Word.ws English Dictionary

How to use wry in a sentence

20 example sentences · adjective, verb, noun

Wry means turned away, contorted (of the face or body). Example: “Had to,” said Pep with a wry grimace.”

Examples of wry by meaning

adjectiveTurned away, contorted (of the face or body).

  • Had to,” said Pep with a wry grimace.1913, Victor Appleton, “chapter 11”, in The Motion Picture Chums at Seaside Park

More sentences with wry

  • A wry laugh bubbled up Carmen's throat as she turned to Blanca.2025 August 12, Hailey Piper, A Game in Yellow, Simon and Schuster, →ISBN, page 28,61. From the entry chin
  • I could almost hear the wry grins cracking their faces as the officers peacocked.2014 May 30, Will Butler, “The Mark of Cane”, in The New York Times Magazine. From the entry peacock
  • It's Leaky." One of the orderlies snickered and I shrugged with a wry smile.2014, Tyffani Clark Kemp, Hunted. From the entry hatesome
  • This original story has a folktale flavor and a wry, Yiddishlike tone of voice.2012 April 1, Heidi Estrin, “The Elijah Door: A Passover Tale by Linda Leopold Strauss”, in School Library Journal. From the entry Yiddishlike
  • Don't mistake this for even a backhanded compliment; that at least takes a wry sense of imagination.2007, Mark Wiskup, The It Factor: Be the One People Like, Listen To, and Remember, →ISBN, page 116. From the entry backhanded
  • But more telling was the chemical combustion between McCann's soulful, feelgood keyboard work and Harris's wry funkification.1988 May 20, Neil Tesser, “Les McCann & Eddie Harris”, in Chicago Reader. From the entry funkification
  • While the occasional wry witticism seeps through, overall Shipler is painfully conscientious about trying to offer both sides of any debate.2015, Hans Rollman, “Freedom of Speech: It’s Complicated”, in PopMatters. From the entry witticism
  • This wry, midtempo track is familiar yet highly personal.2009 January 31, John Sakamoto, “The Anti-Hit List”, in Toronto Star. From the entry midtempo
  • Gaze skyward to appreciate this rare triple feature of the brightest planets with a wry grin from the moon.2008 January–February, Matt Bean, “Your cultural calendar: 7 things to look forward to this year”, in Men's Health, volume 23, number 1…. From the entry skyward
  • Makes you put on that wry face, doesn’t it?1962, Derek Raymond [Robin Cook], The Crust On Its Uppers, London: Serpent's Tail, published 2000, →ISBN, page 21. From the entry rosie
  • The girl made a wry little face.1914, Marie Corelli, Innocent: Her Fancy and His Fact, Library of Alexandria, →ISBN. From the entry homebrewed
  • His book, published this month, combines the muckraking approach of Eric Schlosser’s “Fast Food Nation” with the wry travelogue approach of a Michael Moore movie.2020 September 24, Alex Williams, “The Ugly (and Glorious) Truth About American Supermarkets”, in The New York Times, archived from the…. From the entry muckrake
  • “Beer me!” To his astonishment she obeyed his command, appearing a minute later with a glass of beer and a wry smile.2013, R. D. Power, Forbidden, page 39. From the entry beer
  • She turned pages in the album, gave a wry little smile to a shot of the four lads making duckfaces and faux-gangster hand signs.2012, Tara French, Broken Harbour. From the entry duckface
  • In fact both are ratfinks; when thieves fall out, honest men, if they don't come into their dues, are at least afforded a wry smile.1997, Keith Roberts, chapter III, in Lemady: Episodes of a Writer's Life (Borgo Bioviews; no. 9), San Bernardino, Calif.: Borgo Press…. From the entry ratfink
  • And Dwayne again carried on a wry talk with the Creator of the Universe, using a robot as an unfeeling conversation piece.1973, Kurt Vonnegut, Breakfast of Champions, Random House, published 2010, →ISBN, page 261. From the entry conversation piece
  • “To eliminate intestinal drag,” he said, with a wry grin, just the same as he’d said every other time I’d seen him salt his draft ale.2014 August 16, Steve Vernon, “There’s Truth in Cheap Draft Beer”, in Not Just Any Old Ghost Story (Steve Vernon’s Sea Tales; 7), Stark…. From the entry salt down
  • Wry, mandarin, even self-amused at times, he wrote like a man about town, but one who just happened to have all of Western literature at his fingertips.1997, Henry Louis Gates Jr., “The Passing of Anatole Broyard”, in Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Black Man, New York: Random House, pages…. From the entry mandarin
  • Emblems of past promises for a utopian future and scenes of a present still poisoned by those promises exist on a continuum in these wry but unlaughing, beautifully painted pictures.2009 March 6, The New York Times, “Art in Review”, in New York Times. From the entry unlaughing

Meaning of wry

  1. adjective Turned away, contorted (of the face or body).
  2. adjective Dryly humorous; sardonic or ironic, usually in a way that suggests acknowledgement of a problem or difficult situation.
  3. adjective Twisted, bent, crooked.

Full definition of wry

Questions about wry in a sentence

How do you use wry in a sentence?
Wry is used as an adjective, verb and noun. For example: “Had to,” said Pep with a wry grimace.”
What is a short sentence with wry?
“The girl made a wry little face.”
What does wry mean?
Wry means turned away, contorted (of the face or body).

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: wry (page history and authors) and the entries each sentence comes from. Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws chose the sentences, left out offensive ones and quotations older than 1900, and marked the word in each. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this page: “How to use wry in a sentence.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/sentences/wry. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.