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corny

adjectiveadjectiveadjectiveattested in dialogue

  • United Kingdom//ˈkɔːni//
  • United States//ˈkɔɹni//

Boring and unoriginal.

adjective

  1. 1

    Boring and unoriginal.

    The duct tape and wire was a pretty corny solution.

    I mean if a boy's mother was sort of fat or corny-looking or something, and if somebody’s father was one of those guys that wear those suits with very big shoulders and corny black-and-white shoes, then old Haas would just shake hands with them and give them a phony smile and then he'd go talk, for maybe a half an hour, with somebody else's parents.

  2. 2

    Hackneyed or excessively sentimental.

    The movie was okay, but the love scene was really corny.

    He sent a bouquet of twelve red roses and a card: "Roses are red, Violets are blue, Sugar is sweet, So are you." How corny is that?

  3. 3

    slangUncool, stupid, lame.

    Dreya shakes her head and rolls her eyes. "I'm going to bed. Y'all corny."

    “You and your silly bitch better give me fifty feet before both y'all corny asses get slam dunked in that pool.”

    Y'all haters corny with that Illuminati mess

    "No, no, no," James said Wednesday (via ESPN). "That's wack. That's wack. Why? You got to earn your spot to be in the postseason. No consolation for finishing last. That's corny. That's corny. That's wack. To play for what? What are they playing for?"

  4. 4

    rareContaining corn.

    Country Cornbread Muffins (page 290) / Marlene Says: The cool crunchy salad and slightly sweet corny muffins are perfect partners to the creamy, spicy black bean soup.

    “CORNY” BREAD MUFFINS + HONEY BUTTER (GRAIN-, DAIRY-, SOY-, NIGHTSHADE-FREE) Well, making cornbread without corn is kinda tricky, but since corn is indeed a grain, “real” cornbread will not be found here.

    Fiesta Corny Muffins / Cornbread goes with everything: salad, soup, and chili.

    Have beans, bacon, and cornbread for dinner.[…]Have peas, bacon, and corny bread for dinner.

  5. 5

    obsoleteProducing corn or grain; furnished with grains of corn.

    The corny ear.

  6. 6

    obsoleteTipsy; drunk.

    Yen day when aw was corney.

  7. 7

    Horny (sexually aroused; experiencing sexual desire).

Etymology

Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *ǵerh₂- Proto-Indo-European *-nóm Proto-Indo-European *ǵr̥h₂-nós Proto-Indo-European *ǵr̥h₂nóm Proto-Germanic *kurną Proto-West Germanic *korn Old English corn Middle English corn Proto-Indo-European *-kos Proto-Germanic *-gaz Proto-West Germanic *-g Old English -iġ Middle English -y Middle English corny English corny From Middle English corny, equivalent to corn (“a type of cereal or grain”) + -y. Piecewise doublet of grainy. In the "hackneyed" sense, from "corn catalogue jokes", reputedly low-quality jokes that were formerly printed in mail-order seed catalogues.

adjective

  1. 1

    Having or pertaining to corns (a type of callus).

    I had not long in open Street, / Been puniſhing my Corny Feet, […]

    In this fine Order they proceeded, / The Grave, the Wiſe, the Bullet-headed, […] / The Craſy, Gouty, and the Corny, […]

    E’en “Aunty Ann” her cleeky staff foregoes, / Forgets her asthma, and her corny toes; / Spreads out her petticoat, like peacock tail, / And up the dance begins to set her sail.

    We must go boldly to work; we must run the risk of twisting the very soul of the guilty, as well as of offending the corny sensibilities of their friends and relatives, if we would wish to arrest the progress of this malady, and secure for ourselves and our children the healthy and invigorating exercise of our public ordinances of religion.

Etymology

Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *ḱer- Proto-Indo-European *-h₂ ? Proto-Indo-European *ḱerh₂-der. Proto-Italic *kornū Latin cornū̆ Latin cornua Vulgar Latin *corna Old French cornebor. Middle English corne English corn Proto-Indo-European *-kos Proto-Germanic *-gaz Proto-West Germanic *-g Old English -iġ Middle English -y English -y English corny From corn (“a type of callus”) + -y. Piecewise doublet of horny.

adjective

  1. 1

    obsoleteHorny; strong, stiff or hard like horn; resembling horn.

    Up stood the cornie Reed.

Etymology

Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *ḱer- Proto-Indo-European *-h₂ ? Proto-Indo-European *ḱerh₂-der. Proto-Italic *kornū Latin cornū̆ Latin cornua Vulgar Latin *corna Old French corne Middle French corne Proto-Indo-European *-kos Proto-Germanic *-gaz Proto-West Germanic *-g Old English -iġ Middle English -y English -y ▲ Latin cornu ▲ English -y English corny From Middle French corne + English -y, or from Latin cornu + English -y.

Forms

comparative
cornier, more corny
superlative
corniest, most corny
The neighbouring pagesAlphabetical order follows the rules of the language, not byte values: an accent decides only between two otherwise identical words, and Spanish files Ñ as a letter of its own.

Lexical content from Wiktionary, under CC BY-SA 4.0 · Source entry · Data version 2026-08-23

Rank among the words of the OpenSubtitles 2018 corpus — film and television subtitles, so spoken rather than written usage (CC BY-SA 3.0).