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“Mary, Mary, Quite Contrary”

  1. A nursery rhyme:

    Mary, Mary, quite contrary,

    How does your garden grow?

    With silver bells, and cockleshells,

    And pretty maids all in a row.



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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.

When Sybil died at the age of 91 in 2021, the Mary Mary Quite Contrary egg in blue and white paper remained intact, complete with a decorative garden scene of a little girl with a watering can.

From BBC

“A lot of the younger children don’t know the fairy tales and many of the nursery rhymes any more. A lot of little kids that come through here will look at ‘Mary, Mary Quite Contrary’ and they don’t have a clue what ‘Mary, Mary Quite Contrary’ is.

“Mary, Mary, quite contrary How does your garden grow? With silver bells, and cockle shells, And pretty maids all in a row.”

“Mary, Mary, quite contrary, how does your fortune grow?” asks one ad.

From MSNBC

“Headin’ for the Top Now,” a long song with a Velvet Underground eighth-note stomp and improvised guitar-strafing throughout, ends with women’s voices, light and sweet, singing a corrupted nursery rhyme: “Mary, Mary, quite contrary, how does your future go?/Backstreet dealin’, midnight stealin’, oh does your mother know?”

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Mary MagdaleneMcCarthy, Mary