What's the difference between wiry and wry?

Wiry


Definition:

  • (a.) Made of wire; like wire; drawn out like wire.
  • (a.) Capable of endurance; tough; sinewy; as, a wiry frame or constitution.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) Like the strikingly similar landscapes of low wiry vegetation that you can now see in some former rainforest areas in the tropics, these habitats have been created through repeated cycles of cutting and burning.
  • (2) • Finally, if the London Marathon goes ahead on schedule, spare a thought during the day for one runner – a balding, wiry, smiling figure called Joe Derrett.
  • (3) Physically, he has a sort of wiry poise, often standing on the balls of his feet, but there is also something diffident, almost shyly polite, about him.
  • (4) On approach, he looks a bit like the ageing rock star he might have been (he was famously in punk band the Dreamboys with US chatshow host Craig Ferguson in his youth), wiry in dark glasses and heavy boots.
  • (5) Friendship Alfredo Scappaticci, small, barrel-chested with classic Mediterranean olive skin and wiry black hair, was born to an Italian immigrant family in west Belfast in the late 1940s and became a bricklayer.
  • (6) A white English family is described with autosomal dominant woolly wiry hair.
  • (7) At Elay, Oman Nygwo, a wiry 40-year-old in cut-off jeans, gives a tour of deserted huts and points to a line of mango trees that mark his old home on the banks of the Baro.
  • (8) A wiry 57, he arrives for lunch at Bar Pitti on Sixth Avenue, New York City, looking debonair in a cashmere Canali sports jacket.
  • (9) They include Ariyoshi Rune, a tall, wiry 47-year-old truck driver whose slicked-back hair and sideburns are inspired by his idol, Joe Strummer.
  • (10) Vardy weighs 73kg (11st 7lb) and with that wiry frame he looks as if he is not carrying an ounce of fat.
  • (11) "Now he is not just a skinny guy, he's a strong wiry guy," he adds, pride evident.
  • (12) Tall, wiry, a cigarette invariably dangling from his full lips, he had a lopsided grin and a nose that may have been broken in the ring, or the result of hitting himself with a rifle butt to end his military service.
  • (13) At Housmans, in Kings Cross, London – one of the longest-running radical bookshops in the country, launched by a group of pacifists – wiry co-manager Malcolm Hopkins, dressed head to toe in black, pulls up a chair in front of a row of Trotsky biographies and recounts the changes he's seen in the sector in past decades.
  • (14) Photograph: James Harkin for the Guardian We drop in on Amjad, a wiry fellow oppositionist who now considers both sides as bad as each other.
  • (15) Mom – Futurama Named by Forbes as fiction's fourth-richest individual, the ruthless MomCorp CEO is a wiry plutocrat, manufacturing endless platoons of killbots.
  • (16) Dembélé’s wiry strength, control and acceleration stood out while at times like these, it is impossible to look at Alli and realise that he is still only 19.
  • (17) I also like the maidenhair fern Adiantum aleuticum ‘Imbricatum’ ; its wiry black stems have fronds that radiate out like spreading fingers.
  • (18) Small, wiry and dark, Chowdhury recalls the bullets skimming past his right leg as the men opened fire – just as he can recollect the events leading up to the attack.
  • (19) For Herbie, a wiry-haired mongrel, it's a time of mixed emotions.
  • (20) The wiry-haired lawyer turned anti-gambling activist is standing in the gaming room of the Meadow Inn hotel, situated in Fawkner, an unremarkable northern suburb of Melbourne, Australia's second-largest city.

Wry


Definition:

  • (v. t.) To cover.
  • (superl.) Turned to one side; twisted; distorted; as, a wry mouth.
  • (superl.) Hence, deviating from the right direction; misdirected; out of place; as, wry words.
  • (superl.) Wrested; perverted.
  • (v. i.) To twist; to writhe; to bend or wind.
  • (v. i.) To deviate from the right way; to go away or astray; to turn side; to swerve.
  • (a.) To twist; to distort; to writhe; to wrest; to vex.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) When I commiserate about the overnight flight that brought them here, Linney gives a wry grimace.
  • (2) The image was widely shared online and taken as a wry comment on pictures of Donald Trump’s all-male Oval Office team.
  • (3) Putin could have been forgiven for allowing himself a wry grin, as another court comprehensively trashed Berezovsky's reputation.
  • (4) No wry observations or whoops-a-daisy trombones to subvert the conceit for period lolz.
  • (5) She frequently talks about herself as an object of wry or amused discovery.
  • (6) It was described as the "Twitter revolution" , but almost a year on from Iran's disputed presidential elections, during which the use of social media by the opposition movement made headlines around the world, such claims prompt wry smiles from seasoned observers.
  • (7) Enigmatic and elusive, they may have named themselves after the US video director because they enjoy his work, or it may be a wry comment on something or other.
  • (8) Franzen did seem to have a certain sense of humour about himself, and in person has a wry, awkward charm.
  • (9) Coal plants are the most polluting of all power stations and the World Resources Institute (WRI) identified 1,200 coal plants in planning across 59 countries, with about three-quarters in China and India.
  • (10) The cover art for the Cranberries' Bury the Hatchet (1999) was an evocation of paranoia – a giant eye bearing down on a crouching figure – that did neither band nor artist many favours; his image for Muse's Black Holes and Revelations (2006) amounted to a thin revival of his work for the Floyd that, if you were being generous, suggested a wry comment on that band's unconvincing attempts to revive the excesses of 1970s progressive rock.
  • (11) He was a nice man, unpretentious and with a wry manner.
  • (12) The secretary of state also made a wry comparison between the bipartisan co-operation underpinning the new Afghan government and the polarised state of American domestic politics.
  • (13) But he is courteous, wry, insightful and very much on the left of his party.
  • (14) "I think I know what's to come," Chua says with a wry smile.
  • (15) "I don't think that Plaid Cymru can overturn world capitalism," she says, with a wry smile.
  • (16) "They were very happy," Wazir recalls with a wry smile.
  • (17) We are seeing a shift in the expansion of tree cover loss to a second tier of smaller countries that traditionally get much less attention from environmental groups.” He added: “These countries are recovering from years of civil conflicts that have made them off limits to investors who are now looking for opportunities – it is a new frontier of investments.” The WRI analysis suggests that a rapidly growing palm oil industry is one of the biggest contributors to the change.
  • (18) Guy Shrubsole, at Friends of the Earth, said of the WRI report: "This is a scary number of coal-fired plants being planned.
  • (19) The WRI report also found that, after a slight dip during the economic troubles of 2008, the global coal trade has rebounded and rose by 13% in 2010.
  • (20) But he is far from being a show-off: 'In fact, he comes over as a modest individual with a wry sense of humour', says a colleague.