Ordinary means normal and usual, with nothing special about it. An ordinary day, ordinary people, nothing out of the ordinary.
It is neutral in most uses and mildly dismissive in some: describing a meal as ordinary is a criticism. The fixed phrase out of the ordinary means unusual and is very common. Note ordinarily, meaning normally, which is a useful sentence opener. And in older British contexts an ordinary was a fixed-price meal at an inn, which survives only in historical writing but explains why the word once meant regular provision rather than unremarkable quality.
1adjectiveordinaryNormal and usual.
“It started as a perfectly ordinary Tuesday.”
2adjectivegoodNot especially good.
“The food was ordinary and the view was not.”
Too few real examples of this word to estimate which sense is commonest.
ordinary is a quality of being usual.
Latin ordinarius meant according to the usual order, from ordo, order or rank — the same root as order, ordain and coordinate. Something ordinary is something in its proper place in the order, which is a warmer idea than the modern word.
Proto-Indo-European
*h₂er-
Latin
ōrdinārius — regular, orderly
Medieval Latin
ordinarius
Middle French
ordinaire
Anglo-Norman
ordenarie
English, today
ordinary
Built from
From Anglo-Norman ordenarie, ordenaire et al., Middle French ordinaire, and their source, Medieval Latin ordinarius, noun use of Latin ōrdinārius (“regular, orderly”), from ordo (“order”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA