irony vs wind-up

irony

noun
  • Socratic irony: ignorance feigned for the purpose of confounding or provoking an antagonist. 

  • Contradiction between circumstances and expectations; condition contrary to what might be expected. 

  • Dramatic irony: a theatrical effect in which the meaning of a situation, or some incongruity in the plot, is understood by the audience, but not by the characters in the play. 

  • The quality of a statement that, when taken in context, may actually mean something different from, or the opposite of, what is written literally; the use of words expressing something other than their literal intention, often in a humorous context. 

  • An ironic statement. 

adj
  • Of or pertaining to the metal iron. 

  • The food had an irony taste to it. 

wind-up

noun
  • A humorous attempt to fool somebody, a practical joke in which the victim is encouraged to believe something untrue. 

  • A punch line of a joke or comedy routine. 

  • The phase of making a pitch where the pitcher moves his or her arm backwards before throwing the ball. 

  • The end or conclusion of something. 

  • A circular hand gesture, supposed to represent the winding on of film, used to signal to a performer to finish quickly. 

adj
  • Needing to be wound up in order to function. 

How often have the words irony and wind-up occurred in a corpus of books? (source: Google Ngram Viewer )