ornery

adjective or·nery \ ˈȯr-nə-rē , ˈär- ; ˈȯrn-rē , ˈärn- , ˈȯn- , ˈän- \

|Updated on: 21 Jul 2018

Examples: ornery in a Sentence

Editor's Note: What's the History of ornery?

Definition of ornery

ornerier; orneriest

1 a : having an irritable disposition : cantankerous

an ornery old man

Telling her that would have been an invitation to getting my head chopped off, because she was a mean, ornery number until the day she died.
— John Gregory Dunne

b : difficult to deal with or control

an ornery mule

… once made word processors so ornery that they caused secretaries to collapse in tears …
— Bro Uttal

… a bout with walking pneumonia and an ornery case of poison oak.
— Paul Francis

2 chiefly Midwest : having or showing a playful tendency to cause trouble : mischievous

an ornery smile

It had been fun to play a trick on those ornery boys. They were not bad boys: just wild things full of vim and vinegar who were trying to fill their time and show off.
— Connie Leonard Geron

… invited me to come take pictures at a little family tradition they have … A shaving cream war. They have a large family; so there were tons of kids of all ages there. I think what I loved most about this was the fact that the adults got just as ornery as the kids.
— Rebecca Haines

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orneriness

noun

See ornery defined for English-language learners

See ornery defined for kids

Examples of ornery in a Sentence

Based on the best-selling book by Laura Hillenbrand, Seabiscuit tells the true story of an ornery, undersize, beaten-up Thoroughbred who becomes a champion in the 1930s. —Lev Grossman, Time, 21 July 2003
Critics have compared his work to Faulkner's. And like Faulkner, McCarthy is an acquired taste as well as a palate cleanser. He's a stubborn, ornery writer, known for his ornate sentences, arcane vocabulary, casual disregard for standard punctuation and untranslated bits of foreign dialogue that offer little in the way of a narrative compass to guide readers along. —Sara Mosle, New York Times Book Review, 17 May 1998
I'm getting more and more ornery in my old age.
an ornery old man who always yells at the neighborhood kids to keep off his lawn

Recent Examples of ornery from the Web

The largest grizzly, too powerful and ornery to be given even the limited freedom of a chain, was confined in an iron cage.

— gary kamiya, SFChronicle.com, "The original Grizzly Adams kept his bears on a chain in SF," 7 July 2018
As much as golfers want to think of it as their recreation opportunity, like going to the beach, golf is an ornery business.

— tod leonard, sandiegouniontribune.com, "Golf course closures say less about sport, more about a difficult business," 3 July 2018
DeWitt was the subject of a memorable 2016 profile in New York magazine, which told the tale of an ornery prodigy afflicted by unusually bad luck, and by her own inability to conform to the customs of commercial publishing.

— adam kirsch, The Atlantic, "The Anguished Comedy of Helen DeWitt," 25 June 2018
These things are ornery, and will even fight a human given the chance.

— matt simon, WIRED, "'Ninjabot' Reveals the Mantis Shrimp's Wily Snail-Hunting Scheme," 14 June 2018
As Seattle Slew approached his own Triple Crown destiny, there was no way for the ornery, greasy fast colt to supplant or surpass Secretariat in the hearts of racing fans.

— childs walker, baltimoresun.com, "Justify could make Triple Crown history Saturday, but will the world care as much as it did in 2015?," 9 June 2018
Hours later, Mendoza’s grandfather marched into the yard, waving a stick at the ornery cow he’d just purchased at an auction.

— maria sacchetti, Washington Post, "Going home after half a lifetime," 30 May 2018
How did sadr, a militant Shiite cleric once feared as a cat’s paw for Iran, end up as an ornery critic of Iranian influence and as the embodiment of Iraqi nationalism?

— thanassis cambanis, BostonGlobe.com, "How did Iraq’s Moqtada al-Sadr become a statesman? People just got used to him," 26 May 2018
Sledge, a San Diego native and Yale grad who’s been making his name mostly on the East Coast, makes Sam a deep well of sensitivity, joy and sorrow, masked by an ornery streak that seems a defensive pose.

— james hebert, sandiegouniontribune.com, "Cygnet's rap-informed 'The Wind and the Breeze' finds meditative rhythms," 20 May 2018

These example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'ornery.' Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.

What's the History of ornery?

Readers who are familiar with one of the more common senses of ornery ("irritable") might well be surprised to learn that the word is an alteration of the word ordinary, as this root word has little to do with feelings of peevishness. Yet this is the case, and there is a perfectly reasonable explanation for how this meaning came about.

Ornery was first used in American regional speech in the beginning of the 19th century as a simple variant of ordinary, and for some while it had the same meaning. Soon enough, however, it began to take on some of the more negative aspects of ordinary. It was used to describe things that were common, and especially common things of inferior quality. Next, it developed a sense synonymous with lazy. Those lazy folks dubbed "ornery" were also apparently easily annoyed and touchy. By the end of the 19th century ornery had taken on its now-common meaning of "cantankerous."