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"Irony is best known as a figure of speech in which there is a gap or incongruity between what a speaker or a writer says, and what is understood. It can also be considered a twist of fate where an eventual event relates back to a particular quote (see poetic justice). All the different senses of irony, however, revolve around the notion of incongruity, or a gap between our understanding and what actually happens."

"Irony is a form of utterance that postulates a double audience, consisting of one party that hearing shall hear and shall not understand, and another party that, when more is meant than meets the ear, is aware, both of that “more” and of the outsider’s incomprehension." --Modern English Usage H. W. Fowler

Irony, from the Greek εἴρων (eiron), is a literary or rhetorical device, in which there is a gap or incongruity between what a speaker or a writer says, and what is generally understood (either at the time, or in the later context of history). Irony may also arise from a discordance between acts and results, especially if it is striking, and seen by an outside audience.

More generally, irony is understood as an aesthetic valuation by an audience, which relies on a sharp discordance between the real and the ideal, and which is variously applied to texts, speech, events, acts, and even fashion. All the different senses of irony revolve around the perceived notion of an incongruity, or a gap, between an understanding of reality, or expectation of a reality, and what actually happens.

There are different kinds of irony. For example:

• Tragic (or dramatic) irony occurs when a character on stage or in a story is ignorant, but the audience watching knows his or her eventual fate, as in Shakespeare’s play Romeo and Juliet.
• Socratic irony takes place when someone (classically a teacher) pretends to be foolish or ignorant, in order to expose the ignorance of another (and the teaching-audience, but not the student-victim, realizes the teacher's ploy).
• Cosmic irony is a sharp incongruity between our expectation of an outcome and what actually occurs.

H. W. Fowler, in Modern English Usage, had this to say of irony:

Irony is a form of utterance that postulates a double audience, consisting of one party that hearing shall hear & shall not understand, & another party that, when more is meant than meets the ear, is aware both of that more & of the outsiders’ incomprehension.<ref>Modern English Usage Reprinted 1939 (with corrections), 1959. pp295-6</ref>

Irony has some of its foundation in the onlooker’s perception of paradox which arises from insoluble problems. For example, in June 2005, the State of Virginia Employment Agency, which handles unemployment compensation, announced that they would lay off 400 employees for lack of work, because unemployment was so low in the state. Although this outcome could have been logically anticipated (solving the problem would be expected to re-created a minor version of it again, as a result), the reader’s perception of a disconnection between common expectation, and the application of logic in an unexpected outcome, both contain an element of irony.

The connection between irony and humor is somewhat revealed, when the surprise at what should have expected, startles us into laughter. However, not all irony is humorous: “grim irony” and “stark irony” are familiar.