Origin of The Term
The word comes from the Greek σαρκασμός (sarkasmos) which is taken from the word σαρκάζειν meaning "to tear flesh, bite the lip in rage, sneer".
It is first recorded in English in 1579, in an annotation to The Shepheardes Calender by Edmund Spenser: October:
Tom piper; An Ironicall, spoken in derision of these rude wits, whych make more account of a ryming rybaud, then of skill grounded upon learning and iudgment. —Edmund SpenserRead more about this topic: Sarcasm
Famous quotes containing the words origin of, origin and/or term:
“Someone had literally run to earth
In an old cellar hole in a byroad
The origin of all the family there.
Thence they were sprung, so numerous a tribe
That now not all the houses left in town
Made shift to shelter them without the help
Of here and there a tent in grove and orchard.”
—Robert Frost (1874–1963)
“Though I do not believe that a plant will spring up where no seed has been, I have great faith in a seed,—a, to me, equally mysterious origin for it.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“I am a colored woman or a Negro woman. Either one is OK. People dislike those words now. Today these use this term African American. It wouldn’t occur to me to use that. I prefer to think of myself as an American, that’s all!”
—Annie Elizabeth Delany (b. 1891)