half-ironic

Up in the privacy of her fourth-floor office, Brogan leaned into her desk, blessed herself in an only half-ironic fashion, then picked up the phone, cursing Mulcahy and Cassidy.

The Priest Gerard O’Donovan 2011

She spends the weekend writing a story in longhand in a fat notebook, and she's the one who asks what is surely the author's half-ironic question: "What do we want our terrorists to be like?"

A 'Weekend' to reflect on terrorism of the past Ruth Kluger 2010

With those games, I tend to view the collapsed skyscrapers and burning cars as if I were a half-ironic, half-enthusiastic sightseer.

Bleak Fallout 3 Dazzles With Great Depression 2009

With those games, I tend to view the collapsed skyscrapers and burning cars as if I were a half-ironic, half-enthusiastic sightseer.

Games Without Frontiers: Bleak 'Fallout 3' Dazzles With Great Depression 2009

TRANSITIONArtist of Buttoned-Down Cool More than anyone except Duke Ellington -- who had a half-ironic attitude toward highbrowdom -- pianist and composer John Lewis, who died last week at 80, helped make jazz a capital-A Art. He wrote for and played on Miles Davis's buttoned-down "Birth of the Cool" sessions in 1949.

Periscope 2007

I may try to do one next on Tashlin's repeated use of sentimental lost-love sob stories, which occur in movie after movie and are always half-ironic, half-genuine.

Fetishism, Book 2 Jaime J. Weinman 2007

I may try to do one next on Tashlin's repeated use of sentimental lost-love sob stories, which occur in movie after movie and are always half-ironic, half-genuine.

Archive 2007-07-01 Jaime J. Weinman 2007

He turned on his bed-lamp light and made a thorough note of it ending with the half-ironic phrase:

Tender is the Night 2003

He had assumed a bantering air: a light, half-caressing, half-ironic, shone aslant in his eye.

Villette 2003

And her face screwed into a queer smile, half-ironic.

The Fox 2003