All 4 Uses
ornery
in
The Women of Brewster Place
(Auto-generated)
- "Now you think about it," he said, "how many women I ever went with ever had anything ornery to say about me?†
p. 16.6ornery = easily annoyed and quick to complain and argue
- You're too ornery to die, and you know it.†
p. 39.8
- But Simeon got very ornery when I said I was heading home, and he refused to give me the money he'd promised for my plane fare.†
p. 58.4 *
- There was Miss Eva and Ciel, and even as ornery as you can get, I've loved you practically all my life.†
p. 141.2
Definitions:
-
(1)
(ornery as in: is ornery when she first wakes up) quick to get annoyed, complain, argue, and be uncooperative
-
(2)
(meaning too rare to warrant focus) Much more rarely (and seldom any more), ornery can describe someone as "low down", coarse, or unrefined. Mark Twain often used the word in that manner as in the Adventures of Huckleberry Finn where he wrote: "The other fellow was about thirty, and dressed about as ornery." and "The more I studied about this the more my conscience went to grinding me, and the more wicked and low-down and ornery I got to feeling."