ornery.

Bad-tempered, difficult, and unwilling to cooperate.

Use it for

Words that belong together

• an ornery mule
• an ornery neighbor

On the page

The ornery mule refused the narrow bridge and forced the party to find another crossing.

Usage notes

Primary category: literary / elevated general. Forms: Comparative more ornery; superlative most ornery when comparison is meaningful. Legacy lexical fields mirror sense 1 only. Use numbered sense fields for all meanings. Established modern English lexical item. No separate regional spelling or grammatical inflection entry. Writing functions: description, character. Commonness: moderately common.