An opry is generally an establishment that features live country music

Country music

Country music is a popular American musical style that began in the rural Southern United States in the 1920s. It takes its roots from Western cowboy and folk music...

, the most famous example being the Grand Ole Opry

Grand Ole Opry

The Grand Ole Opry is a weekly country music stage concert in Nashville, Tennessee, that has presented the biggest stars of that genre since 1925. It is also among the longest-running broadcasts in history since its beginnings as a one-hour radio "barn dance" on WSM-AM...

, in Nashville, Tennessee

Nashville, Tennessee

Nashville is the capital of the U.S. state of Tennessee and the county seat of Davidson County. It is located on the Cumberland River in Davidson County, in the north-central part of the state. The city is a center for the health care, publishing, banking and transportation industries, and is home...

, but it could be something as simple as the local honky tonk

Honky tonk

A honky-tonk is a type of bar that provides musical entertainment to its patrons...

. The term is generally restricted to the southern United States

Southern United States

The Southern United States—commonly referred to as the American South, Dixie, or simply the South—constitutes a large distinctive area in the southeastern and south-central United States...

.

The Saturday night opry is a Texas

Texas

Texas is the second largest U.S. state by both area and population, and the largest state by area in the contiguous United States.The name, based on the Caddo word "Tejas" meaning "friends" or "allies", was applied by the Spanish to the Caddo themselves and to the region of their settlement in...

 tradition. The opry provides a forum for new country music performers. In Texas the opry is an informal venue suitable for families. The local opry provides a friendly, non-threatening environment for amateur performers.

The word "opry" is an Americanism; it is a diminutive form of the word "Opera". It was coined by broadcaster George D. Hay

George D. Hay

George Dewey Hay was an American radio personality. He was the founder of the original Grand Ole Opry radio program on WSM-AM in Nashville, Tennessee, from which the country music stage show of the same name evolved....

 in 1928 to demonstrate the realism

Realism (arts)

Realism in the visual arts and literature refers to the general attempt to depict subjects "in accordance with secular, empirical rules", as they are considered to exist in third person objective reality, without embellishment or interpretation...

 of folk and country music compared to the theatrics of Grand Opera

Grand Opera

Grand opera is a genre of 19th-century opera generally in four or five acts, characterised by large-scale casts and orchestras, and lavish and spectacular design and stage effects, normally with plots based on or around dramatic historic events...

. At the time Hay's program, the WSM Barn Dance, followed a program of operatic music. One night Hay began the Barn Dance by stating, "You have just heard opera. Now you are going to hear the grand old opry."

The term "opry" itself is generic; the Grand Ole Opry (having originated the word) attempted to claim ownership of the word but lost in court.