# ornery

> English word · Adjective · IPA /ˈɔːnəɹi/ · frequency rank #64,590

## Definitions
1. Disagreeable, stubborn, and troublesome to deal with; cantankerous.
2. Troublesome to deal with in a good way; mischievous, prankish, teasing.
3. Ordinary, commonplace; hence, inferior, plain-looking, unpleasant.

## Etymology
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”).

## Source
Compiled from Wiktionary via kaikki.org (CC BY-SA). Data vintage: 2026-05-06.
Canonical page: https://plainspell.com/en/word/ornery