What's the difference between sarcasm and sardonic?

Sarcasm


Definition:

  • (n.) A keen, reproachful expression; a satirical remark uttered with some degree of scorn or contempt; a taunt; a gibe; a cutting jest.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) I relayed all this depressing news to Prof Ashton, who replied with spirited sarcasm, "I've put forward my idea!
  • (2) Lendl and Mauresmo are former world No1s but he is an unsmiling martinet with a cutting line in sarcasm, she a mentor who chooses her words like a schoolteacher.
  • (3) But by actually writing the word "innocent", Tugendhat was able to judge her stage directions to be the opposite, as the English are known for their sarcasm.
  • (4) Mail them to knowledge@theguardian.com , marked Curb Your Sarcasm.
  • (5) April 14, 2014 As the sarcasm-laden ribbing entered its second day, the minerals council began to elicit some sympathy for its horribly backfiring campaign.
  • (6) Meanwhile traders and global companies are forecasting "business as usual", Reuters reports: [Rosneft head] Igor Sechin himself responded to being penalised for the Ukraine policies of his friend President Vladimir Putin with sarcasm, calling it "an appreciation of our efficiency".
  • (7) The inference of sarcasm from the refreshingly rebellious wife of the Speaker could only be drawn in the full knowledge that Britons run on such humour like midwesterns do corn oil.
  • (8) Thus recently I've been scouring friends' timelines looking to add unwelcome sarcasm and scorn to all the gaiety, enthusiasm and affection.
  • (9) Sarcasm is a useful weapon because it’s not common in Thai humour.
  • (10) Sarcasm is not a defense but a form of aggressive discharge.
  • (11) He criticised Obama for the sarcasm he displayed over the smaller navy.
  • (12) More from the walking monument to sarcasm that is Tom Waterhouse: "When I've bought my chalet later this year you'd be most welcome to rent it at a very reasonable rate for a few weeks so you can write that great novel you must as a journalist be constantly dreaming of unleashing on an unsuspecting public."
  • (13) Read more Corbyn appeared to be wearying of the relentless media attention and came close to sarcasm.
  • (14) Responding to a pledge by Romney to increase military spending and a complaint that the navy had fewer ships, Obama resorted to heavy sarcasm.
  • (15) 'The sentences,' wrote Larissa MacFarquhar in a brilliant New Yorker profile of Chomsky 10 years ago, 'are accusations of guilt, but not from a position of innocence or hope for something better: Chomsky's sarcasm is the scowl of a fallen world, the sneer of hell's veteran to its appalled naifs' – and thus, in an odd way, static and ungenerative.
  • (16) In his longest-running column, entitled For My Mother Bohemians, he relentlessly exposed the shortcomings of the political elite to the full force of his sarcasm by quoting their words back at them.
  • (17) The Curmudgeon Moans and has a great line in sarcasm.
  • (18) • Meet a student from... Greece: ‘UK lad culture was a surprise – and in Greece we don’t have pre-drinking’ • Meet a student from... France: ‘I miss the patisserie, boulangerie and steak - but France isn’t that far…’ • Meet a student from... Ireland: ‘I’m always subjected to atrocious Irish accents and jokes about drinking’ • Meet a student from... Hong Kong: ‘I surprisingly miss the heat, humidity and crowdedness of Hong Kong’ • Meet a student from... Germany: ‘I brought a meat hammer from Germany so I can make schnitzel’ • Meet a student from... Malaysia: ‘I miss how, in Malaysia, everything revolves around food’ • Meet a student from... the US: ‘As an American, it took me four months to catch on to British sarcasm’ • Meet a student from... Nigeria: ‘People sit around drinking tea, which isn’t common in Nigeria.
  • (19) The hypothesis that people of different races and sexes, having divergent temperaments and beliefs, will also show different factors involved in their attitudes toward death was not supported because the factors of escape, depressive-fear, mortality, and sarcasm were common to them all.
  • (20) January 19, 2014 7.03pm GMT Preamble So this year's AFC Championship Game match-up pits the New England Patriots against the Denver Broncos and I know what you're thinking, hey if only there were storylines for this game (searches in vain for a sarcasm font).

Sardonic


Definition:

  • (a.) Forced; unnatural; insincere; hence, derisive, mocking, malignant, or bitterly sarcastic; -- applied only to a laugh, smile, or some facial semblance of gayety.
  • (a.) Of, pertaining to, or resembling, a kind of linen made at Colchis.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) It’s a sardonic but good-natured account of being non-white in modern Australia.
  • (2) Harrison Ford (Han Solo) had had a small part in George Lucas's American Grafitti, but was working as a carpenter when he was cast as the sardonic space smuggler, and Carrie Fisher (Princess Leia) had appeared briefly in the 1975 Warren Beatty comedy Shampoo.
  • (3) In the digital era, Hill and his team can sample and sardonically alter material in the week it is transmitted.
  • (4) People talk the same way about Angela Chase, the sardonic and sentimental heroine of My So-Called Life , the teen TV series that began Danes's career in 1994.
  • (5) The king sardonically replies that it would in fact make people merely acquire the appearance of wisdom, and that it would make them forgetful of how to remember.
  • (6) Entertainment Weekly later reported that sardonic space smuggler Solo and bounty hunter Fett would also get their own films, and there have also been hints that Darth Vader and Emperor Palpatine could return.
  • (7) Han definitely shoots first (and asks questions later) Lucas and fans have debated for decades whether the sardonic space scoundrel was originally intended to shoot bounty hunter Greedo only after the alien fired his blaster first in the Mos Eisley Cantina in 1977’s saga opener A New Hope, but Abrams clearly has no such qualms about showing the elder Solo as a quick-on-the-draw kind of guy.
  • (8) The Han Solo film will reportedly portray a younger version of the sardonic space smuggler, and will be set in the period between 2005 prequel movie Revenge of the Sith and the film that introduced the character, 1977's Star Wars .
  • (9) The Daily Mail wondered sardonically last week what they talked about over breakfast.
  • (10) I don’t know where they will find a place for the replay, maybe in a morning when we play in an afternoon,” said the sardonic Liverpool manager following his team’s ninth game in 29 days.
  • (11) The Oscar-winning Welsh actor has joined a cast that already includes Toby Jones and Bill Nighy in the lead roles of pompous Captain Mainwaring and his sardonic second-in-command Sergeant Wilson, the roles made famous by Arthur Lowe and John Le Mesurier in Jimmy Perry and David Croft’s original TV show.
  • (12) 3.26pm GMT A rather sardonic take on Chris Smith’s announcement that the dredging of the Somerset levels should start.
  • (13) One sardonic comment on Twitter summed up the widespread reaction: " There are no black men in Plymouth ," observed Chris Terry.
  • (14) Sardonic recoil against them (as in Shem's novel House of God) by residents--a professionally sanctioned response, deflecting what might otherwise be unendurable demands on their varied quotas of pity.
  • (15) "Well," a sudden, sardonic smile, "it is, but with enormous amounts of irony.
  • (16) A younger version of Solo will instead return in a new spin-off , tipped to appear in 2018, with Dave Franco, Logan Lerman and Scott Eastwood reportedly among the frontrunners to play the sardonic space scoundrel.
  • (17) While Jimmy Kimmel’s success is built on his sardonic wit, Corden doesn’t seem to have a cynical bone in his body.
  • (18) Felipe Gonzalez, the former Spanish social democratic prime minister, remarked sardonically the other day that when he was a lad Franco claimed his was the Third Way between capitalism and communism(4).
  • (19) Harrison Ford has confirmed for the first time that he expects to return as sardonic space smuggler Han Solo in Disney's forthcoming new Star Wars film.
  • (20) Mark of Cain, that is,” he said, in his aggressively sardonic Stirling-accented way.