stony
Americanadjective
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stonier,
comparative
-
stoniest
superlative
-
full of or abounding in stones or rock.
a stony beach.
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pertaining to or characteristic of stone.
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resembling or suggesting stone, especially in its hardness.
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unfeeling; merciless; obdurate.
a stony heart.
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motionless or rigid; without expression, as the eyes or a look.
a hard, stony stare.
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petrifying; stupefying.
stony fear.
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Slang. stone-broke.
adjective
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of or resembling stone
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abounding in stone or stones
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unfeeling, heartless, or obdurate
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short for stony-broke
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Adjectives
Etymology
Origin of stony
before 1000; Middle English; Old English stānig. See stone, -y 1
Explanation
Someone who's stony shows little emotion or sympathy for other people. As your math teacher hands back last week's geometry quiz, her stony face won't seem like a very good sign. A face with a stony expression is so lacking in feeling that it is "like stone." The other way to use the adjective stony is to mean "with lots of stones," like when you talk about a stony blueberry field in Maine or a stony path leading up to a lush garden. Stony comes from the Old English stanig, with its root of stan, "rock or gem."
Vocabulary lists containing stony
The Crucible
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The Secret Garden
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"Lift Every Voice and Sing" by James Weldon Johnson
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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:
Instead, Abbass plays her as a woman who, since the attack, has learned to make her face a stony mask.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 1, 2026
The colors offer precious flashes of charm in this novel’s harsh, stony setting.
From The Wall Street Journal ● May 1, 2026
They sit in stony silence because they are watching their life’s work being systematically dismantled.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Mar. 1, 2026
Much of the action takes place inside Perpetual Fortitude’s stony walls but cleverly, the weather outside shifts along with the mood.
From Los Angeles Times ● Nov. 25, 2025
Having seen Imm Janan, their landlord's wife, take the bus toward Ramallah thirty minutes before, they went downstairs to their stony, grassless backyard and unhinged the door to the chicken coop for the first time.
From "Habibi" by Naomi Shihab Nye
It seemed both more substantial and more subdued, stonier and less exuberant.
From New York Times ● Jan. 15, 2021
But with Diana as a contrast, the Queen is suddenly less regal and a good deal stonier.
From Salon ● Nov. 14, 2020
Yet in my experience, these wines very much bore out what I would have expected to see: The Crozes-Hermitage was the most open, and the St.-Joseph more tightly wound and stonier.
From New York Times ● Oct. 8, 2020
That being said, the dismal returns of RoboCop prove the soil in Q1 is stonier than we think. digging.
From Time ● Feb. 19, 2014
Mum was looking stonier and stonier as the rockery in the garden and the rockery in her blueprint got more and more different.
From "Black Swan Green" by David Mitchell
Sarah Paulson operates under the belief that blood once flowed through even the stoniest of hearts.
From New York Times ● Sep. 15, 2020
Mini Grey's deliciously inventive story told through illustrations with familiar speech bubble comments will make even the stoniest and least imaginative hearts and minds believe in this beautifully imagined fantasy.
From The Guardian ● Aug. 24, 2012
Only the stoniest of hearts remains unmoved during the "reveal", as the needy, war veterans and people with disabled kids are gifted the house of their dreams.
From The Guardian ● Aug. 11, 2011
He played a careful game, kept one of the stoniest poker faces in the South Pacific, and "seemed always to end up a game somewhere between $30 and $60 ahead." a wartime friend recalls.
From Time Magazine Archive
She searched in the pocket of her gown, drew out a pair of black lace mittens, put them on with the stoniest and steadiest composure, and then quietly crossed her hands in her lap.
From The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins
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