ordinary Hear it!

ordinary Definition

or·di·nary (ôrd′'n er′ē)

noun pl. -·nar′·ies

    1. an official having jurisdiction within a specified area by right of the office he or she holds; esp., a bishop having such jurisdiction within his or her own diocese
    2. ☆ in some states, a judge of probate
  2. Brit.
    1. a set meal served regularly at the same price
    2. an inn, tavern, etc. where such meals are served
  3. an early type of bicycle with one large wheel, and a smaller one behind
  4. Eccles.
    1. the form to be followed in a service
    2. the parts of the Mass that are fixed or relatively unvarying; common
  5. Heraldry any one of the basic heraldic devices, as bend, fess, etc.

Etymology: OFr & ML: OFr ordinarie < ML(Ec) ordinarius < L, an overseer, orig., orderly, regular < ordo, order

adjective

  1. customary; usual; regular; normal
    1. familiar; unexceptional; common; average
    2. relatively poor or inferior; below average
  3. having immediate, not delegated, jurisdiction, as a judge

Etymology: ME ordinarie < L ordinarius

ordinary Related Forms
or′·di·nar′i·ness noun
ordinary Idioms

out of the ordinary

unusual; extraordinary

ordinary Synonyms

ordinary

modif.

  1. In accordance with a regular or customary pattern

    customary, normal, usual, everyday; see common 1, conventional 1, frequent, habitual 1, regular 3.

  2. Lacking distinction

    average, mediocre, undistinguished; see common 1, dull 4, fair 2. See syn. study at common.

out of the ordinary

extraordinary, uncommon, special; see unusual 2.

ordinary Law Definition

adj

  1. Occurring in the usual course of events; usual and normal.
  2. When applied to a judge, having jurisdiction by virtue of office rather than by being assigned same.
  3. When applied to a jurisdiction, immediate and original; not delegated or devolved to.
ordinary care
See care ( reasonable care). 
ordinary course of business
Conduct of business under usual circumstances, going about business in everyday manner.
ordinary Usage Examples

Infinitive complement

  • make: Robert Enright CBC Winnipeg Bill Buffery's adaptation adds the sparkle that lifts this out of the ordinary to make it a memorable production.

Modifies a noun

  • share: To declare a final dividend on the Ordinary shares.
  • citizen: It is the same to campaign for the disarming of ordinary British citizens.
  • folk: Experts and we ordinary folk must be equally vexed.
  • equation: The same approach can be applied to higher order ordinary differential equations.
  • mortal: This is getting too complicated for us ordinary mortals; no wonder we get confused.
  • Iraqi: In this way the fate of ordinary Iraqis is linked to the interests of working-class people in Britain.

Modifying Another Word

  • disturbingly: Their disturbingly ordinary if morris knew blasting away in gosh they're quite.
  • seemingly: We start out with the daily lives of a few seemingly ordinary people.
  • perfectly: Double deckers were not common at Victoria, particularly those that appeared to be perfectly ordinary busses, but Thames Valley were the exception.
  • fairly: It looked a routine victory for Australia and a fairly ordinary match.
  • rather: Their approach becomes robotic, mechanistic and at best rather ordinary.
  • apparently: Behind apparently ordinary language it discovers rich mines of meaning to which the poem points.

Used with adjective complement

  • seem: Earlier this year I met a man in the United States who seemed very ordinary.
  • look: Barnett gave natural width to the right hand side and the Reds were making a good Ipswich side look ordinary.
  • become: In doing this, the support given becomes as ordinary as helping a friend.
  • make: More generally, religious man needed to enter sacred time periodically because sacred time was what made ordinary, historical time possible.
ordinary Quotes

  The chief thing, my dear fellows, is to play it simply, without any theatricality: just very simply. Remember that they are all ordinary people.

—Chekhov, Anton

   All people seem to be divided into'ordinary'and 'extraordinary'. The ordinary people must lead a life of strict obedience and have no right to transgress the law because†theyare ordinary.Whereas the extraordinary people have the right to commit any crime they like and transgress the law in any way just because they happen to be extraordinary.

—Dostoevsky, Fyodor Mikhailovich

Most artists try to break your heart, or they accidentally break their own hearts.But I find the quietness in the ordinary much more satisfying.

—Rauschenberg, Robert

Sociology is a new science concerning itself not with esoteric matters outside the comprehension of the layman, as the older sciences do, but with the ordinary affairs of ordinary people. This seems to engender in those who write about it a feeling that the lack of anyabstruseness in their subject matter demands a compensatoryabstruseness in their language. 365

—Gowers, Sir Ernest Arthur

Denn dem Menschen ist amWiedererkennen gelegen; er m o« chte das Alte im Neuen wiederfinden und das Typische im Individuellen. For man always searches for recognition: he would like to find the old in the new and the ordinary in the individual.

—Mann,Thomas

   Ordinary life bypassed me, but I also bypassed it. It couldn't have been any other way.Conventional life and conventional people are not for me.

—O'Brien, Edna

I count our progress by the extent to which what we cried in the wilderness five and thirty years ago has now become part of the assumptions of the ordinary man and woman† It is better to argue from what has been done to what may be done, rather than to suggest that very little has been accomplished.

—1st Earl

Jane Austen is the only novelist I know whose peculiar genius lies in taking perfectly ordinary people through ordinary situations, and transmogrifying them into fascinating fiction.

—Banks, Lynne Reid

The fine wine leaves you with something pleasant; the ordinary wine just leaves.

—Amerine, Maynard Andrew

The real accomplishment of modern science and technology consists in taking ordinary men, informing them narrowlyand deeply and then, through appropriate organization, arranging to have their knowledge combined with that of other specialized but equally ordinary men. This dispenses with the need for genius.Theresulting performance, though lessinspiring, is far more predictable.

—Galbraith,John Kenneth

There are no ordinary moments.

—Millman, Dan

If Margaret Thatcher wins onThursday, I warn you not to be ordinary,I warnyou not to be young,I warnyou not to fall ill, I warn you not to get old.

—Kinnock, Neil Gordon

   One machine can do the work of fifty ordinary men. No machine can do the work of one extraordinary man.

—Hubbard, Elbert Green