Marry or merry?
marry is a verb meaning “To enter into the conjugal or connubial state; to take a husband or a wife”; merry is an adjective meaning “Jolly and full of high spirits; happy”. Use marry as a verb and merry as an adjective. In written English (wordfreq, 2021 data) marry is about 3.7 times as common as merry.
What is the difference between marry and merry?
| marry | merry | |
|---|---|---|
| Part of speech | verb, interjection | adjective, noun |
| Meaning | To enter into the conjugal or connubial state; to take a husband or a wife To enter into marriage with one another | Jolly and full of high spirits; happy Festive and full of fun and laughter An English wild cherry |
| Example | Neither of her daughters showed any desire to marry | We had a very merry Christmas |
| Forms | marries, marrying, married | merrier, merriest |
| Pronunciation | /ˈmæɹi/ /ˈmɛɹi/ | /ˈmɛ.ɹi/ /ˈmɛ(ə)ɹ.i/ |
| In writing | 25 times per million words | 6.8 times per million words |
Sources: marry and merry in the English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0); written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
Every current meaning of marry and merry
marry
- 1
To enter into the conjugal or connubial state; to take a husband or a wife
Neither of her daughters showed any desire to marry
- 2
To enter into marriage with one another
Jack and Jenny married soon after they met
- 3
To take as husband or wife
In some cultures, it is acceptable for an uncle to marry his niece
- 4
To arrange for the marriage of; to give away as wife or husband
He was eager to marry his daughter to a nobleman
- 5
To unite in wedlock or matrimony; to perform the ceremony of joining spouses; to bring about a marital union according to the laws or customs of a place
A justice of the peace will marry Jones and Smith
- 6
To acquire by marriage
I wanted to marry wealth and power, and got both
- 7
To join or connect. See also marry up
There’s a big gap here. These two parts don’t marry properly
- 8
To unite; to join together into a close union
The attempt to marry medieval plainsong with speed metal produced interesting results
merry
- 1
Jolly and full of high spirits; happy
We had a very merry Christmas
- 2
An English wild cherry
- 3
Festive and full of fun and laughter
Everyone was merry at the party
- 4
Brisk
The play moved along at a merry pace
- 5
Causing laughter, mirth, gladness, or delight
a merry jest
- 6
Drunk; tipsy
Some of us got a little merry at the office Christmas party
Source: the English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0); obsolete, archaic, dialect and rare senses left out.
Which is more common, marry or merry?
marry appears 25 times per million words; merry 6.8 times per million words.
marry 25 times per million wordsmerry 6.8 times per million words
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
How many people search marry vs merry?
“marry vs merry” is searched about 480 times a month on Google and 20 on Bing in the United States. Google counts close variants of a query together (“merry vs marry”, “marry or merry”).
Sources: Google Ads keyword data through DataForSEO and Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, the average month from September 2025 to August 2026.