ordinary
Part of speech: adj
Morphological type: simple
Topics: law
Etymology: From Anglo-Norman ordenarie, ordenaire et al., Middle French ordinaire, and their source, Medieval Latin ordinarius, noun use of Latin ōrdinārius (“regular, orderly”), from ōrdō (“order”).
Inflected forms:
form: more ordinary
pos: adj
tags: comparative
form: most ordinary
pos: adj
tags: superlative
form: ordinarie
pos: adj
tags: alternative
obsolete
Senses:
gloss: Having regular jurisdiction; now only used in certain phrases.
pos: adj
gloss: Being part of the natural order of things; normal, customary, routine.
pos: adj
examples: On an ordinary day I wake up at nine o'clock, work for six hours, and then go to the gym.
Method is not leſs requiſite in ordinary converſation than in writing, provided a man would talk to make himſelf underſtood.
The three were now assembled in the old banqueting-hall, which, from its state of better preservation, had become their ordinary chamber.
gloss: Having no special characteristics or function; everyday, common, mundane; often deprecatory.
pos: adj
examples: I live a very ordinary life most of the time, but every year I spend a week in Antarctica.
He looked so ordinary, I never thought he'd be capable of murder.
a. 1859, Thomas Macaulay, "Samuel Johnson," in 1871, Lady Trevelyan (Hannah More Macaulay Trevelyan, editor), The Works of Lord Macaulay Complete, Volume 7, page 325,
An ordinary lad would have acquired little or no useful knowledge in such a way: but much that was dull to ordinary lads was interesting to Samuel.
It is never possible to settle down to the ordinary routine of life at sea until the screw begins to revolve. There is an hour or two, after the passengers have embarked, which is disquieting and fussy.
You could just use ordinary shop-bought kecap manis to marinade the meat, but making your own is easy, has a far more elegant fragrance and is, above all, such a great brag! Flavouring kecap manis is an intensely personal thing, so try this version now and next time cook the sauce down with crushed, split lemongrass and a shredded lime leaf.
gloss: Bad or undesirable.
pos: adj
tags: Australia
New-Zealand
colloquial
informal
examples: 1983 September 20, Bruce Stannard, Australia II Joins Our Greats, The Age, republished 2003, David Headon (editor), The Best Ever Australian Sports Writing: A 200 Year Collection, page 480,
It was, in some ways a sad, almost pathetic sight to see this great American boat which had fought so hard throughout the cup summer, now looking very ordinary indeed.
1961, Joanna White, quoted in 2005, A. James Hammerton, Alistair Thomson, Ten Pound Poms: Australia′s Invisible Migrants, page 80,
For myself, I loved adventure and travelling. I′d already done quite a bit of travelling in Europe and — couldn′t get enough of it and whilst my marriage, at that stage, was very happy, he was very entrenched as a Londoner, Cockney, absolutely Cockney Londoner, and I could see that our future was pretty ordinary and so my hidden agenda I suppose was to drag him out to Australia and hope that both our lifestyles would improve and there would be new opportunities.
Everyone started making suggestions as to what to do but they were all pretty ordinary ideas such as lighting a fire and hope someone would see the smoke and come to rescue us and so on.
Since the general public gained access to the Internet in 1993-4, firstly by narrowband dial-up access and since 1998 by very ordinary, so-called broadband speeds (generally less than 1 Mbps), a social and cultural revolution has been underway.
Derived words: infraordinary
in ordinary
intraordinary
intra-ordinary
nonordinary
ordinarily
ordinariness
ordinarity
ordinary course of business
ordinary differential equation
ordinary number
ordinary seaman
ordinary form
ordinary language
ordinary language philosophy
ordinary magisterium
ordinary resolution
ordinary share
ordinaryship
ornery
onry
out of the ordinary
person having ordinary skill in the art
person of ordinary skill in the art
subordinary
superordinary
supraordinary
unordinary
Translations: