carrier

Syllables: car·ri·er/ˈkæɹi.ə/

More pronunciations (1)Fewer pronunciations

British/ˈkaɹɪjə/

carrier noun: a person or object that carries someone or something else. Also the ellipsis of aircraft carrier.

Image: jim gifford, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun (1)

carrier (plural carriers)

A person or object that carries someone or something else.
- armored personnel carrier
- The air which is but […] a carrier of the sounds.1627 (indicated as 1626), Francis [Bacon], “(please specify the page, or |century=I to X)”, in Sylua Syluarum: Or A Naturall Historie. In Ten Centuries. […], London: […] William Rawley […]; [p]rinted...
Synonyms:

bearer, -phore, translator
1. (broadly) A starship designed to carry starfighters
  - And each was hideously powerful: an attack carrier could destroy a world, a force of cruisers and spinship destroyers could destroy a sun.1990, Dan Simmons, The Fall of Hyperion, 1st edition, New York: Doubleday, →ISBN, →LCCN, →OCLC, page 114
  - The first carrier completely ignored us, sir! Blew through the Malta’s debris field and headed straight for Earth!2004 November 9, Bungie, Halo 2, spoken by Cortana (Jen Taylor), Microsoft Game Studios, Xbox, level/area: Cairo Station
A carrier pigeon.
A person or company in the business of shipping freight.
- The roads [are] crowded with carriers, laden with rich manufactures.1727, Jonathan Swift, A Short View of the State of Ireland
A signal such as radio, sound, or light that is modulated to transmit information.
A mobile network operator; wireless carrier.
A certified airline.
- Southwest, the nation’s largest domestic carrier, is installing seats with less cushion and thinner materials — a svelte model known in the business as “slim-line.”2013 December 22, Jad Mouawad, Martha C. White, New York Times, retrieved 23 Dec 2013
A piece which communicates to an object in a lathe the motion of the faceplate; a lathe dog.
A spool holder or bobbin holder in a braiding machine.
A movable piece in magazine guns which transfers the cartridge to a position from which it can be thrust into the barrel.
A movable piece in a planetary gear train.

Synonyms:

spider, arm
(especially) Part of a differential gear assembly that holds gears and their bearings.
A catalyst or other intermediary in a chemical reaction.

Show 3 more meaningsShow fewer meanings

A person or other organism that has a genetic trait, mutation or infection liable to cause a disease, but displays no symptoms.
A charge carrier.
A liquid or gas used as a medium for another substance.
- Linseed oil is often used as the carrier for pigment in oil painting.
- inert carrier gas

Proper noun capitalized: Carrier

Carrier (countable and uncountable, plural Carriers)

A Northern Athabaskan language spoken in Canada. Sometimes considered to be three separate languages: Southern Carrier, Northern Carrier and Central Carrier.
A surname.
A small town in Garfield County, Oklahoma, United States; from the surname.

Noun (2) capitalized: Carrier

Carrier (plural Carriers)

Synonym of English Carrier.

Synonyms:

English Carrier

Also used as

carrier is also the ellipsis of aircraft carrier.

carrier is also the ellipsis of carrier bag.

carrier meaning in Hindi, Bengali, Malayalam and Kannada

carrier in Hindi

person or object that carries someone or something else: कहार kahār

carrier in Bengali

বাহক

carrier in Malayalam

കാരിയർ, വാഹകൻ

carrier in Kannada

ವಾಹಕ

More languagesFewer languages

carrier in Punjabi: ਵਾਹਕ, ਸੰਵਾਹਕ
carrier in Gujarati: વાહક
carrier in Odia: ବାହକ
carrier in Nepali: वाहक, बाहक
carrier in Arabic: نَاقِل nāqil, مَوْجَة حامِلة mawja ḥāmila, حَامِل ḥāmil, حَمَلَة ḥamala
carrier in Thai: พาหะ

Examples of carrier in a sentence

I lured the cat into her carrier by throwing a couple of treats in there.
In a radio transmitter you modulate the carrier wave; in the receiver you demodulate it.
The driver of the car carrier offloaded the cars at the dealership.

All 40 example sentences with carrier

Synonyms of carrier

All synonyms of carrier

Forms of carrier

Noun
plural	carriers
plural	Carriers
Proper noun
plural	Carriers

Plural of carrier: carriers

Origin of carrier

From Middle English cariere, partly from carien + -ere, after Anglo-Norman carier, cariour, and partly directly from Anglo-Norman. By surface analysis, carry + -er.

Phrases with carrier

64 more phrasesFewer phrases

Words that rhyme with carrier

Questions about carrier

What does carrier mean?: Carrier means a person or object that carries someone or something else.
What is carrier in Hindi?: Carrier in Hindi is कहार (kahār). See Carrier meaning in Hindi.
What part of speech is carrier?: Carrier can be a noun or a proper noun.
How do you pronounce carrier?: Carrier is pronounced /ˈkæɹi.ə/ (UK).
What is the plural of carrier?: The plural of carrier is carriers.

Words near carrier in the dictionary

Adapted from Wiktionary: carrier (page history and authors); Carrier (page history and authors); carrier (Bengali, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); carrier (Malayalam, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); carrier (Kannada, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); carrier (Punjabi, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); carrier (Gujarati, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); carrier (Odia, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); carrier (Nepali, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated: 2026-09-02

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-carrier.wav.

Cite this entry: “carrier.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/carrier. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.