I plonked my recent short story into Claude and it gave the usual reams of agreement, but it also used the word “sardonic”. Multiple times as I drafted it. I hadn’t seen this word before so gave it a quick google:
Grimly mocking or cynical, from French via Latin, and ultimately from Greek sardonios ‘of Sardinia’, alteration of sardanios, used by Homer to describe bitter or scornful laughter. The usage derives from the idea that eating a ‘Sardinian plant’ (Latin herba Sardonia) would produce facial convulsions resembling horrible laughter, usually followed by death.
Found on Oxford reference.
Although on this rabit hole I ended up learning about the ritual killing of adults there!
In an article for The Fortnightly Review, African explorer Harry Johnston first used the term “senicide” in 1889. He reported that in ancient Sardinia, the Sardi considered it a sacred duty to kill their elderly relatives with a club or by forcing them to jump from a high cliff.
Shipley, Joseph Twadell (1984). The Origins of English Words: A Discursive Dictionary of Indo-European Roots. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press.