Satire, as it's traditionally understood, is the ridicule of some vice or imperfection -- an attack on someone or something by making it look ridiculous or worthy of scorn.
Although satire is usually funny, it differs from comedy in at least one important way: whereas comic laughter needn't be directed at any particular target, satire is always derisive.
Satire, most of the accounts say, began as simple invective.??? Satire is not the same thing as parody, although satire can use parody as a technique.
