sardonic

adj

1. Scornfully mocking or cynical.

   “He distances himself from people with his nasty, sardonic laughter.”

   “[Q]Uivering fears, Heart-tearing cares, / Anxious ſighs, Untimely tears, / Fly, fly to the Courts; / Fly to fond worldings ſports, / Where ſtrain’d Sardonick ſmiles are cloſing ſtill, / And grief is forc’d to laugh againſt her will; / Where mirth’s but mummery, / And ſorrows only real be.”

   “The carriage stopped, the doctor alighted, walked swiftly back to where I had also halted, and told me in an excellent sardonic fashion that he feared the road was narrow, and that he hoped his carriage did not impede the passage of my bicycle.”

2. Disdainfully or ironically humorous.

   “Another manifestation, significantly reaching its apogee in the midst of Antonine virtues, was the growing popularity of adoxographical exercises. Mock panegyrics were dashed off, not just by sardonic intellectuals such as Lucian, but also by trained courtiers and polished encomiasts of the stamp of [Marcus Cornelius] Fronto.”