Meaning

4 senses
  1. Having regular jurisdiction; now only used in certain phrases.

  2. Being part of the natural order of things; normal, customary, routine.

    On an ordinary day I wake up at nine o'clock, work for six hours, and then go to the gym.

    gewöhnlich, normal

    обыкнове́нныйobyknovénnyj, обы́чныйobýčnyj

    звича́йнийzvyčájnyj, зви́чнийzvýčnyj

  3. Having no special characteristics or function; everyday, common, mundane; often deprecatory.

    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.

    обыкнове́нныйobyknovénnyj

  4. (Australia, New Zealand, colloquial, informal)Bad or undesirable.

More definitions
  • not exceptional in any way especially in quality or ability or size or degree
  • lacking special distinction, rank, or status; commonly encountered

Examples

316 sentences
  1. He's just an ordinary office worker.

    Він звичайний офісний працівник. — deniko

    ruОн - простой офисный служащий. — soniamiku

  2. Tom is an ordinary-looking guy.

    У Тома пересічна зовнішність. — deniko

  3. I don't expect anything out of the ordinary to happen.

    Я не очікую, що трапиться щось незвичайне. — deniko

  4. Tom is just an ordinary man.

    Том усього-навсього пересічний чоловік. — deniko

  5. He's just an ordinary student.

    Він просто звичайний студент. — deniko

    ruОн просто обычный студент. — odexed

    deEr ist nur ein gewöhnlicher Schüler. — Yorwba

Translations

9 languages
Українська
By meaning 1
normal, routine:
Русский
By meaning 1
normal, routine:
Deutsch
By meaning 1
normal, routine:

Origin

From Anglo-Norman ordenarie, ordenaire et al., Middle French ordinaire, and their source,

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”).

Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0 · source

Forms

more ordinary, most ordinary
Comparativemore ordinary Lesson
Superlativemost ordinary Lesson

regular

Synonyms

103 synonyms

Antonyms

2 antonyms

Word family

19 related words

Collocations

9 patterns
  • of the ordinary
  • an an ordinary
  • the ordinary happened
  • is no ordinary
  • an ordinary man
  • ordinary happened
  • no ordinary
  • ordinary man
  • ordinary guy

See also

neighbours in the dictionary

Dictionary text adapted from Wiktionary (Wiktionary contributors, CC BY-SA 4.0) and Open English WordNet / Princeton WordNet (CC BY 4.0, WordNet License); shared under CC BY-SA 4.0. Example sentences and recordings are credited where they appear.

ordinary — meaning, examples, forms, synonyms | Krumeto