1: a pretense of ignorance and of willingness to learn from another assumed in order to make the other’s false conceptions conspicuous by adroit questioning —called also Socratic irony
2: a) the use of words to express something other than and especially the opposite of the literal meaning
b) a usually humorous or sardonic literary style or form characterized by irony
c) an ironic expression or utterance
3: a) : incongruity between the actual result of a sequence of events and the normal or expected result; an event or result marked by such incongruity
b) incongruity between a situation developed in a drama and the accompanying words or actions that is understood by the audience but not by the characters in the play —called also dramatic irony, tragic irony
The use of words that mean the opposite of what you really think especially in order to be funny.
A situation that is strange or funny because things happen in a way that seems to be the opposite of what you expected.
Irony deals with opposites; it has nothing to do with coincidence. If two baseball players from the same hometown, on different teams, receive the same uniform number, it is not ironic. It is a coincidence. If Barry Bonds attains lifetime statistics identical to his father's, it will not be ironic. It will be a coincidence. Irony is "a state of affairs that is the reverse of what was to be expected; a result opposite to and in mockery of the appropriate result." For instance:
If a diabetic, on his way to buy insulin, is killed by a runaway truck, he is the victim of an accident. If the truck was delivering sugar, he is the victim of an oddly poetic coincidence. But if the truck was delivering insulin, ah! Then he is the victim of an irony.
If a Kurd, after surviving a bloody battle with Saddam Hussein's army and a long, difficult escape through the mountains, is crushed and killed by a parachute drop of humanitarian aid, that, my friend, is irony writ large.
Darryl Stingley, the pro football player, was paralyzed after a brutal hit by Jack Tatum. Now Darryl Stingley's son plays football, and if the son should become paralyzed while playing, it will not be ironic. It will be coincidental. If Darryl Stingley's son paralyzes someone else, that will be closer to ironic. If he paralyzes Jack Tatum's son that will be precisely ironic.
Best Answer
If someone is being hypocritical, that situation may be perceived as 'ironic' by a listener who is aware of the hypocrisy, but the hypocrite is not 'being ironical' in a rhetorical sense. In verbal irony a speaker knowingly says something meaning it to contrast, in the mind of the listener, with the literal meaning of what he or she says. In conscious hypocrisy a speaker says something that he or she intends to be understood as true or sincere, when he or she is aware that the true situation is at odds with this. In unconscious hypocrisy a speaker says something that he or she intends to be understood as true or sincere, but is not aware that the true situation is at odds with this.
Put briefly, both irony and hypocrisy pretend, the first to reveal, the second to conceal.
To answer your direct question, if you tell your friend that it is ironic that he or she said something, and they ask why, you are still faced with having to bring up, implicitly or explicitly, the notion of hypocrisy.
An interesting blog I found emphasises that irony involves the juxtaposition of opposites, and "ironic" should not be used to mean merely "interesting", "funny", etc, and gives a number of examples, including this example of how hypocrisy might, as a borderline case, be ironic:
Abuse of irony/ironic