ordinary

Pluralordinaries

1. 1
   adjective

   Having no special features or purpose; common and everyday, and sometimes used to put something down.

   The house looked ordinary from the street, much like every other on the block.

   He dismissed the painting as ordinary and uninspired.

   Similarunremarkable, average, commonplace, plain, mundane

   Oppositeextraordinary, remarkable, exceptional, special

   Note

   Here the word carries a verdict, and it grades freely: more ordinary, most ordinary, very ordinary. The tone runs from plain description, as in "a very ordinary life," to quiet dismissal, and the context decides which. "He looked so ordinary" is a typical setup for surprise, where unremarkable looks hide something that is not.

2. 2
   adjective

   Belonging to the regular course of things; normal, customary, or routine.

   Under ordinary circumstances, the building closes at six.

   Filing the monthly report is part of the ordinary running of the department.

   Similarnormal, usual, routine, customary, regular

   Oppositeunusual, exceptional, extraordinary

   Note

   The neutral ordinary means routine or customary, with no judgment attached. Addison's "ordinary conversation" and the old hall in Letitia Landon's Francesca Carrara (1834), which "had become their ordinary chamber," both mean simply the usual one. Compare the dismissive "commonplace" sense: an ordinary day is just a normal day, but calling a person ordinary can sting.

3. 3
   nouncountable or uncountable

   A person or thing that is commonplace, having nothing remarkable about it.

   The poet found wonder in the ordinary, in kettles and rain and quiet streets.

   She never wanted to be an ordinary; she craved distinction above all.

   Similarcommonplace, everyday, mundane

   Oppositeextraordinary

   Note

   Older English could count the commonplace. Walter Scott's Waverley (1814) lists water-buckets, cart-wheels, shuttles and candlesticks as "other ordinaries." Bacon says the wars in the Low Countries had "grown into an ordinary," meaning they had become routine enough that no one remarked on them. Used of a person, "an ordinary" still marks someone set against the distinguished few.

4. 4
   noun

   The portion of the Christian liturgy that remains fixed regardless of the date on which the service is celebrated.

   The composer set the entire ordinary to music for the cathedral choir.

   Worshippers know the ordinary by heart because it recurs in every service.

   Oppositeproper

   Note

   Liturgists divide the service into two layers. The ordinary stays the same at every celebration and includes texts such as the Kyrie, Gloria and Sanctus. The proper changes with the feast or season. A composer who writes a Mass setting is setting the ordinary, which is why choirs can carry one setting from week to week.

5. 5
   nouncountable

   A church official, such as a bishop, who holds immediate jurisdiction in a matter of ecclesiastical law.

   The priest appealed directly to the ordinary of the diocese.

   As the local ordinary, the bishop authorized the marriage dispensation.

   Note

   Behind the title is Medieval Latin ordinarius, from ordo, "order": the ordinary holds jurisdiction regularly, by virtue of the office itself, rather than as anyone's delegate. In church law it usually means the diocesan bishop, and it typically appears with a place or with "local": the ordinary of the diocese, the local ordinary. Its courtroom counterpart is the judge acting directly.

6. 6
   nouncountable

   A judge with authority to hear and decide cases personally rather than through delegation.

   The ordinary settled the inheritance claim from the bench that afternoon.

   Litigants preferred the ordinary, whose decisions carried direct authority.

   Note

   The contrast that matters is with a delegate. An ordinary judges by right of the office itself, not under a commission handed down from someone above. Lawyers keep the same idea alive in the adjective, as in "ordinary jurisdiction". When older legal writing mentions an ordinary, the setting usually tells you whether a civil court or a church court is meant.

7. 7
   adjectivecolloquialAustraliaNew Zealand

   Bad, poor, or below an acceptable standard.

   The service at the restaurant was decidedly ordinary, and we left disappointed.

   After such a poor showing, the team's defense looked downright ordinary.

   Similarmediocre, poor, substandard, lackluster

   Oppositeexcellent, outstanding

   Note

   In Australian and New Zealand speech the word is a complaint, not a description. Understatement does the work of bad, and intensifiers sharpen it: "pretty ordinary ideas," "very ordinary, so-called broadband speeds." A listener from elsewhere may hear only mild faint praise, so outside those varieties make the criticism explicit.

8. 8
   nouncountable

   One of the standard geometric figures, such as a pale or fess, placed across the center of a coat of arms.

   The herald described the chief as the principal ordinary on the family's arms.

   A fess is an ordinary that crosses the shield horizontally through its middle.

   Note

   Heraldry's basic vocabulary of straight-line shapes. The pale runs down the shield and the fess crosses its middle. These are the regular, recurring building blocks of a coat of arms, which is why a word rooted in "orderly" suits them. In describing arms, the plural ordinaries names the whole class, while each shape keeps its own name.

9. 9
   nounhistoricalcountable

   A high-wheeled bicycle of the late nineteenth century, with a large front wheel and a much smaller rear one.

   The gentleman wheeled his ordinary along the promenade, towering over the pedestrians.

   A spill from an ordinary could pitch the rider straight over the handlebars.

   Similarpenny-farthing

   Note

   Cycling history kept this name for the high-wheeler that is better known today as the penny-farthing. It belongs to period writing. A modern reader will hear the adjective unless the context makes the bicycle clear, so pair the word with riding, wheels or a rider perched high.

10. 10
    nouncountable

    A rule, or a book of rules, prescribing the order in which a liturgy (especially the Mass) is to be carried out.

    The young deacon studied the ordinary to learn the sequence of the rite.

    Each parish kept an ordinary on the altar for reference during Mass.

    Note

    Not the fixed texts themselves but the rule that arranges them, or the book that sets that rule out. The difference from the unchanging parts of the service is one of function. That sense names what is sung or said every time; this one prescribes the sequence and manner of the rite, especially the Mass.

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