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
Synonyms & Similar Words
Relevance
Antonyms & Near Antonyms
Example Sentences
Examples are automatically compiled from online sources to
show current usage.
Read More
Opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors.
Send us feedback.
Recent Examples of ornery
That ornery cleric was Moqtada al-Sadr, the son of Mohammad Sadiq al-Sadr, a grand ayatollah assassinated almost certainly by Saddam’s order in 1999.
—
Graeme Wood, The Atlantic, 2 Sep. 2025
Their aggressive, ornery, and unpredictable nature has earned them the nickname Black Death.
—Kris Millgate, Outdoor Life, 7 Aug. 2025
Meanwhile, eighty-three-year-old Harrison Ford earned his first Emmy nod for his role as the ornery therapist on the show Shrinking.
—Taylor Wilson, USA Today, 16 July 2025
That is, until an ornery cow named Daisy kicks over a lantern and ignites a fire that quickly engulfs the Windy City.
—Ew Staff Published, EW.com, 3 July 2025
See All Example Sentences for ornery
Graeme Wood, The Atlantic, 2 Sep. 2025
Their aggressive, ornery, and unpredictable nature has earned them the nickname Black Death.
—Kris Millgate, Outdoor Life, 7 Aug. 2025
Meanwhile, eighty-three-year-old Harrison Ford earned his first Emmy nod for his role as the ornery therapist on the show Shrinking.
—Taylor Wilson, USA Today, 16 July 2025
That is, until an ornery cow named Daisy kicks over a lantern and ignites a fire that quickly engulfs the Windy City.
—Ew Staff Published, EW.com, 3 July 2025
See All Example Sentences for ornery
Recent Examples of Synonyms for ornery
Adjective
-
On the contrary, Juventus’ football soothed even the most irritable sections of the crowd.—
James Horncastle,
New York Times,
26 Jan. 2026
-
This can include feeling irritable, having a low frustration tolerance, feeling easily overstimulated, and having rapid shifts in emotion.—
Korin Miller,
SELF,
20 Jan. 2026
Adjective
-
These agents are recruited from among angry white males enticed by a signup bonus of $50,000.—
Voice of the People,
New York Daily News,
30 Jan. 2026
-
The video is just as angry as the song’s lyrics and delivery, cutting disturbing (but not graphic) footage from ICE’s clashes with demonstrators in the city with Springsteen performing the song in his home studio.—
Jem Aswad,
Variety,
29 Jan. 2026
Adjective
-
Lori Tan Chinn charms as a cantankerous Chinatown grandmother, while Jamie Lee Curtis makes a memorable meal of her single scene as a mob boss.—
Beandrea July,
IndieWire,
28 Jan. 2026
-
Ornery, bizarre, cantankerous, brilliant, talented, stubborn—all characters from our lives.—
Literary Hub,
Literary Hub,
16 Jan. 2026
Adjective
-
Screenwriters Matthew Booi and Shelby Gaines weave subtle humor — and more overt racial politics — into the way the surly group engage with one another.—
Peter Debruge,
Variety,
27 Jan. 2026
-
Arrigo, instead, surly and withdrawn as always, mumbled those incomprehensible phrases of his—not that anyone paid him any attention, not even his wife.—
Literary Hub,
Literary Hub,
22 Jan. 2026
Adjective
-
Sun shrinking and getting hotter; everything bilious, oxygenless, not great for living.—
Literary Hub,
Literary Hub,
3 Nov. 2025
-
Minaj’s bilious flurry is possibly related to claims that she is owed between $100 to 200 million related to her stake in Tidal, the music streaming service launched and spearheaded by Jay-Z in 2015 and was sold to Jack Dorsey’s company Square for $297 million in 2021.—
Andrew Flanagan,
Variety,
15 Oct. 2025
Adjective
-
My favorite movie of the year is a disagreeable but highly entertaining tale as exhausting as today’s politics with characters nobody could possibly root for.—
John Waters,
Vulture,
3 Dec. 2025
-
Over the weekend, reports emerged that the higher tariffs followed a disagreeable Thursday phone call between Swiss President Karin Keller-Sutter and Trump — which Swiss officials rejected, according to Reuters.—
Sophie Kiderlin,Jenni Reid,
CNBC,
4 Aug. 2025
Adjective
-
Better is Danny Elfman’s spartan and fraught score, particularly the dyspeptic drums.—
Amy Nicholson,
Los Angeles Times,
8 Jan. 2026
-
But Kael sensed in her less dyspeptic moments that there was something special about Redford.—
Stephen Galloway,
HollywoodReporter,
18 Sep. 2025
Cite this Entry
“Ornery.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/ornery. Accessed 1 Feb. 2026.
Copy CitationLove words? Need even more definitions?
Merriam-Webster unabridged
