irony

Where it comes from

Irony ordinarily means a contrast between what is expected or said and what actually happens or is meant. Irony came through Latin ironia from Greek eironeia, dissimulation or assumed ignorance, based on eiron, a dissembler. Greek authors associated eironeia with concealing or understating what one knew; Socratic questioning made feigned ignorance a famous method.

How the meaning developed

English first named verbal indirection, then also applied irony to outcomes that reverse what was expected.