Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- adj. Dryly humorous, often with a touch of irony.
- adj. Temporarily twisted in an expression of distaste or displeasure: made a wry face.
- adj. Abnormally twisted or bent to one side; crooked: a wry nose.
- adj. Being at variance with what is right, proper, or suitable; perverse.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- To turn; bend; wind; twist or twine about, with or without change of place.
- To swerve or go obliquely; go awry or astray; deviate from the right course, physically or morally.
- To turn; twist aside.
- To give a twist to; make wry; writhe; wring.
- Figuratively, to pervert; alter.
- Abnormally bent or turned to one side; in a state of contortion; twisted; distorted; askew.
- Crooked; bent; not straight.
- Devious in course or purpose; divaricating; aberrant; misdirected.
- n. A twisting about, or out of shape or course; distortion; a distorting effect.
- To cover; clothe; cover up; cloak; hide.
Wiktionary
- v. transitive, obsolete To cover; clothe; cover up; cloak; hide.
- v. obsolete, intransitive To turn (away); to swerve or deviate.
- v. obsolete, transitive To divert; to cause to turn away.
- v. transitive To twist or contort (the body, face etc.).
- adj. Turned away, contorted (of the face or body).
- adj. Dryly humorous; sardonic or ironic.
- adj. Twisted, bent, crooked.
GNU Webster's 1913
- v. obsolete To cover.
- adj. Turned to one side; twisted; distorted.
- adj. Hence, deviating from the right direction; misdirected; out of place.
- adj. Wrested; perverted.
- v. To twist; to writhe; to bend or wind.
- v. To deviate from the right way; to go away or astray; to turn side; to swerve.
- v. To twist; to distort; to writhe; to wrest; to vex.
WordNet 3.0
- adj. humorously sarcastic or mocking
- adj. bent to one side
Etymologies
- From Middle English wrien, from Old English wrīġian ("to go, turn, twist, bend, strive, struggle, press forward, endeavor, venture"), from Proto-Germanic *wrigōnan (“to wriggle”), from Proto-Indo-European *wreiḱ- (“to turn, wrap, tie”), from Proto-Indo-European *wer- (“to turn, bend”). Compare awry, wriggle. (Wiktionary)
- From Middle English wrien, to turn, from Old English wrīgian; see wer-2 in Indo-European roots. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“In the meantime— He smiled again, the expression wry this time.”
“-- The term wry-neck or torticollis is applied to a condition in which the head assumes an abnormal attitude, which is usually one of combined lateral flexion and rotation.”
Manual of Surgery Volume Second: Extremities—Head—Neck. Sixth Edition.
“No, it did not," G'dath said, his expression wry.”
“That allusive, indirect style Westlake assigns to himself gives him plenty of room and time to wander away from his plot and work in wry but dead-on descriptions of people and how they live, the work they do, the things they surround themselves with, the places they go, their eccentricities and vanities and various insanities.”
“It has all the great Howard Hawks things: every dame a dish, every night foggy and filled with mystery; but the real thing that keeps me watching, that thrills me to discover another nuance every time I see it, is the joyful tongue in wry cheek that Bogey and Bacall play in every scene together.”
“Morgan Freeman and Michael Caine turn in wry, effective performances as Lucius Fox and Alfred the Butler, respectively.”
“With so many differences that separate and divide us, I find it a treat to connect with smart, passionate, talented bloggers who offer their experiences in wry or poignant, frank or even silly on-line content in their blog.”
Bloggers = Faith Healers? « California Life: Better Than Happy Hour
“Agency, The Sunday Philosophy Club abounds in wry humor and sharp observations of human nature.”
The Sunday Philosophy Club by Alexander McCall Smith: Questions
“The edition more than once refers, in wry self-defence, to the description of the character in 1984 who 'was engaged in producing garbled versions - definitive texts, they were called'.”
“Webb is sometimes funny in his poems, which often present the author's defects, but he rises above the kind of modesty--often described as "wry"--that asks to be admired.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘wry’.
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3-Letter Scrabble Words Which Do Not ...
A list of 3-letter words which cannot be formed by adding a letter to a 2-letter word (see Ken Clark's word lists found at http://www.seattlescrab...
ace, act, aff, aft, apo, app, apt, auk, ava, ave, avo, azo and 225 more...
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Verbal_Advantage
paraphrase, ostensible, digress, uncanny, candor, morose, adept, saturated, pragmatic, congenial, capricious, blatant and 38 more...
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Words build meanings from origins( et...
These come from gamma meditation ,I think.
discursive, exogenous, machinations, purportedly, sumptuous, congruity, cantankerous, incongruous, festoon, hessian, ratiocinative, stratigraphic and 2046 more...
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3-letter Scrabble Words
aah, aal, aas, aba, abo, abs, aby, ace, act, add, ado, ads and 995 more...
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3 Letter Words
A list of English words that are three letters long.
ace, act, ade, ado, add, ads, age, ago, ail, air, aim, all and 397 more...
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Philosophic , etymology
every major discipline has uniquely developed esoteric nomenclature to facilitate interdisciplinary dissemination
quale , qualia, elegy, tacet, lexicon, annunciate, caste, eros, contrive, purlicue, irony, venacular, dilapidate and 567 more...
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The Spoken Word
Words relating to Conversation
adage, adamant, brusque, candor, cavil, compelling, didactic, disparage, emphatic, facetious, frank, fulminate and 7 more...
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Starts with a silent letter
...with grateful thanks to telofy (for "cnidarian"), and to the song "Crazy ABC's" by Barenaked Ladies.
cnidarian, mnemonic, chthonic, ptarmigan, psoriasis, psittacine, bdellium, aisle, czar, gnarly, gnat, gnaw and 82 more...
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Sound Sex
taciturn, deflower, recursive, parapraxis, comitative, atelic, awkward, eccentric, libidinous, astereognosis, aloof, moonglade and 50 more...
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big book gre
abase, abbess, abbey, abbot, abdicate, abdomen, abdominal, abduction, abed, aberration, abet, abeyance and 6689 more...
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MY COLLECTION
COLLECT FROM DIFFERENT PAPERS,WEBSITES,BOOKS AND MOVIES.
VAUDEVILLE, herbivores, BANDWAGON, PREY, squander, squabbling, Concierge, persuade, dethrone, cacophony, maize, ubiquitous and 98 more...
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Chennessy's Words
philistine, messianic, dyad, cult, bourgeois, blot, ploy, polyglot, lingua franca, cumbersome, lumber, petit-bourgeois and 446 more...
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je les adore!
fusillade, foal, celestial, abattoir, byzantium, berlin, casablanca, babylon, balkans, albion, avalon, between the devil... and 471 more...
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ADW1
obdurate, obstinate, behest, injunction, enjoin, circumspect, ensconce, discursive, lugubrious, doleful, somber, ken and 2476 more...
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Vocab++
Words as I learn them.
fetid, mezzanine, hiatus, austerity, subliminal, resplendent, implacable, impugn, debase, exiguous, cirque, holster and 2538 more...
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Daily
Daily Vocab List
lull, pious, lurid, objurgate, insurgent, lewd, patio, onus, lampoon, geisha, larceny, maim and 206 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for wry.
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