What's the difference between irony and metonymy?

Irony


Definition:

  • (a.) Made or consisting of iron; partaking of iron; iron; as, irony chains; irony particles.
  • (a.) Resembling iron taste, hardness, or other physical property.
  • (n.) Dissimulation; ignorance feigned for the purpose of confounding or provoking an antagonist.
  • (n.) A sort of humor, ridicule, or light sarcasm, which adopts a mode of speech the meaning of which is contrary to the literal sense of the words.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) And the irony of it is it doesn't interest me at all.
  • (2) The irony of this type of self-manipulation is that ultimately the child, or adult, finds himself again burdened by impotence, though it is the impotence of guilt rather than that of shame.
  • (3) The irony is that we have more media than ever before, but less insight.
  • (4) Richard Aylard, director of sustainability and external affairs for Thames Water, said the firm was aware of the irony that heavy rain had set in after the hosepipe ban was announced.
  • (5) One of the terrible ironies of the Iraq War is that President Bush used the threat of nuclear terrorism to invade a country that had no active nuclear program.
  • (6) That he was able to keep his secret treasures here, not in some remote corner of the globe but in the centre of the city that gave birth to the National Socialist movement, is both extraordinary and not short of a certain dark irony.
  • (7) He is wary of pretension, alive to all shades of irony.
  • (8) There was a thing at the time that said basically: 'Oh, the working classes obviously don't understand this is irony, so Harry's had to kill him off.'
  • (9) But the character – compounded of piercing sanity and existential despair, infinite hesitation and impulsive action, self-laceration and observant irony – is so multi-faceted, it is bound to coincide at some point with an actor’s particular gifts.
  • (10) The irony of her image being exchanged in return for commodities in the future,” she said, “seems to recall the way that actual slaves’ bodies were serving as currencies of exchange.” Larson arrived at a different conclusion about the honor.
  • (11) In the end, though, practical rethinkers have to get beyond the delights of irony and paradox in which Glasman too often wraps himself.
  • (12) There is a perverse irony that people who have cracked their iPhones are now being targeted by hackers.
  • (13) The irony of this is that today, when I was getting all of this horrible antisemitic shit that I’ve only ever seen in Russia, I was reminded that 26 years ago today my family came to the US from Russia.
  • (14) The irony is an uncomfortable one for policymakers.
  • (15) Because of our slightly younger average age and city location, we were supposedly one of the "new wave" WIs that had started springing up in the years before – groups that rejected crochet and did more modern activities, often with more than a tinge of irony.
  • (16) White House officials said that Obama, who was planning to work on the final draft of his speech on his flight from Washington to Oslo, would directly address the issue of the irony of being awarded the peace prize while escalating the war.
  • (17) Labour's pensions spokesman, Gregg McClymont, said: "The irony is that there are lots of good pension schemes out there that are being undermined by what is going on.
  • (18) She is being helpful, no doubt about that, but there is an unconscious note of power play – not to mention the sweet irony of my having provoked her into pulling not one but two phones out of her bag within seconds of us sitting down.
  • (19) "The irony of welcoming to the London 2012 Olympic Games an individual who is alleged to have led an organised and brutal repression of athletes because they peacefully exercised their internationally recognised right to freedom of expression and association during Bahrain's Arab Spring would be a blow to all athletes around the world, and irreconcilable with the UK commitment to human rights and claimed support to peaceful pro-democracy movements," the ECCHR said.
  • (20) A h, the irony of white people complaining about being interrupted by black people.

Metonymy


Definition:

  • (n.) A trope in which one word is put for another that suggests it; as, we say, a man keeps a good table instead of good provisions; we read Virgil, that is, his poems; a man has a warm heart, that is, warm affections.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) The two patient groups showed quite relevant differences as to their own expressive modalities in the use of metaphor and metonymy, which are considered as the graphic representation means of the illness.
  • (2) Fort McMurray is more than an environmental hotspot, more than a metonymy for oil sands, more than a grail for jobseekers and grifters.