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
He’s remarkably spry for his age and, unlike his character in “The Christophers,” goes out regularly, often to the theater.
From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 8, 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
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
Art remembered when he had been more spry, remembered him pitching horseshoes at the Strawberry Festival.
From "Snow Falling on Cedars: A Novel" by David Guterson
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
But I'm sprier than a chipmunk, save a touch of the lumbago, And they calls me Old Methoosalah, and 'blagues' me all the day.
From Rhymes of a Red Cross Man by Service, Robert W. (Robert William)
So we do believe you, Mr. Joseph … sprier than many an old 'un, I'm sure.
From The Harlequinade An Excursion by Calthrop, Dion Clayton
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
"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.
Your father was the spriest koind of a b'y, I'm told.
From The Widow O'Callaghan's Boys by Zollinger, Gulielma
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
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
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
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
"That little one is the spryest child I ever saw," said the man with the court-plaster, as Flyaway hovered about the candy-jars, like a butterfly over a flower-bed.
From Dotty Dimple's Flyaway by May, Sophie
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.
