wry-necked, a.
(stress variable)
[f. wry a. 1. Cf. prec.]
1. Having a wry or crooked neck.
| 1596 Shakes. Merch. V. ii. v. 30 The vile squealing of the wry-neckt Fife. 1842 Barham Ingol. Leg. Ser. ii. Netley Abbey, A squeaking fiddle and ‘wry-neck'd fife’. 1870 Engel Catal. Mus. Instr. 62 The wry-necked Fife... The Italians call it cornetto curvo. |
2. Of persons or animals: Affected with distortion of the neck; having wryneck.
| 1608 Dekker Dead Term Wks. (Grosart) IV. 39 That aged and reuerend (but wry-necked) sonne of thine. 1653 [see wry-mouthed a. 1]. a 1679 J. Ward Diary (1839) 273 Some are wry neckt from the womb. 1705 Hickeringill Priest-cr. ii. Pref. A 4 Great Alexander..(being blind) did love that Wry-neck'd Fool. 1753 Chambers' Cycl. Suppl., Wry-Necked, a term applied to persons affected with a distortion of the neck. 1844 H. Stephens Bk. Farm II. 608 It is almost impossible to bring the head of a wry-necked lamb into the passage of the womb. 1860 Geo. Eliot Mill on Fl. ii. v, She preferred the wry-necked lambs. |
| fig. 1624 Heywood Captives iii. iii. in Bullen O. Pl. IV, This same wryneckt death..still spoyles all drinkinge, 'tis a thinge I never coold indure. 1647 N. Ward Simple Cobler 20 All the squint-ey'd, wry-necked, and brasen-faced Errors that are or ever were of that litter. |
Hence
wry-ˈneckedness.
rare—1.
| 1881 Tait in Nature XXV. 90 The wry-neckedness of the protecting shell. |