Word.ws English Dictionary

far cry

far cry noun: a long distance, in terms of dissimilarity or difference.

Noun

far cry (plural far cries)

  1. (idiomatic) A long distance, in terms of dissimilarity or difference.
    • Life in the big city was a far cry from his upbringing on a quiet, small farm.
    • The perineometer of Kagele was unheard of and the hormonology of today is a far cry from the rather crude and relatively weak hormones available in the early and mid-thirties.1951 July, Richard D. Reekie, “Critical Analysis of Recent Advances in Gynecology”, in Northwest Medicine, volume 50, number 7, Portland, Ore.: Northwest Medical Publishing Association, page 508

Adverb

far cry (not comparable)

  1. Very much; to a great extent or degree; by far.
    • a far cry taller

Forms of far cry

pluralfar cries

Origin of far cry

In allusion to the sending of criers or messengers through the territory of a Scottish clan with an announcement or summons.

Questions about far cry

What does far cry mean?
Far cry means a long distance, in terms of dissimilarity or difference.
What part of speech is far cry?
Far cry can be a noun or an adverb.
What is the plural of far cry?
The plural of far cry is far cries.

Words near far cry in the dictionary

  1. far be it
  2. far breton
  3. far bretons
  4. Far Cotton
  5. far cries
  6. far cry
  7. Far East
  8. Far Eastern
  9. Far Eastern Federal District
  10. far far away
  11. far fetched

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: far cry (page history and authors). 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.

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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-au-far cry.ogg.

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