carry
Definition, pronunciation, etymology, and usage for the English word. Free spelling reference powered by Wiktionary.
Letters
5 characters
Language
English
word origin
Source
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Detailed reference entry for the English word "carry", 5-letters, with pronunciation in International Phonetic Alphabet notation, etymology traced through Germanic and Romance roots where applicable, common misspelling variants catalogued from Hunspell error dictionaries, and usage frequency ranked against the top 100,000 English words in the Wordfreq corpus. PlainSpell covers English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German spelling with confusable-pair detection that highlights visually and phonetically similar words. This entry for "carry" includes synonyms, antonyms, homophones, and cross-language translation pointers sourced from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org extract. Whether you are verifying the correct spelling of "carry" for academic writing, checking homophone confusion, or exploring etymological origins, this page provides a citation-backed, free reference that requires no sign-up.
carry is aEnglishverb. It means: To lift (something) and take it to another place; to transport (something) by lifting. Pronounced /ˈkæɹ.ɪ/. It ranks #1,360 in English word frequency. Often confused with cry and cay.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | carry |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Verb |
| IPA | /ˈkæɹ.ɪ/ |
| Letters | 5 |
| Frequency rank | #1,360 |
| Misspellings tracked | 5 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Frequency rank visualization
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for carry is 5 letters long, classified as averb, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /ˈkæɹ.ɪ/. Corpus data places it at rank #1,360 in overall English word frequency, indicating it appears regularly in written and spoken text.Wiktionary records 30 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our Hunspell-derived misspelling index lists 5 documented wrong-spelling variants for carry, with forms such as "acrry", "carryy", and "caryr". Each variant represents a distinct typo pattern that appears often enough in corpora to be worth flagging, typically a doubled-consonant error, a silent-letter drop, or a vowel substitution.It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "cry", "cay", "cars", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Middle English carien, from Anglo-Norman carier (modern French charrier); from a derivative of Latin carrus (“four-wheeled baggage wagon”), ultimately of Gaulish origin. Root origin matters for spelling because borrowed morphemes (Greek, Latin, Old French, Old English) carry their source-language orthographic conventions into modern English, which is why historical etymology is often the cleanest predictor of whether a cluster like "-ough", "-eau", or "-tion" will appear. For readers arriving here from a spelling check, the authoritative guidance is: the correct English form is carry, spelled C-A-R-R-Y, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.
Definition
- 1To lift (something) and take it to another place; to transport (something) by lifting.
- 2To notionally transfer from one place (such as a country, book, or column) to another.
- 3To convey by extension or continuance; to extend.
- 4To move; to convey using force
- 5To lead or guide.
- 6To stock or supply (something); to have in store.
- 7To adopt (something); take (something) over.
- 8To adopt or resolve on, especially in a deliberative assembly
- 9In an addition, to transfer the quantity in excess of what is countable in the units in a column to the column immediately to the left in order to be added there.
- 10To have, hold, possess or maintain (something).
- 11To be transmitted; to travel.
- 12To insult, to diss.
- 13To capture a ship by coming alongside and boarding.
- 14To transport (the ball) whilst maintaining possession.
- 15For the ball, having been hit in the air, to reach a fielder without touching the ground (whether or not the fielder catches it).
- 16To have on one’s person.
- 17To be pregnant (with).
- 18To have propulsive power; to propel.
- 19To hold the head; said of a horse.
- 20To have earth or frost stick to the feet when running, as a hare.
- 21To bear or uphold successfully, especially through conflict, for example a leader or principle
- 22To succeed in (e.g. a contest); to succeed in; to win.
- 23To get possession of by force; to capture.
- 24To contain; to comprise; have a particular aspect; to show or exhibit
- 25To bear (oneself); to behave or conduct.
- 26To bear the charges or burden of holding or having, as stocks, merchandise, etc., from one time to another.
- 27To have a weapon on one's person; to be armed.
- 28(transitive or, rarely, intransitive) To be disproportionately responsible for a team's success or for counteracting teammates' underperformance.
- 29To physically transport (in the general sense, not necessarily by lifting)
- 30To bear a firearm, such as a gun.
Etymology
From Middle English carien, from Anglo-Norman carier (modern French charrier); from a derivative of Latin carrus (“four-wheeled baggage wagon”), ultimately of Gaulish origin.
Synonyms
Antonyms
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: acrry,carryy,caryr,ccarry,crary
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
Relative frequency of common misspelling types for carry
Misspelling Variants of "carry"
Frequency rank: #1,360 in English
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Nearby English words
Other entries that begin with the letter C in our English index: