spry
Americanadjective
adjective
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of spry
First recorded in 1740–50; origin uncertain
Explanation
If you are an old lady, remaining spry is something you aspire to. It means "nimble." You might also use it to describe a goat that jumps easily along from mountain crag to mountain crag. The most common use of spry is to describe people who are aging. You might say that at 92, your great grandmother is still spry and sharp as a tack. Spry refers to her physical well-being; "sharp as a tack" to her mental faculties.
Vocabulary lists containing spry
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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:
There is no trace of illness, or wartime privations, or even old age—just a spry, youngish man in a straw hat.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 6, 2026
"My ancestors have always remained spry, both mentally and physically, and all remained very active right into their old age," she says.
From BBC ● Oct. 21, 2025
“I named him the Visa God,” said Gopalakrishna, a spry 81-year-old who still works at the temple.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 15, 2025
Quan carries off the multiple full-scale, acrobatic fight scenes with spry, loose-limbed ease, even though onscreen, Marvin progressively collects wounds as casually as if they’re Pokemon.
From Salon ● Feb. 7, 2025
“Margaret will have to teach you; she’s a spry young thing. I haven’t the wind for it anymore.”
From "The Incorrigible Children of Ashton Place: Book I: The Mysterious Howling" by Maryrose Wood
Two tracks later comes “Hard Piano,” a collaboration with Rick Ross, who’s fresh off a health crisis but has rarely sounded sprier than he does here.
From Slate ● May 29, 2018
Though it has bad word of mouth, “Jonah Hex” is generally better, sprier and more diverting than most of the action flicks now playing, “The A-Team” included.
From New York Times ● Jun. 17, 2010
They are younger, sprier, more active than members of the British House of Lords.
From Time Magazine Archive
It was easy, in the daytime, for the squirrels to keep out of Fatty's way, when he wandered through the tree-tops, for the squirrels were much sprier than Fatty.
From Sleepy-Time Tales: the Tale of Fatty Coon by Arthur Scott Bailey
How could he know that the mice at the farmhouse were ever so much sprier than he was and that they always trusted to their legs to get them out of harm's way?
From The Tale of Master Meadow Mouse by Eleanor Fagan
As an added turret he has Ann Pennington, erstwhile spriest dancer of many a Ziegfeld Follies.
From Time Magazine Archive
He remains the Kremlin's jauntiest dresser and spriest waltzer.
From Time Magazine Archive
Your father was the spriest koind of a b'y, I'm told.
From The Widow O'Callaghan's Boys by Gulielma Zollinger
"They say that you're a great jumper—the spriest jumper in all Pleasant Valley."
From The Tale of Kiddie Katydid by Harry L. Smith
Most importantly, a noticeably leaner and spryer Trout says he feels better than he has in years—and it shows.
From The Wall Street Journal ● May 17, 2026
A week or two dedicated solely to rest and rehabilitation could lead to a spryer Jaquez in the games that matter most.
From Los Angeles Times ● Feb. 13, 2022
Wrinkled and gray-haired, with a drooping face that seems designed for a spryer, thinner metal endoskeleton, Mr. Schwarzenegger, the no-longer-quite-so-muscle-bound action star, certainly looks the former.
From Washington Times ● Jun. 30, 2015
And Ms. Bumby is spryer at spotting, and handling, celebrities than her partner.
From New York Times ● Mar. 9, 2011
Aunt Puss was already at her place, so she was spryer than she looked.
From "A Long Way from Chicago" by Richard Peck
One of the world's spryest septuagenarians, she had long kept a schedule that would have left most younger people exhausted.
From Time Magazine Archive
Highwayman Whitton is among the oldest of the Kennedy appointees, but may well be one of the spryest.
From Time Magazine Archive
It takes erudition, it takes nimbleness; but of both Mr. Schauffler has sufficient to jump over the conversational candlestick with our spryest informal essayists.
From Time Magazine Archive
Vigorous essays by the spryest fat man now writing.
From Time Magazine Archive
He is the spryest man on crutches I ever saw, and you know, my dear, I've seen a good many.
From The Earth Trembled by Edward Payson Roe
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.
