I have to argue against that. I&#x27;ll give you the benefit of the doubt for this secondary meaning: <i>&quot;a state of affairs or an event that seems deliberately contrary to what one expects and is often wryly amusing as a result&quot;</i>.<p>The situation of <i>&quot;ten thousand spoons when all you need is a knife&quot;</i> is not &quot;deliberately contrary&quot; to &quot;what one <i>expects</i>&quot;. It may be contrary to what one <i>wants</i>...but that&#x27;s not the same thing...otherwise, virtually every disappointment in life could be described as &quot;ironic&quot;.<p>So finding &quot;ten thousand spoons when all you need is a knife&quot; is not ironic, but <i>frustrating</i>. However, what <i>would</i> be ironic is if the narrator later realized that what she had actually needed <i>was a spoon</i> (because by the time she found a knife, all the steak was gone and only soup was left, perhaps)...and her frustration at finding 10,000 spoons was a fortuitous opportunity that she squandered.