ornery
Syllables: or·ne·ry/ˈɔːnəɹi/US/ˈɔɹnəɹi/
ornery adjective: disagreeable, stubborn, and troublesome to deal with; cantankerous.
Adjective
ornery (comparative ornerier, superlative orneriest)
- Disagreeable, stubborn, and troublesome to deal with; cantankerous.
- Seemingly here was an intruder who was violating custom. Moreover, the partners had come to look upon this exceedingly rich district as their exclusive property. And so their indignation was extreme. "The low-down, ornery cuss!" said Dobbs. "The nerve of him, crowdin' in on us, just as if there...1922 November 25, A[rthur] M[urray] Chisholm, “A Thousand a Plate. Chapter II.”, in Western Story Magazine, volume XXX, number 4, New York, N.Y.: Street & Smith, →OCLC, page 90, column 2
- Through Michael sped the thought: 'Could I make her jealous?' And he was shocked at it. A low-down thought—mean and ornery!1924 October, John Galsworthy, “Sleuth”, in The White Monkey, London: William Heinemann, published November 1924, →OCLC, part II, page 196
- Synonyms:
- contrary, crabby, cross-grained, crotchety, honery, ill-tempered, intractable, obnoxious, obstreperous, peevish
- Troublesome to deal with in a good way; mischievous, prankish, teasing.
- Synonyms:
- full of the devil
- Ordinary, commonplace; hence, inferior, plain-looking, unpleasant.
ornery meaning in Tamil, Kannada, Arabic and Vietnamese
ornery in Tamil
- கடுகடுப்பான, ஒத்துவராத, இசையாத, இணங்காத, கீழ்ப்படியாத, பிடிவாதமான
ornery in Kannada
- ಕಳಪೆ ಗುಣದ, ತೀರಸಾಮಾನ್ಯ ಗುಣದ
ornery in Arabic
- disagreeable, stubborn, and troublesome to deal with — see also cantankerous, untreatable, stubborn, ill-humored, obstinate, surly
- مُشَاكِس mušākis
ornery in Vietnamese
- disagreeable, stubborn, and troublesome to deal with — see also cantankerous, untreatable, stubborn, ill-humored, obstinate, surly
- bất kham
Examples of ornery in a sentence
- "The low-down, ornery cuss!" said Dobbs.1922 November 25, A[rthur] M[urray] Chisholm, “A Thousand a Plate. Chapter II.”, in Western Story Magazine, volume XXX, number 4, New York...
- Second place if Luke did get shot he's got two brothers just as ornery as he is, and if Ike Plummer didn't kill the Kid then Hank Plummer would.1939 February 2, Dudley Nichols, Stagecoach (motion picture), spoken by Marshal Curley Wilcox (George Bancroft), Hollywood, Los Angeles...
- [“S]he was a girl and girls are less ornery than boys.1990, John Updike, “FL”, in Rabbit at Rest (A Borzoi Book), New York, N.Y.: Alfred A[braham] Knopf, →ISBN, page 77:
- After a lifetime of being sweet as pie, once Grandpa died, she got kinda ornery.2013 January 20, Richard Linklater, Julie Delpy, Ethan Hawke, Before Midnight (motion picture), spoken by Jesse (Ethan Hawke), New York...
Synonyms of ornery
- contrary
- crabby
- cross-grained
- crotchety
- honery
- ill-tempered
- intractable
- obnoxious
- obstreperous
- peevish
3 more synonymsFewer synonyms
Forms of ornery
| comparative | ornerier |
|---|---|
| superlative | orneriest |
| alternative form | onery |
| alternative form | onry |
| alternative form | o'n'ry |
| alternative form | ornary |
Origin of ornery
A contracted or dialectal pronunciation of ordinary. Sense 3 (“ordinary, commonplace”) was the earliest sense; the meaning of the word then shifted to “inferior, plain-looking, unpleasant”—presumably due to ordinariness—and finally to sense 1 (“disagreeable, stubborn, and troublesome to deal with”).
Words formed from ornery
Questions about ornery
- What does ornery mean?
- Ornery means disagreeable, stubborn, and troublesome to deal with; cantankerous.
- What is ornery in Tamil?
- Ornery in Tamil is கடுகடுப்பான, ஒத்துவராத, இசையாத. See Ornery meaning in Tamil.
- How do you use ornery in a sentence?
- "The low-down, ornery cuss!" said Dobbs.
- What part of speech is ornery?
- Ornery is an adjective.
- How do you pronounce ornery?
- Ornery is pronounced /ˈɔːnəɹi/ (UK).
Words near ornery in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: ornery (page history and authors); ornery (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); ornery (Kannada Wiktionary) (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
Last updated:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-ornery.wav.
Cite this entry: “ornery.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/ornery. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.