ironic

Vocabulary Word

Definition

'Ironic' describes a situation or result that is the direct opposite of what was expected or intended. In other words, it’s when life surprises you in unexpected ways, like painting the sky on a rainy day with a gorgeous rainbow.

Examples in Different Contexts

In a business context, 'ironic' might describe a situation where a solution to a problem creates an unexpected new problem. A CEO might remark, 'It's ironic that our new eco-friendly packaging is more expensive to produce.'

Practice Scenarios

Business

Scenario:

Our marketing strategy is seeing some surprising results. It seems our competitors also benefitting from our ad campaign.

Response:

It's quite ironic, isn't it? We ramped up promotion only to advertise our competition.

Impact

Scenario:

The commuter carpool initiative might need some tweaking. We intended to reduce traffic, but it appears the opposite is happening.

Response:

I see the irony. We need to adjust the policy so that it doesn’t increase the problem it was intended to solve.