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
The lean, athletic Mr. Herzog, 83 years old, seems as spry and eager as ever, and his global enthusiasm remains a force of nature in itself.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Feb. 26, 2026
His original animated “How to Train Your Dragon,” made in collaboration with Chris Sanders, is a 21st-century kiddie classic, a spry and delightful adventure about interspecies empathy.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 11, 2025
As the last rays of the sun disappeared, Borys, a spry and upright retired colonel of 70 who served 30 years in the Soviet army stopped on his way to his car.
From BBC ● Feb. 18, 2025
One Sunday as Kropp and I were lugging a latrine-bucket on a pole across the barrack-yard, Himmelstoss came by, all polished up and spry for going out.
From "All Quiet on the Western Front: A Novel" by Erich Maria Remarque
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
And I'm a hundred times sprier than Broad.
From The Tale of Pony Twinkleheels by Bailey, Arthur Scott
Now, with Jasper and Mrs. Jay both flying at him, Frisky had to be sprier than ever.
From The Tale of Frisky Squirrel by Bailey, Arthur Scott
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 Zollinger, Gulielma
"They say that you're a great jumper—the spriest jumper in all Pleasant Valley."
From The Tale of Kiddie Katydid by Smith, Harry L.
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
It’s spryer, friskier and, like the art of her old professor John Baldessari, it comes across its philosophical profundity partly through jest.
From New York Times ● Dec. 30, 2020
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
Aunt Puss was already at her place, so she was spryer than she looked.
From "A Long Way from Chicago" by Richard Peck
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
Senate's spryest Democrats got set to observe high-seniority birthdays without fuss this week.
From Time Magazine Archive
To lighten the mood, by ones and threes the spryest fans took slides on the tarp, ultimately including a pretty girl in a pink dress.
From Time Magazine Archive
"He's certainly the spryest peg-legger I ever saw," commented Hiram, admiringly, as the treasure-hunter started away, his cow's-horn divining-rod in position.
From The Skipper and the Skipped Being the Shore Log of Cap'n Aaron Sproul by Day, Holman
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.
