Irony is a device that is used to portray humor by having words not mean what they are supposed to. Irony is a critical literary device in Pygmalion, and is used throughout the play by Higgins. One of the most humorous and yet ironic lines in the play used by Higgins is when he calls Eliza a "squashed cabbage leaf." This is ironic because he is not literally calling her a cabbage leaf, but what he really means is that she is dumpy and perhaps even pathetic.