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Wikipedia informs us that irony is, in essence, a situation in which there is sharp incongruity or discordance that goes beyond the simple and evident intention of words or actions, and notes that, according to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, it is “an incongruity between the actual result of a sequence of events and the normal or expected result.” Irony has been defined within a number of other authoritative sources in ways that overlap and clarify each other.
According to other sources quoted by Wikipedia, such as Fowler's Dictionary of Modern English Usage:
Irony is a form of utterance that postulates a double audience, consisting of one party that, hearing, shall not understand and another party that, when more is meant than meets the ear, is aware of both that more and of the outsider's incomprehension.
The Oxford English Dictionary tells us that the word came into English in the sixteenth century as a figure of speech that derives from the Latin word ironea, which in turn derived from an ancient Greek term, Eiporeia eironeia, which meant “dissimulation, ignorance purposely affected.” The OED adds that Socrates “was famous for proclaiming that he knew nothing, and that the only wisdom he had was the wisdom to realize how ignorant he was.”
As also noted by Wikipedia, the Encyclopedia Britannica elucidates this further: “The term irony has its roots in the Greek comic character Eiron,