sarcasm" is a kind of...):

humor; humour; wit; witticism; wittiness (a message whose ingenuity or verbal skill or incongruity has the power to evoke laughter)

Attribute:

sarcastic (expressing or expressive of ridicule that wounds)

unsarcastic (not sarcastic)

Derivation:

sarcastic (expressing or expressive of ridicule that wounds)

 Context examples 

All I had to do, I said, with gloomy sarcasm, was to forget Dora.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

"Indeed!" Challenger bowed with unwieldy sarcasm.

(The Lost World, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

I will not swear, reader, that there was not something of repressed sarcasm both in the tone in which I uttered this sentence, and in the feeling that accompanied it.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

He ignored my sarcasm, saying, “Suppose I clap the hatch on, now? You won’t fool me as you did in the lazarette.”

(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)

She colored angrily, but took no other notice of that girlish sarcasm, and answered with unexpected amiability...

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)

"If your lordship will graciously permit me to open my mouth, I shall be happy to express my sentiments," said he, with elaborate sarcasm.

(The Lost World, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

You cannot learn frankness, Rosa, said Mrs. Steerforth quickly—for there was always some effect of sarcasm in what Rosa Dartle said, though it was said, as this was, in the most unconscious manner in the world—in a better school.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

Brutality I had experienced, but it was the brutality of the intellect—the cutting sarcasm of Charley Furuseth, the cruel epigrams and occasional harsh witticisms of the fellows at the Bibelot, and the nasty remarks of some of the professors during my undergraduate days.

(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)

The sarcasm that had repelled, the harshness that had startled me once, were only like keen condiments in a choice dish: their presence was pungent, but their absence would be felt as comparatively insipid.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

Of course, said he, with his clumsy and ponderous sarcasm, Professor Summerlee will understand that when I speak of a pterodactyl I mean a stork—only it is the kind of stork which has no feathers, a leathery skin, membranous wings, and teeth in its jaws.

(The Lost World, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)