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ENGLISH · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

corny.

Boring and unoriginal.

5 characters2 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

adj/ˈkɔːni/Received-Pronunciation/ˈkɔɹni/General-American
  1. Boring and unoriginal.

    The duct tape and wire was a pretty corny solution.
  2. Hackneyed or excessively sentimental.

    The movie was okay, but the love scene was really corny.
    He sent a bouquet of twelve red roses and a card: "Roses are red, Violets are blue, Sugar is sweet, So are you." How corny is that?
  3. Uncool, stupid, lame.

    slang
  4. Containing corn.

    rare
  5. Producing corn or grain; furnished with grains of corn.

    obsolete
  6. Tipsy; drunk.

    UK · obsolete · slang
  7. Horny (sexually aroused; experiencing sexual desire).

    euphemistic
Where this word comes from

Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *ǵerh₂- Proto-Indo-European *-nóm Proto-Indo-European *ǵr̥h₂-nós Proto-Indo-European *ǵr̥h₂nóm Proto-Germanic *kurną Proto-West Germanic *korn Old English corn Middle English corn Proto-Indo-European *-kos Proto-Germanic *-gaz Proto-West Germanic *-g Old English -iġ Middle English -y Middle English corny English corny From Middle English corny, equivalent to corn (“a type of cereal or grain”) + -y. Piecewise doublet of grainy. In the "hackneyed" sense, from "corn catalogue jokes", reputedly low-quality jokes that were formerly printed in mail-order seed catalogues.

adj/ˈkɔːni/Received-Pronunciation/ˈkɔɹni/General-American
  1. Having or pertaining to corns (a type of callus).

Where this word comes from

Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *ḱer- Proto-Indo-European *-h₂ ? Proto-Indo-European *ḱerh₂-der. Proto-Italic *kornū Latin cornū̆ Latin cornua Vulgar Latin *corna Old French cornebor. Middle English corne English corn Proto-Indo-European *-kos Proto-Germanic *-gaz Proto-West Germanic *-g Old English -iġ Middle English -y English -y English corny From corn (“a type of callus”) + -y. Piecewise doublet of horny.

adj/ˈkɔːni/Received-Pronunciation/ˈkɔɹni/General-American
  1. Horny; strong, stiff or hard like horn; resembling horn.

    obsolete
Where this word comes from

Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *ḱer- Proto-Indo-European *-h₂ ? Proto-Indo-European *ḱerh₂-der. Proto-Italic *kornū Latin cornū̆ Latin cornua Vulgar Latin *corna Old French corne Middle French corne Proto-Indo-European *-kos Proto-Germanic *-gaz Proto-West Germanic *-g Old English -iġ Middle English -y English -y ▲ Latin cornu ▲ English -y English corny From Middle French corne + English -y, or from Latin cornu + English -y. Piecewise doublet of horny.

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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.