Sardonically

adv

adv ·5 syllables ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Adverb
  1. 1
    In a sardonic manner.

    "Her floppy hat came down to the tip of her nose, revealing only a long chin and a wide tight mouth, twitched up at the corners by a nervous contraction of her cheek muscles, which gave her an unexpected air of smiling sardonically in the recesses of her hat."

Adverb
  1. 1
    in a sarcastic manner wordnet

Example

More examples

""Have you read Gaboriau's works?" I asked. "Does Lecoq come up to your idea of a detective?" Sherlock Holmes sniffed sardonically. "Lecoq was a miserable bungler," he said, in an angry voice; "he had only one thing to recommend him, and that was his energy. That book made me positively ill.""

Etymology

From sardonic + -ally.

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.