Something that’s “sardonic” (sar-DON-ik) – from the Greek for “derisive” – is scornful or mocking.
Example (as used by Ian McEwan in Amsterdam) “Clive gave a sardonic account of a publicly subsidized ‘concert’ in a nearly deserted church hall, in which the legs of a piano were repeatedly struck with the broken neck of a violin for over an hour.”
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Copyright ETR, LLC, 2009
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