2. A literary work that uses satire (witty language used to convey insults or scorn); or the branch of literature made up of such works in which human vice or folly is attacked through irony, derision, or wit.
3. Etymology: from Old French satire; from Latin satira, "mixture", an alteration of an earlier satura.
A "verse medley", an "assortment of pieces on various subjects".
Satura is said to have been derived from satus, "full" (a relative of satis, "enough", which is the source of the English word, satisfy), and the link in the semantic chain from "full" to "mixture" is "plateful of assorted fruit", the earliest recorded meaning of satura.
By classical times, Latin satira had moved on from being a general literary reference to its now familiar role as a "literary work ridiculing or denouncing people's follies or vices".
The word satire, coming from satura, has no etymological connection with satyr, "the Greek woodland god" which ultimately comes from Greek saturos.
The meaning of a branch of literature "ridiculing vice or folly" is first recorded in 1589, and that of the use of "sarcasm or irony to ridicule vice or folly" was about 1675.