2. Common; customary; usual. --Shak.
Method is not less reguisite in ordinary
conversation that in writing. --Addison.
3. Of common rank, quality, or ability; not distinguished by
superior excellence or beauty; hence, not distinguished in
any way; commonplace; inferior; of little merit; as, men
of ordinary judgment; an ordinary book.
An ordinary lad would have acquired little or no
useful knowledge in such a way. --Macaulay.
{Ordinary seaman} (Naut.), one not expert or fully skilled,
and hence ranking below an able seaman.
Syn: Normal; common; usual; customary.
Usage: See {Normal}. -- {Ordinary}, {Common}. A thing is
common in which many persons share or partake; as, a
common practice. A thing is ordinary when it is apt to
come round in the regular common order or succession
of events.
2. The mass; the common run. [Obs.]
I see no more in you than in the ordinary Of
nature's salework. --Shak.
3. That which is so common, or continued, as to be considered
a settled establishment or institution. [R.]
Spain had no other wars save those which were grown
into an ordinary. --Bacon.
4. Anything which is in ordinary or common use.
Water buckets, wagons, cart wheels, plow socks, and
other ordinaries. --Sir W.
Scott.
5. A dining room or eating house where a meal is prepared for
all comers, at a fixed price for the meal, in distinction
from one where each dish is separately charged; a table
d'h[^o]te; hence, also, the meal furnished at such a
dining room. --Shak.
All the odd words they have picked up in a
coffeehouse, or a gaming ordinary, are produced as
flowers of style. --Swift.
He exacted a tribute for licenses to hawkers and
peddlers and to ordinaries. --Bancroft.
6. (Her.) A charge or bearing of simple form, one of nine or
ten which are in constant use. The bend, chevron, chief,
cross, fesse, pale, and saltire are uniformly admitted as
ordinaries. Some authorities include bar, bend sinister,
pile, and others. See {Subordinary}.
{In ordinary}.
(a) In actual and constant service; statedly attending and
serving; as, a physician or chaplain in ordinary. An
ambassador in ordinary is one constantly resident at a
foreign court.
(b) (Naut.) Out of commission and laid up; -- said of a
naval vessel.
{Ordinary of the Mass} (R. C. Ch.), the part of the Mass
which is the same every day; -- called also the {canon of
the Mass}.