Satire

4 definitions found

From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48 [gcide]:

  Satire \Sat"ire\ (?; in Eng. often ?; 277), n. [L. satira,
     satura, fr. satura (sc. lanx) a dish filled with various
     kinds of fruits, food composed of various ingredients, a
     mixture, a medley, fr. satur full of food, sated, fr. sat,
     satis, enough: cf. F. satire. See {Sate}, {Sad}, a., and cf.
     {Saturate}.]


     1. A composition, generally poetical, holding up vice or
        folly to reprobation; a keen or severe exposure of what in
        public or private morals deserves rebuke; an invective
        poem; as, the Satires of Juvenal.
        [1913 Webster]
  
     2. Keeness and severity of remark; caustic exposure to
        reprobation; trenchant wit; sarcasm.
        [1913 Webster]
  
     Syn: Lampoon; sarcasm; irony; ridicule; pasquinade;
          burlesque; wit; humor.
          [1913 Webster] Satiric

From WordNet (r) 2.0 [wn]:

  satire
       n : witty language used to convey insults or scorn; "he used
           sarcasm to upset his opponent"; "irony is wasted on the
           stupid"; "Satire is a sort of glass, wherein beholders do
           generally discover everybody's face but their
           own"--Johathan Swift [syn: {sarcasm}, {irony}, {caustic
           remark}]

From Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0 [moby-thes]:

  147 Moby Thesaurus words for "satire":
     Atticism, English sonnet, Goliardic verse, Horatian ode,
     Hudibrastic verse, Italian sonnet, Petrarchan sonnet, Pindaric ode,
     Rabelaisian, Sapphic ode, Shakespearean sonnet, agile wit, alba,
     amoebean verse, anacreontic, balada, ballad, ballade, banter,
     black humor, bucolic, burlesque, canso, caricature, cartoon,
     causticity, chaffing, chanson, clerihew, comedy, concrete poetry,
     cubist poetry, cynicism, dirge, dithyramb, dramatic poetry,
     dry wit, eclogue, elegiac poetry, elegy, epic, epic poetry,
     epigram, epithalamium, epode, epopee, epopoeia, epos,
     erotic poetry, esprit, exaggeration, farce, georgic, ghazel, haiku,
     hatchet job, heroic poetry, humor, idyll, imagist verse, imitation,
     innuendo, invective, irony, jingle, lampoon, light verse, limerick,
     lyric, madrigal, malicious parody, melic poetry,
     metaphysical poetry, mock-heroic poetry, mockery, monody,
     narrative poem, narrative poetry, nimble wit, nursery rhyme, ode,
     oral poetry, palinode, parody, pasquil, pasquin, pasquinade,
     pastiche, pastoral, pastoral elegy, pastorela, pastourelle,
     persiflage, pleasantry, poem, poison pen, polyphonic prose,
     pretty wit, prose poetry, prothalamium, quick wit, raillery,
     ready wit, rhyme, ridicule, rondeau, rondel, roundel, roundelay,
     runic verse, salt, sarcasm, satiric wit, satirical poetry,
     savor of wit, sestina, slapstick, slapstick humor, sloka, song,
     sonnet, sonnet sequence, spoof, spoofery, spoofing, squib,
     stichomythia, subtle wit, symbolist verse, take-off, takeoff,
     tanka, tenso, tenzone, threnody, travesty, triolet,
     troubadour poem, vers de societe, verse, verselet, versicle,
     villanelle, virelay, visual humor, wicked imitation, wit
  
  

From THE DEVIL'S DICTIONARY ((C)1911 Released April 15 1993) [devils]:

  SATIRE, n.  An obsolete kind of literary composition in which the
  vices and follies of the author's enemies were expounded with
  imperfect tenderness.  In this country satire never had more than a
  sickly and uncertain existence, for the soul of it is wit, wherein we
  are dolefully deficient, the humor that we mistake for it, like all
  humor, being tolerant and sympathetic.  Moreover, although Americans
  are "endowed by their Creator" with abundant vice and folly, it is not
  generally known that these are reprehensible qualities, wherefore the
  satirist is popularly regarded as a soul-spirited knave, and his ever
  victim's outcry for codefendants evokes a national assent.
  
      Hail Satire! be thy praises ever sung
      In the dead language of a mummy's tongue,
      For thou thyself art dead, and damned as well --
      Thy spirit (usefully employed) in Hell.
      Had it been such as consecrates the Bible
      Thou hadst not perished by the law of libel.
                                                            Barney Stims