How to Use ordinarily in a Sentence

ordinarily

adverb
  • This is a guy who ordinarily projects cool and calm.
    — Baz Bamigboye, Deadline, 23 Feb. 2026
  • A lot of people who would ordinarily be here aren’t able to be here.
    — Radhika Seth, Vogue, 12 Sep. 2023
  • The ordinarily strong driver did not have a good day off the tee.
    — Mark Davis, Newsweek, 15 Mar. 2025
  • Trips the team might ordinarily be able to tag along on are fully booked.
    — Kate Wong, Scientific American, 13 Mar. 2023
  • This type of slippage would ordinarily nag at me.
    — Emily Nussbaum, New Yorker, 26 Feb. 2026
  • Part of the group would have ordinarily done so from the hallway outside the courtroom.
    — Alexandra Mendoza, San Diego Union-Tribune, 4 Mar. 2026
  • What ordinarily would have been about a three-hour flight turned into an overnight stay for some passengers.
    — Lucy Hodgman, San Francisco Chronicle, 8 Apr. 2026
  • The buyer ordinarily wouldn’t have a claim against the seller.
    — Joshua Stein, Forbes, 17 July 2023
  • Parks are ordinarily exempt from the city’s public drinking ban — but not this year.
    — Daniel Hunt, Sacbee.com, 15 Apr. 2026
  • Great effort has been made to transform what is ordinarily a plain, beige room into a festive space.
    — Andy Greene, Rolling Stone, 31 Mar. 2026
  • But my father, who ordinarily would have joined in their banter, stopped smiling.
    — Madhuri Vijay, New Yorker, 16 Nov. 2025
  • That's plenty of length, but the width is the same as a twin bed, ordinarily reserved for solo sleepers.
    — New Atlas, 18 Sep. 2024
  • Customers would ordinarily find their savory and sweet pies at weekend events.
    — Sarah Blaskovich, Dallas News, 9 Mar. 2023
  • Both of those courts would ordinarily take months or longer to review a criminal appeal.
    — Ian Millhiser, Vox, 5 June 2024
  • Tiv has tried to teach them that, ordinarily, even when a wild animal is friendly, you can’t just turn it into your pet.
    — Charlotte Observer, 26 Nov. 2025
  • There’s been a bluntness all season to the Hermits’ chats that ordinarily might grate on me.
    — Noel Murray, Vulture, 24 Sep. 2025
  • The crater floor will be outside the line of sight Grace would ordinarily need to talk with the nearby Athena.
    — Josh Dinner, Space.com, 27 Feb. 2025
  • However, the new car will not have a storage area up front where the engine would ordinarily reside.
    — Brett Berk, Robb Report, 17 Nov. 2023
  • So were works that were ordinarily hung elsewhere in Florence.
    — Jackson Arn, Harpers Magazine, 30 Dec. 2025
  • Atoms are ordinarily in what’s called the ground state, in which all the electrons orbit the nucleus in a stable way.
    — Quanta Magazine, 4 Sep. 2024
  • Rowland said ordinarily that may be a very strong argument.
    — Jason Meisner, Chicago Tribune, 10 June 2026
  • Of course, withdrawing wages whittles down the amount workers would ordinarily get when paid in full every two weeks.
    — Khristopher J. Brooks, CBS News, 10 Nov. 2021
  • While that would ordinarily be a concern, the Rams offense has struggled to move the ball this season.
    — Ian Firstenberg, Chicago Tribune, 8 Dec. 2022
  • Stephanie Shonekan is someone who ordinarily might be eyeing a top spot.
    — Ira Porter, The Christian Science Monitor, 3 Oct. 2024
  • But Warhol as a voyeur is not ordinarily our friendly neighborhood voyeur.
    — Stephen Birmingham, Town & Country, 10 Aug. 2023
  • Parks are ordinarily exempt from the city’s public drinking ban.
    — Daniel Lempres, Sacbee.com, 1 Mar. 2026
  • The chips use up produce scraps such as potato and beet skins that would ordinarily be discarded or headed for the compost pile.
    — Chris Morris, BostonGlobe.com, 10 Feb. 2023
  • The day had started ordinarily enough.
    — Jack Beresford, MSNBC Newsweek, 28 Sep. 2025
  • During the winter, crews across the west struggled to keep up with the work, and many roads that are ordinarily open in the winter were closed for hours, if not days.
    — Trevor Hughes, USA TODAY, 11 May 2023
  • Pubs and restaurants that ordinarily don't have a TV got one for the funeral.
    — William Booth, Washington Post, 19 Sep. 2022

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'ordinarily.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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