ornery
adjEtymology
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”).
Definitions
Disagreeable, stubborn, and troublesome to deal with
Disagreeable, stubborn, and troublesome to deal with; cantankerous.
- Through Michael sped the thought: 'Could I make her jealous?' And he was shocked at it. A low-down thought—mean and ornery!
Troublesome to deal with in a good way
Troublesome to deal with in a good way; mischievous, prankish, teasing.
Ordinary, commonplace
Ordinary, commonplace; hence, inferior, plain-looking, unpleasant.
The neighborhood
Derived
Vish — recursive loop
No curated loop yet for ornery. Loops are being traced one word at a time while the ingestion pipeline matures.
sense glosses and etymology drawn from English Wiktionary · source · CC-BY-SA