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
“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
The spry assistance of stagehands, who not only move set pieces but help flesh out the world of the play, is a jaunty touch.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 28, 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
Even on one good leg, he was eerily spry.
From "Six of Crows" by Leigh Bardugo
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
So we do believe you, Mr. Joseph … sprier than many an old 'un, I'm sure.
From The Harlequinade An Excursion by Dion Clayton Calthrop
And I'm a hundred times sprier than Broad.
From The Tale of Pony Twinkleheels by Arthur Scott Bailey
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
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
Senate's spryest Democrats got set to observe high-seniority birthdays without fuss this week.
From Time Magazine Archive
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
Vigorous essays by the spryest fat man now writing.
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
An' they're the purtiest critter alive an' the spryest an' the mos' graceful.'
From Eben Holden, a tale of the north country by Irving Bacheller
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.
