stony
Americanadjective
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stonier,
comparative
-
stoniest
superlative
-
full of or abounding in stones or rock.
a stony beach.
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pertaining to or characteristic of stone.
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resembling or suggesting stone, especially in its hardness.
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unfeeling; merciless; obdurate.
a stony heart.
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motionless or rigid; without expression, as the eyes or a look.
a hard, stony stare.
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petrifying; stupefying.
stony fear.
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Slang. stone-broke.
adjective
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of or resembling stone
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abounding in stone or stones
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unfeeling, heartless, or obdurate
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short for stony-broke
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Adjectives
Etymology
Origin of stony
before 1000; Middle English; Old English stānig. See stone, -y 1
Explanation
Someone who's stony shows little emotion or sympathy for other people. As your math teacher hands back last week's geometry quiz, her stony face won't seem like a very good sign. A face with a stony expression is so lacking in feeling that it is "like stone." The other way to use the adjective stony is to mean "with lots of stones," like when you talk about a stony blueberry field in Maine or a stony path leading up to a lush garden. Stony comes from the Old English stanig, with its root of stan, "rock or gem."
Vocabulary lists containing stony
The Crucible
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The Secret Garden
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"Lift Every Voice and Sing" by James Weldon Johnson
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
The colors offer precious flashes of charm in this novel’s harsh, stony setting.
From The Wall Street Journal ● May 1, 2026
They sit in stony silence because they are watching their life’s work being systematically dismantled.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Mar. 1, 2026
They control the real-life troops as in a computer game but their faces are stony, their focus total.
From BBC ● Nov. 7, 2025
In the years since they were dug, their surface has sunk into the dry, stony earth.
From BBC ● May 7, 2025
Closer to the bank the river bottom turned stony.
From "The Black Cauldron" by Lloyd Alexander
It seemed both more substantial and more subdued, stonier and less exuberant.
From New York Times ● Jan. 15, 2021
But with Diana as a contrast, the Queen is suddenly less regal and a good deal stonier.
From Salon ● Nov. 14, 2020
Yet in my experience, these wines very much bore out what I would have expected to see: The Crozes-Hermitage was the most open, and the St.-Joseph more tightly wound and stonier.
From New York Times ● Oct. 8, 2020
That being said, the dismal returns of RoboCop prove the soil in Q1 is stonier than we think. digging.
From Time ● Feb. 19, 2014
Mum was looking stonier and stonier as the rockery in the garden and the rockery in her blueprint got more and more different.
From "Black Swan Green" by David Mitchell
Sarah Paulson operates under the belief that blood once flowed through even the stoniest of hearts.
From New York Times ● Sep. 15, 2020
Mini Grey's deliciously inventive story told through illustrations with familiar speech bubble comments will make even the stoniest and least imaginative hearts and minds believe in this beautifully imagined fantasy.
From The Guardian ● Aug. 24, 2012
Only the stoniest of hearts remains unmoved during the "reveal", as the needy, war veterans and people with disabled kids are gifted the house of their dreams.
From The Guardian ● Aug. 11, 2011
A fast-moving British film that follows a killer and a little girl around Cardiff, produces enough suspense to bring sweat to stoniest foreheads.
From Time Magazine Archive
Then she closed the door and fixed Ravenslee with her stoniest stare.
From The Definite Object A Romance of New York by Jeffery Farnol
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
