sardonic

UK/sɑːˈdɒnɪk//sɑɹˈdɑnɪk/

sardonic adjective: scornfully mocking or cynical.

Adjective

sardonic (comparative more sardonic, superlative most sardonic)

Scornfully mocking or cynical.
- He distances himself from people with his nasty, sardonic laughter.
- [Q]Uivering fears, Heart-tearing cares, / Anxious ſighs, Untimely tears, / Fly, fly to the Courts; / Fly to fond worldings ſports, / Where ſtrain’d Sardonick ſmiles are cloſing ſtill, / And grief is forc’d to laugh againſt her will; / Where mirth’s but mummery, / And ſorrows only real be.1685, Henry Wotton, “[A Deſcription of the Countrys Recreations.] Poems Found among the Papers of Sir Henry Wotton”, in Reliquiæ Wottonianæ, or, A collection of Lives, Letters, Poems; […] , Fourth...
Synonyms:

sneering, satirical
Disdainfully or ironically humorous.
- Another manifestation, significantly reaching its apogee in the midst of Antonine virtues, was the growing popularity of adoxographical exercises. Mock panegyrics were dashed off, not just by sardonic intellectuals such as Lucian, but also by trained courtiers and polished encomiasts of the stamp...1979, Carl Deroux, editor, Studies in Latin Literature and Roman History [Collection Latomus; 164], volume 1, Brussels: Latomus, →OCLC, page 111
Synonyms:

sarcastic

sardonic meaning in Urdu, Bengali, Malayalam and Kannada

sardonic in Malayalam

satirical, mocking, sarcastic: നിന്ദാനിർഭരമായ, പരിഹാസം നിറഞ്ഞ, കളിയാക്കുന്ന, ഊശിയാക്കുന്ന, കൊഞ്ഞനം കുത്തലായ, പരിഹസിക്കുന്ന

sardonic in Kannada

ಕಟುವಾದ, ವಿಕಟ, ಹಳಿಯುವ, ಜರೆತದ, ಕುಟಿಲ, ವ್ಯಂಗ್ಯಪೂರ್ಣ

More languagesFewer languages

sardonic in Persian: زهرخنده zahrxande

Examples of sardonic in a sentence

With a sardonic smile, I stared directly into the face of the librarianess.
There are welcome flashes of humor throughout, particularly the dark, sardonic strain that Russians call chernukha.
That every neighborhood should have a great lady, if from the author, drips with a sardonic tone.

All 12 example sentences with sardonic

Synonyms of sardonic

Forms of sardonic

comparative	more sardonic
superlative	most sardonic

Origin of sardonic

From French sardonique, from Latin sardonius, from Ancient Greek σαρδόνιος (sardónios), alternative form of σαρδάνιος (sardánios, “bitter or scornful laughter”), which is often cited as deriving from the Sardinian plant (Ranunculus sardous or possibly Oenanthe crocata), known as either σαρδάνη (sardánē) or σαρδόνιον (sardónion). When eaten, it would cause the eater's face to contort in a look resembling scorn (generally followed by death). It might also be related to σαίρω (saírō, “to grin”). The related term sardoin, as gentilic, is ultimately derived from σάρδιον (sárdion) from Σάρδεις (Sárdeis), referring to Sardis in Lydia or Sart in Manisa, Turkey; other sources reference Sardonian from Σαρδόνιος (Sardónios, “from Sardinia”).

Words formed from sardonic

Words that rhyme with sardonic

48 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about sardonic

What does sardonic mean?: Sardonic means scornfully mocking or cynical.
What is sardonic in Urdu?: Sardonic in Urdu is جلی کٹی, تمسخرانہ, طنزیہ. See Sardonic meaning in Urdu.
What part of speech is sardonic?: Sardonic is an adjective.
How do you pronounce sardonic?: Sardonic is pronounced /sɑːˈdɒnɪk/ (UK).

Words near sardonic in the dictionary

Adapted from Wiktionary: sardonic (page history and authors); sardonic (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors); sardonic (Bengali Wiktionary) (page history and authors); sardonic (Olam, E.K. Kurup corpus) (dataset and license); sardonic (Kannada Wiktionary) (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.

Last updated: 2026-09-02

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-sardonic.ogg, en-au-sardonic.ogg.

Cite this entry: “sardonic.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/sardonic. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.