wry

Formswrier, wryer, wriest, wryest

Formswries, wrying, wried

1. 1
   dry humoradjective

   Humorous in a dry way, sometimes with a mocking or bitterly ironic edge.

   The memoir is full of wry observations about growing up in a small town.

   With wry amusement, he noted that the meeting about saving time had run two hours over.

   UsageTypical pairings: a wry smile, wry humor, wry amusement. The comparative is wryer or wrier.

   Similardry, ironic, sardonic, droll

   Note

   The humor grew out of the twisted face: a wry smile is a mouth pulled a little sideways, amused and pained at once. Wry humor is dry and understated, and though it can turn sardonic, it rarely raises its voice.

2. 2
   distorted (face)adjective

   Of the face or body, twisted out of its usual shape or turned aside.

   She pulled a wry face at the first sip of the bitter tea.

   He pulled a wry face at the bitter medicine and pushed the glass away.

   UsageUsually in pull a wry face or make a wry face.

   Similartwisted, contorted

   Note

   Faces are its natural home: people pull a wry face at something sour or unwelcome, and in Dickens's Pickwick Papers old Lobbs gasps at a "snivelling, wry-faced, puny villain". Source

   Checked 2 Nov 2026 · 2 facts

   • Charles Dickens wrote The Pickwick Papers. gutenberg.org
   • Old Lobbs speaks the quoted words, and the narration says he gasped. gutenberg.org
3. 3
   adjective

   Turned away from the right direction; misdirected or out of place.

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

   1820, [Walter Scott], The Abbot

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

   1876, Walter Savage Landor, The Works and Life of Walter Savage Landor

   Similarmisplaced

   Note

   Something gone astray, not something bent, is meant here. In Walter Scott's The Abbot (1820), Queen Mary jokes that Catherine may have made "a wry stitch" in her embroidery while thinking of something else, and Landor can speak of the "wry rigour" of neighbors, strictness applied in the wrong place. A modern writer would say awry or misplaced. Source

   Checked 1 Nov 2026 · 5 facts

   • This sense concerns misdirection or misplacement. en.wiktionary.org
   • Walter Scott wrote The Abbot. gutenberg.org
   • The Abbot was first published in 1820. walterscott.lib.ed.ac.uk
   • Queen Mary conditionally mentions Catherine having made such a stitch; the passage does not establish that Catherine actually does so. gutenberg.org
   • The quotation attributed to Landor's Imaginary Conversations concerns 'our neighbours', plural, rather than an individual neighbor. en.wiktionary.org

Showing meanings only. Show all 7