ordinary.
A person with authority; authority, ordinance.
Meaning & usage
A person with authority; authority, ordinance. A person having immediate jurisdiction in a given case of ecclesiastical law, such as the bishop within a diocese.
A person with authority; authority, ordinance. A courier; someone delivering mail or post.
A person with authority; authority, ordinance. A judge with the authority to deal with cases himself or herself rather than by delegation.
A person with authority; authority, ordinance. The chaplain of Newgate prison, who prepared condemned prisoners for death.
Something ordinary or regular. Customary fare, one's regular daily allowance of food; (hence) a regular portion or allowance.
Something ordinary or regular. A meal provided for a set price at an eating establishment.
Something ordinary or regular. A place where such meals are served; a public tavern, inn.
Something ordinary or regular. One of the standard geometric designs placed across the center of a coat of arms, such as a pale or fess.
Something ordinary or regular. An ordinary person or thing; something commonplace.
Something ordinary or regular. The usual course of things; normal condition or health; a standard way of behaviour or action.
Something ordinary or regular. A penny farthing bicycle.
Something ordinary or regular. A part of the Christian liturgy that is reasonably constant without regard to the date on which the service is performed.
Something ordinary or regular. A part of the Christian liturgy that is reasonably constant without regard to the date on which the service is performed. Alternative letter-case form of Ordinary (“those parts of the Mass which are consistent from day to day”).
A book setting out ordinary or regular conduct. A devotional manual; a book setting our rules for proper conduct.
A book setting out ordinary or regular conduct. A rule, or book of rules, prescribing the order of a liturgy, especially of Mass.
Where this word comes from
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”).
Having regular jurisdiction; now only used in certain phrases.
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.
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.
Bad or undesirable.
Where this word comes from
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”).
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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.