wry

wry¹ twisted

Etymology

The word for twisted is the adjectival use of the now obsolete or dialect verb wry, to turn or twist,^{[2][3][4][5][6]} which is inherited from Middle English wrien (“to turn, swerve”),^[7][4][8] inherited from Old English wrīgian (“to turn, go, tend, strive”).^{[2][9][4][10][11]} Old English wrīgian is cognate with Old Frisian wrīgia (“to bend, stoop”), Middle Low German wrīch (“twisted, perverse”) and Dutch wrijgen (“to twist”),^{[12][4][8][13]} and continues Proto-Germanic *wrigōną.^[1][14][3] Watkins, as cited by Etymonline, and Barnhart trace it to Proto-Indo-European *wreyḱ- (“to turn, wrap, tie”),^[3][4][1] a form of *wer- (“to turn, bend”);^[3][10] Merriam-Webster Unabridged and Barnhart compare Lithuanian rišti (“to bind, tie”) and Latin rīca (“veil”).^[8][4] Holthausen and Ayto connect wriggle.^[12][6] Johnson derived the adjective from writhe.^[15]

Earliest recorded meaning

The Old English verb meant to move, go or turn, and also to incline or tend, in Alfred's translation of Boethius, before 899.^[2][4][9] The adjective, of the neck or features, turned to one side or distorted, is first recorded in 1523, in Lord Berners's translation of Froissart.^[2][4][3] Merriam-Webster Unabridged dates the adjective to the 15th century.^[8]

Semantic evolution

In Middle English the verb came to mean to swerve or turn aside, and figuratively to go wrong,^[2] and Chaucer used it in both ways;^[2][16] from the 14th century it also meant to contort the limbs or features, as in pain.^[2][7] The adjective grew out of this sense of twisting.^[2][6] From 1598 a wry face or wry mouth was one twisted in disgust or distaste,^[2] and since the 1590s the adjective has been was used of words or thoughts that were perverse, ill-natured or wrong.^[3][2] A wry smile is recorded from 1883,^[2][3] and the now common sense of drily or obliquely humorous, ironic, from 1928, in Eugene O'Neill's Strange Interlude;^[2] Barnhart dates an ironic sense to before 1586, in Sidney's Arcadia.^[4] Johnson (1755) defined the adjective first as crooked, deviating from the right direction.^[15] Etymonline notes that the original sense survives in awry,^[3] and in northern English and Scots dialect the word lived on in compounds such as wry-necked.^[17]

Timeline

• 1340–70 – to contort the limbs or features; to writhe.^[2]
• before 1350 – of a person, to swerve or turn aside.^[2]
• c. 1369 – figuratively, to go wrong, err (in Chaucer).^[2]
• 1423 – noun, in on wry, awry (Scottish).^[2][11]
• 1523 – adjective, of the neck or features, turned to one side.^[2][4]
• 1552 – twisted, crooked, bent.^[2]
• 1575 – adverb, awry.^[2]
• 1598 – of the face, twisted in distaste.^[2]
• 1601 – of words or thoughts, perverse or wrong.^[2]
• 1616 – noun, a twisting movement.^[2]
• 1883 – of a smile, twisted in dislike.^[2][3]
• 1928 – drily humorous, ironic.^[2]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Drily or ironically humorous; sardonic: a wry remark about the weather.^[18][8][2]
2. Of the face or a smile, twisted to show dislike, disgust or mockery: She made a wry face at the cold coffee.^[18][8][2]
3. Turned to one side; twisted or contorted: a wry neck.^[8][18][2]
4. Of words or thoughts, perverse, wrong or unsuitable.^[18][2]

Verb

1. To twist or contort, as the face.^[18][8]
2. To make contortions; to writhe.^[8][2]

Adverb

1. Awry.^[8][2]

Noun

1. (rare) A twisting or winding movement.^[2][11]

Word family

• wryly
• wryness
• wrymouth
• wryneck
• awry

wry² to cover

Etymology

The word for to cover is inherited from Middle English wrien (“to cover, conceal”),^[7][16] inherited from Old English wrēon (“to cover”),^[2][9][11] which has cognates in North Frisian and in Old High German compounds.^[2] It continues Proto-Germanic *wrīhaną (“to wrap, cover”).^[1][14] Köbler traces this verb, like wry¹, to Proto-Indo-European *wreyḱ- (“to turn, wrap, tie”).^[14][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

To lay a covering over something: Old English, in the Lindisfarne Gospels.^[2][9]

Semantic evolution

In Old and Middle English the verb covered things, clothed people, protected and concealed, and was also used of something spread over a person or a stretch of ground.^[2][9] It was common in Chaucer, who used it 17 times,^[16] including of raking up a fire to keep it alive, a sense that survived in dialect into the 1890s.^[2][11] The other senses died out between about 1400 and the 17th century,^[2] and in East Anglia wry still meant to cover close, as with bedclothes, in the 19th century.^[17]

Timeline

• c. 1275 – to cover or stretch over an expanse of ground (in Laȝamon's Brut).^[2]
• 1297 – to put trappings or armour on a horse.^[2]
• c. 1374 – to rake up a fire so as to keep it alive (in Chaucer).^[2]
• 1567 – to disguise a person.^[2]

Meanings

Verb

1. (obsolete) To cover; to clothe, conceal or protect with a covering.^[2][11]
2. (dialect) To cover or rake up a fire so as to keep it burning.^[2][11][17]