wry

• IPA^(key): /ɹaɪ/

• Audio (AU):

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• Rhymes: -aɪ
• Homophone: rye

From Middle English wrien, from Old English wrīġian (“to go, turn, twist, bend, strive, struggle, press forward, endeavor, venture”), from Proto-Germanic *wrigōną (“to wriggle”), from Proto-Indo-European *wreyḱ- (“to turn, wrap, tie”), from *wer- (“to turn, bend”). Compare awry, wriggle.

wry (comparative wrier or wryer, superlative wriest or wryest)

1. Turned away, contorted (of the face or body).
   • 1836 March – 1837 October, Charles Dickens, chapter 17, in The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club, London: Chapman and Hall, […], published 1837, →OCLC:

     '"Why, you snivelling, wry-faced, puny villain," gasped old Lobbs.

   • 1913, Victor Appleton, “chapter 11”, in The Motion Picture Chums at Seaside Park:

     “Humph! Had to,” said Pep with a wry grimace.

2. Dryly humorous; sardonic or bitterly ironic.
   • 1871, Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu, “chapter 6”, in The Haunted Baronet:

     "[T]he master says a wry word now and then; and so ye let your spirits go down, don't ye see, and all sorts o' fancies comes into your head."

3. Twisted, bent, crooked.
4. Deviating from the right direction; misdirected; out of place.
   • 1820, [Walter Scott], The Abbot. […], volumes (please specify |volume=I to III), Edinburgh: […] [James Ballantyne & Co.] for Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, […]; and for Archibald Constable and Company, and John Ballantyne, […], →OCLC:

     Catherine hath made a wry stitch in her broidery, when she was thinking of something else than her work.

   • 1876, Walter Savage Landor, The Works and Life of Walter Savage Landor, volume IV, Imaginary Conversations, Third Series: Dialogues of Literary Men, ch. 6—Milton and Andrew Marvel, page 155 (Google preview):

     . . . the wry rigour of our neighbours, who never take up an old idea without some extravagance in its application.

• awry
• wryly
• go awry

wry (third-person singular simple present wries, present participle wrying, simple past and past participle wried)

1. (obsolete, intransitive) To turn (away); to swerve or deviate.
   • 1535, Thomas More, Dialogue of Comfort Against Tribulation, ch. 18:

     God pricketh them of his great goodness still. And the grief of this great pang pincheth them at the heart, and of wickedness they wry away.

   • c. 1610 William Shakespeare, Cymbeline, act 5, scene 1:

     You married ones,

     If each of you should take this course, how many

     Must murder wives much better than themselves

     For wrying but a little!

2. (obsolete, transitive) To divert; to cause to turn away.
3. (transitive) To twist or contort (the body, face, etc.).

wry

1. (regional) Distortion.

From Middle English wryen, wrien, wreon, wrihen, from Old English wrēon (“to cover, clothe, envelop, conceal, hide, protect, defend”), from Proto-Germanic *wrīhaną (“to wrap, cover”), from Proto-Indo-European *wreyḱ- (“to turn, wrap, tie”), from *wer- (“to turn, bend”).

wry (third-person singular simple present wries, present participle wrying, simple past and past participle wried)

1. (transitive, obsolete) To cover; clothe; cover up; cloak; hide.