as in irritable
having or showing a habitually bad temper
an ornery old man who always yells at the neighborhood kids to keep off his lawn
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Recent Examples of ornery
Image Our collective longing to connect with animals is evident in the viral popularity of animal celebrities on social media — who can resist Pesto the chubby baby king penguin, Hua Hua the panda or Moo Deng, the ornery baby pygmy hippo?
—
Alexandra Alter, New York Times, 23 Mar. 2025
Fitzgerald, 75, his daughter Heather Valdez, 53, and their team of family members, co-workers and an ornery parrot named Cisco have kept this wacky thrift-consignment-retail store afloat.
—Amanda Rosa, Miami Herald, 14 Mar. 2025
The protagonist is an ornery, unemployed academic (Lee Sung-jae) who becomes fixated on a barking dog in his apartment complex, and goes to extreme lengths to silence it.
—Alison Willmore, Vulture, 7 Mar. 2025
Perhaps Hackman sensed this in his final years acting, as he was known to be more ornery with each passing entry in his canon.
—Harrison Richlin, IndieWire, 1 Mar. 2025
See All Example Sentences for ornery
Alexandra Alter, New York Times, 23 Mar. 2025
Fitzgerald, 75, his daughter Heather Valdez, 53, and their team of family members, co-workers and an ornery parrot named Cisco have kept this wacky thrift-consignment-retail store afloat.
—Amanda Rosa, Miami Herald, 14 Mar. 2025
The protagonist is an ornery, unemployed academic (Lee Sung-jae) who becomes fixated on a barking dog in his apartment complex, and goes to extreme lengths to silence it.
—Alison Willmore, Vulture, 7 Mar. 2025
Perhaps Hackman sensed this in his final years acting, as he was known to be more ornery with each passing entry in his canon.
—Harrison Richlin, IndieWire, 1 Mar. 2025
See All Example Sentences for ornery
Recent Examples of Synonyms for ornery
Adjective
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Her tone is free-associative, irritable and rat-a-tat.—
Alexandra Jacobs,
New York Times,
1 June 2025
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When an owner is distracted or irritable from work stress, the dog notices.—
Jasmine Baehr,
FOXNews.com,
25 May 2025
Adjective
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But Democrats are angry and want leaders who are generally younger and uniformly more willing to take on President Donald Trump.—
W. James Antle III,
The Washington Examiner,
13 June 2025
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After protests and angry meetings, students were displaced to schools that were farther away from home.—
Jennifer Smith Richards,
ProPublica,
13 June 2025
Adjective
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The Post isn’t as great as All the President’s Men — this movie is sort of like its prequel — but its cast is superb, especially Tom Hanks as a cantankerous Bill Bradlee and Meryl Streep as a conflicted Kay Graham.—
Tim Grierson,
Vulture,
20 June 2025
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Her cantankerous dad undoubtedly gets the best zingers.—
Jon O'Brien,
IndieWire,
10 June 2025
Adjective
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This is exactly the productive, surly, still-in-his-prime player this team needs down the middle.—
Scott Powers,
New York Times,
14 June 2025
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Rostov is exiled to the servants’ quarters in the attic, stripped of most of his possessions, and is kept under constant surveillance by a surly KGB operative (Björn Hlynur Haraldsson).—
Rob Salkowitz,
Forbes,
27 Feb. 2025
Adjective
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Befriending Cressida Cowper is a respectable exercise in recognizing biases, but the pair’s interactions are as disagreeable as those bangs.—
Zoe Haylock,
Vulture,
16 May 2024
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If Alex has a bit more credibility, not being as intractable in her positions, both have a tendency to come off as disagreeable in their incessant bickering and self-righteousness.—
Charles McNulty,
Los Angeles Times,
26 Mar. 2025
Adjective
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Even though his bloodwork looked normal six months previously, sudden onset or acute renal failure can happen in an old dog for no apparent reason other than age and result in bilious vomiting.—
Dr. John De Jong,
Boston Herald,
8 June 2025
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Under Nézet-Séguin, the musicians do the job spectacularly, releasing all those bilious harmonies and seething rhythms in an unbroken two-hour spasm of excitement.—
Justin Davidson,
Vulture,
30 Apr. 2025
Cite this Entry
“Ornery.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/ornery. Accessed 29 Jun. 2025.
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