Wry

Definition: Wry

Wry

Adjective

1. Humorously sarcastic or mocking; "dry humor"; "an ironic remark often conveys an intended meaning obliquely"; "an ironic novel"; "an ironical smile"; "with a wry Scottish wit".

2. Bent to one side; "a wry neck".

3. Disdainfully or ironically humorous; scornful and mocking; "his rebellion is the bitter, sardonic laughter of all great satirists"- Frank Schoenberner; "a wry pleasure to be...reminded of all that one is missing"- Irwin Edman.

Source: WordNet 1.7.1 Copyright © 2001 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
 

Date "wry" was first used in popular English literature: sometime before 1258. (references)

WRY

Source: compiled by the editor, based on several corpora (additional references).

Synonyms: Wry

Disapprobation

Frown upon, look grave; bend the brows, knit the brows; shake the head at, shrug the shoulders; turn up the nose; (contempt); look askance, look black upon; look with an evil eye; make a wry face, make a wry mouth at; set one's face against.

Adverb: with a wry face; reproachfully; Adjective:

Discontent

Verb: be discontented; Adjective: quarrel with one's bread and butter; repine; regret; wish one at the bottom of the Red Sea; take on, take to heart; shrug the shoulders; make a wry face, pull a long face; knit one's brows; look blue, look black, look black as thunder, look blank, look glum.

Dislike

Shun, avoid; eschew; withdraw from, shrink from, recoil from; not be able to bear, not be able to abide, not be able to endure; shrug the shoulders at, shudder at, turn up the nose at, look askance at; make a mouth, make a wry face, make a grimace; make faces.

Distortion

Adjective: distorted; Verb: out of shape, irregular, asymmetric, unsymmetric, awry, wry, askew, crooked; not true, not straight; on one side, crump, deformed; harelipped; misshapen, misbegotten; misproportioned, ill proportioned; ill-made; grotesque, monstrous, crooked as a ram's horn; camel backed, hump backed, hunch backed, bunch backed, crook backed; bandy; bandy legged, bow legged; bow kneed, knock kneed; splay footed, club footed; round shouldered; snub nosed; curtailed of one's fair proportions; stumpy; (short); gaunt; (thin); bloated; scalene; simous; taliped, talipedic.

Lamentation

Frown, scowl, make a wry face, gnash one's teeth, wring one's hands, tear one's hair, beat one's breast, roll on the ground, burst with grief.

Physical Pain

Verb: feel pain, experience pain, suffer pain, undergo pain. Noun: suffer, ache, smart, bleed; tingle, shoot; twinge, twitch, lancinate; writhe, wince, make a wry face; sit on thorns, sit on pins and needles.

Ugliness

Forbidding countenance, vinegar aspect, hanging look, wry face, "spretae injuria formae".

Crosswords: Wry

Let's all drink gin and make wry faces (The Cat and the Canary; writing credit: Walter DeLeon; Lynn Starling)

Triple Scotch & Wry (1990)

Scotch & Wry (1986)

Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits.

Books

• A pocket full of wry (reference)

• Songs for My Dog and Other Wry Rhymes (reference)

• Wry Martinis (reference)

• Wry Stories on the Road Hole (reference)

  (more book examples)

Theater & Movies

• Double Scotch & Wry (reference)

• Scotch & Wry (reference)

• Scotch & Wry Collection Set (4 Pack) (reference)

  (more DVD examples; more video examples)

Music

• Am I Wry [CD-SINGLE] [IMPORT] (reference)

• Rollins in the Wry (reference)

  (more classical music examples; more popular music examples)

Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits.

Its hurricanes spring sometimes from a wry face

Source: compiled by the editor from various references.

Expressions using "wry": a wry statement ♦ dry ironic ironical pawky wry ♦ have a wry nose ♦ have wry neck ♦ make a wry face ♦ make a wry mouth ♦ make a wry mouth at ♦ pull a wry face ♦ wry face ♦ wry humor ♦ wry neck ♦ wry smile. Additional references.

Beginning with "wry": wry-necked.

Albanian

me përdhunë (by violence), me ironi (tongue in cheek), i thartuar (acidic, fermented, sour, turned), i sforcuar (constrained, far fetched), i pahijshëm (bad, dirty, fie-fie, graceless, improper, indecent, indecorous, obscene, unbecoming, unchristian, unseemly). (various references)

Arabic 

‏لوى (bend, bent, contort, curl, flex, incline, screw, turn, twist, wrench, wring, writhe), ‏ساخر (biting, bitter, cutting, cynic, cynical, derisive, derisory, epigram, giber, ironic, ironical, irradiant, lampooner, lampoonist, laughable, persiflage, quizzical, sarcastic, sardonic, saturnine, sneerer, snide, tongue in cheek), ‏صفة (capacity, character, representative, token), ‏صناعة (industry, manufacture, metier), ‏ظريف (amiable, amicable, amusing, companionable, fine, flowing, gallant, humorist, humorous, humourist, jolly, likeable, nice, obliging, pet, pleasing, prepossessing, pretty, quaint, stylish, witty). (various references)

Bulgarian 

своенравен (capricious, crotchety, perverse, temperamental, vagarious, wayward, wilful, wrongheaded), крив (awry, bandy, hooked, squinting), огорчен (afflicted, aggrieved, embittered, pained, sore), иронично шеговит, изкривен (awry, cockeyed, crooked, curved, hooked, lop-sided, skew, squinting, tortuous). (various references)

Czech

suchý (arid, bald, bare, dead, desiccated, droughty, dry, hacking, matter of fact, pedestrian, sear, sere, torrid), pokřivený (crooked, deformed), nahořklý, křivý (crooked, false, uneven), jízlivý (acerbic, blistering, catty, scathing, sneering, snide, spiteful, unkind, waspish), ironický (ironic, ironical, quizzical). (various references)

Danish

torticollis (torticollis). (various references)

Dutch

torticollis (torticollis), scheve hals (torticollis, wry neck), collum distortum (torticollis, wry neck), caput obstipum (torticollis, wry neck). (various references)

Farsi 

پیچ خوردن (Loop, Sprain, Wreathe, Wrench), معوج شده , چرخیدن (Pivot, Reel, Revolve, Rollup, Rotate, Swing, Trill, Troll, Trundle, Turquoise, Twirl, Wheel, Whirl, Windmill), کنایه امیز (Sardonic, Snide), کج (Askance, Askew, Awry, Crank, Crump, Devious, Gauche, Indirect, Lopsided, Sidelong, Sinister, Slant, Snafu, Thwart), خم کردن (Bend, Crank, Crook, Crump, Flex, Hunch, Incline, Limber, Reeve), اریب شدن , دهن کجی کردن , باطراف چرخاندن . (various references)

Finnish

kiero (crooked, distorted, not straight, twisted, warped). (various references)

French

tordu (wrung), ironique, désabusé, art, élégant. (various references)

German

schief (askance, aslant, awry, cockeyed, crooked, distorted, inappropriate, inclinated, leaning, lopsided, not straight, oblique, scalene, skew, slanting, sloping, sloppily, squint eyed, tilted, worn-down). (various references)

Greek 

στρεβλόσ (awry), στραβόσ (awry, blind, tortuous), στραβός (crooked), πικρόχολοσ (bilious, morose), ειρωνικός (tongue in cheek), λοξόσ (askew, awry, cockeyed, crackpot, devious, kinky, oblique, rakish, sidelong, skew, slant, slanting, transverse). (various references)

Hebrew 

עקום (bending, contortion, crooked, crooking, curvature, distortion, twist, warp). (various references)

Hungarian

kényszeredett (abashment, constrained, enforced, faint, scrogged, self-conscious, stiff), félrecsavart, elfintorított. (various references)

Indonesian

miring (askew, aslant, awry, bias, cant, careen, crazy, oblique, slanting, sloping), masam (sour), erot (distorted, in a row). (various references)

Italian

obliquo (askance, askew, cross, devious, indirect, lopsided, oblique, sidelong, sideward, slanting, sloped, sloping, slopingly, transversal, underhand). (various references)

Manx

gammagh (distorted), cast (complex, contorted, curly, curved, intricate, many-sided, perverted, spun, ticklish, warped), cam (bent, crooked, deceitful, deformed, intricate, knotty; cam, perverse, rakish angle). (various references)

Pig Latin

ywray.(various references)

Portuguese

torto (askew, awry, cambered, criss-cross, crooked, lopsided, tortile), torcido (bent, cambered, convolute, convoluted, cranky, crooked, drawn, skew, strained, tortile, warped, winding), retorcido (kinky, twisted, winding), oblíquo (aslant, aslope, asquint, awry, canted, sideling, sidelong, skew, slanting, sloping), de esguelha (askew, sideling, sidelong, slantwise). (various references)

Romanian

sucit (distorted, twisted, uncommon, unnatural, unusual, whimsical, wrongheaded), strâmb (askew, aslant, awry, cock eyed, crooked, crookedly, curved, lop-sided, slanting, slantwise, wrong), pieziş (askew, aslant, asquint, awry, hostile, oblique, obliquely, scowling, slanting, splay), deformat (corrupt, deformed, distorted), crispat. (various references)

Russian 

кривой (bandy, crooked, curved, hamate), кривиться тонкий, противоречивый (conflicting, contradictious, contradictory, inconsistent, irreconcilable, warring), перекошенный, искаженный (awry, corrupt, distorted, drawn, perverted, violent, warped). (various references)

Scottish

stabhaic (a wry neck), geòc , geoic (a wry neck), geòb (a wry mouth), cam-bheul (nm. wry mouth; inflected on second element), camart (wry-neck). (various references)

Serbo-Croatian

zalutati (astray: go astray, get lost, stray), uvrnut (twisted), kriv (awry, bandy, blameworthy, crooked, culpable, curved, guilty, leaning), iskrivljen (distorted), iskriviti (bend, contort, curve, distort, spring, turn aside, warp). (various references)

Spanish

torcido (askew, awry, bent, crooked, distorted, furious, kinky, strained, turned), sesgo (askance, askew, cant, lopsided, slant, slanting, sloping, turn, twist, warp), pervertido (deviant, pervert, perverted), humor seco y burlesco. (various references)

Swedish

sned (askew, cock eyed, cockeyed, crooked, lop-sided, oblique, sidelong, skew, slanting), skev (askew, lop-sided, oblique, skew, warped). (various references)

Turkish

yanlış (Amiss, corrigendum, errant, erroneous, error, fallacy, false, fault, improper, inaccuracy, inaccurate, inadvisable, incorrect, inexact, lapse, mis-, miscue, mistake, mistaken, untrue, wrong, wrongly), küçümseyici (depreciatory), iğneleyici (biting, cutting, mordacious, mordant, nippy, pricking, sarcastic, sarky, stinging, vitriolic), esprili (clever, facetious, humoristic, rich, salty, spicy, spirited, spiritual, witty), eğri (aslant, aslope, awry, bent, cambered, cockeyed, crooked, curve, graph, oblique, out of the straight, sinuous, skew, skewed, slanting, sloping, slouching, slouchy, tortuous, trajectory, untrue, warped), alaycı (barbed, cynical, derisive, facetious, ironic, ironical, mocker, mocking, mordacious, scoffer, shavian, snappish, sneering), çarpık (agley, askew, awry, cockeyed, crooked, curved, irregular, paralysed, skew, warped). (various references)

Ukrainian

кривити (cant), кривий (awry, bandy, bent, cam, cripple, crook, crooked, gammy, lame), корчитися (crook, squirm, writhe), викривлений (cam, curved, twisted), приховувати (becloud, blind, cache, cloak, conceal, disguise, dissemble, dissimulate, hide, hoodwink, hugger mugger, obumbrate, palliate, put by, salt away, stash away, subduct, veil, vizor), перекручений (anamorphous, barbarous, corrupt, distorted, drawn, mutilate, perverted, retorted, warped), перекошений (skew, wreathed). (various references)

Vietnamese 

méo mó (miscreated, mis-shapen). (various references)

Welsh

cam (crooked, injury, step, wrong). (various references)

Derivations

Words beginning with "wry": wryer, wryest, wrying, wryly, wryneck, wrynecks, wryness, wrynesses. (additional references)

Words ending with "wry": awry, cowry, dowry, outlawry. (additional references)

Misspellings

"Wry" is suggested in spellcheckers for the following: gwryd, kry, rry, rw, rwy, wdr, werey, werry, wery, wgry, wiy, wory, woy, wpy, wr, wre, wri, wrib, wric, wrid, wrieg, wriez, wrif, wril, wrim, wriq, wrix, wriy, wro, wrr, wrt, wrya, wrye, wury, wuy, wy, wyf, wyrm. (additional references)

Source: compiled by the editor (additional references); see credits.

Scrabble® Enable2K-Verified Anagrams

+1 letter: awry, wary, wiry.

+2 letters: cowry, dowry, rawly, rowdy, twyer, warty, weary, wordy, wormy, worry, wryer, wryly.

+3 letters: airway, arrowy, aweary, bawdry, bewray, bowery, bowyer, brawly, brawny, browny, byword, bywork, crawly, crowdy, dowery, drawly, drowsy, forwhy, frowsy, frowzy, growly, lawyer, lowery, psywar, qwerty, runway, sawyer, screwy, strawy, swarty, swayer, swirly, tawdry, towery, twirly, twyers, unwary, wafery, warily, warmly, wastry, watery, wavery, weirdy, wherry, whirly, whirry, winery, wintry, wirily, worthy, wrathy, wristy, wryest, wrying, wyvern, yarrow, yawner, yawper, yowler.