Word.ws English Dictionary

ironism

ironism noun: a state of doubt regarding one's own "vocabulary" (set of communicative beliefs) that cannot be removed by making arguments in that vocabulary.

Noun

ironism (uncountable)

  1. A state of doubt regarding one's own "vocabulary" (set of communicative beliefs) that cannot be removed by making arguments in that vocabulary.
    • Perhaps Rorty's pragmatics of liberal ironism is a better way of understanding the implication of the existence of disdained others on the post-modern.2002, Keith Tester, The Life and Times of Post-Modernity, Routledge, →ISBN, page 149

Origin of ironism

Coined by American philosopher Richard Rorty, from Ancient Greek εἴρων (eírōn, “one who says less than they think”). By surface analysis, irony + -ism.

Questions about ironism

What does ironism mean?
Ironism means a state of doubt regarding one's own "vocabulary" (set of communicative beliefs) that cannot be removed by making arguments in that vocabulary.
What part of speech is ironism?
Ironism is a noun.

Words near ironism in the dictionary

  1. ironiser
  2. ironisers
  3. ironises
  4. ironish
  5. ironising
  6. ironism
  7. ironist
  8. ironists
  9. ironize
  10. ironized
  11. ironizes

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: ironism (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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