Word.ws English Dictionary

harry

/ˈhæɹi/

More pronunciations (1)Fewer pronunciations

British/ˈhaɹɪj/

harry verb: to plunder, pillage, assault.

Verb

harry (third-person singular simple present harries, present participle harrying, simple past and past participle harried)

  1. (transitive) To plunder, pillage, assault.
    • I repent me much , That so I harry'd himc. 1606–1607 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Anthonie and Cleopatra”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard...
    Synonyms:
    maraud, raid, sack
  2. (transitive) To make repeated attacks on an enemy.
    • 'One kiss, my bonny sweetheart, I'm after a prize to-night, / But I shall be back with the yellow gold before the morning light; / Yet, if they press me sharply, and harry me through the day, / Then look for me by moonlight, / Watch for me by moonlight, / I'll come to thee by moonlight, though Hell...1906 August, Alfred Noyes, “The Highwayman”, in Poems, New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company; London: Macmillan & Co., published October 1906, →OCLC, part 1, stanza V, page 47
    Synonyms:
    harass
  3. (transitive) To strip, lay waste, ravage.
    • to harry this beautiful region1855–1859, Washington Irving, The Life of George Washington
    • A red squirrel had harried the nest of a wood thrush.1896, John Burroughs, Birds and bees and other studies in nature
  4. (transitive) To harass, bother or distress with demands, threats, or criticism.
    • Chelsea also struggled to keep possession as QPR harried and chased at every opportunity, giving their opponents no time on the ball.2011 October 23, Becky Ashton, “QPR 1 – 0 Chelsea”, in BBC Sport
    • The Colombians' ire was raised even more 10 minutes later when the referee showed a yellow card to [James] Rodríguez – who was apoplectic at the decision – for an innocuous trip that was, as Rodríguez vociferously pointed out with multiple hand gestures, a first offense compared with Fernandinho's...2014 July 5, Sam Borden, “For bellicose Brazil, payback carries heavy price: Loss of Neymar [International New York Times version: Brazil and referee share some blame for Neymar's injury: Spaniard's...

Noun (1)

harry (plural harries)

  1. (India, obsolete, transitive) A menial servant; a sweeper.

Proper noun capitalized: Harry

Harry (plural Harrys or Harries)

  1. A male given name.
    • Yet weep that Harry's dead, and so will I; / But Harry lives that shall convert those tears / By number into hours of happiness.c. 1596–1599 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Second Part of Henry the Fourth, […]. Epilogue.”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […]...
    • Henry now, what a soft swain your Henry is! the proper theme of gentle poesy; a name to fall in love withal; devoted at the font to song and sonnet, and the tender passion; a baptized inamorato; a christened hero. Call him Harry, and see how you ameliorate his condition. The man is free again...1830, Mary Russell Mitford, Our Village: Fourth Series: Cottage Names
    1. A male given name from the Germanic languages.
    2. A male given name from French, originating as an Anglicization of Henri
    3. A diminutive of the male given name Henry, Harold.
  2. (rare compared to given name) A surname originating as a patronymic.
  3. (rare nickname) A diminutive of the female given name Harriet.

Noun (2) capitalized: Harry

Harry (uncountable)

  1. (slang) The drug heroin.

harry meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Marathi and Urdu

harry in Hindi

हैरी

harry in Tamil

சிந்திக்க, கவலைகொள்ள‌

harry in Marathi

हॅरी, हॅर्री

harry in Urdu

برباد کرنا, غارت کرنا, غبن کرنا, کھسوٹنا, لوٹنا, ناکارہ بنانا
More languagesFewer languages
harry in Bengali
লুণ্ঠন করা, বিধ্বস্ত করা, হয়রান করা, নাকাল করা
harry in Telugu
హ్యారీ, హార్రీ
harry in Malayalam
പിന്തുടർന്ന് ആക്രമിക്കുക, പുറകെ ചെന്ന് ആക്രമിക്കുക, പിന്തുടർന്ന് ഏറ്റുമുട്ടൽ നടത്തുക, പീഡിപ്പിക്കുക
harry in Kannada
ಕೊಳ್ಳೆಹೊಡೆ, ಅಂಡಲೆಸು
harry in Punjabi
ਹੈਰੀ
harry in Gujarati
હેરી, હેર્રી, હૅરી
harry in Odia
ହ୍ଯ଼ାରି, ହ୍ଯାରି, ହ୍ଯ଼ାରୀ
harry in Nepali
ह्यारी, हैरी, हेर्री

Examples of harry in a sentence

  • Harry was ranting about his boss again, but nobody paid any attention.
  • Harry said he couldn't stop and chat because his missus wanted to go shopping.
  • Harry didn't know why but the computer crashed out all of a sudden.

All 40 example sentences with harry

Synonyms of harry

30 more synonymsFewer synonyms

All synonyms of harry

Forms of harry

Verb
third-person singular presentharries
present participleharrying
past participleharried
pastharried
Noun
pluralharries
Proper noun
pluralHarrys
pluralHarries

Past tense of harry: harried

Origin of harry

From Middle English herien, harien, from Old English herġian, from Proto-West Germanic *harjōn, from Proto-Germanic *harjōną, from *harjaz (“army”), from Proto-Indo-European *koryos, from *ker- (“army”). Cognates See also Walloon hairyî, Old French hairier, harier; also Saterland Frisian ferheerje, German verheeren (“to harry, devastate”), Swedish härja (“ravage, harry”); also Old English here, West Frisian hear, Dutch heer, German Heer); also Middle Irish cuire (“army”), Lithuanian kãrias (“army; war”), Old Church Slavonic кара (kara, “strife”), Ancient Greek κοίρανος (koíranos, “chief, commander”), Old Persian [script needed] (kāra, “army”)). More at here (“army”). Compare typologically Latin populor.

Related to Hindi हड्डी (haḍḍī, “bone”).

Medieval English spoken form of Old French Henri.

Words formed from harry

Phrases with harry

13 more phrasesFewer phrases

Words that rhyme with harry

5 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about harry

What does harry mean?
Harry means to plunder, pillage, assault.
What is harry in Hindi?
Harry in Hindi is हैरी. See Harry meaning in Hindi.
What part of speech is harry?
Harry can be a verb, a noun or a proper noun.
How do you pronounce harry?
Harry is pronounced /ˈhæɹi/ (UK).
What is the past tense of harry?
The past tense of harry is harried.

Words near harry in the dictionary

  1. harrumpher
  2. harrumphers
  3. harrumphing
  4. harrumphingly
  5. harrumphs
  6. harry
  7. Harry Benjamin syndrome
  8. Harry Holt
  9. Harry Holted
  10. Harry Holting
  11. Harry Holts

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: harry (page history and authors); Harry (page history and authors); harry (Hindi, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); harry (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); harry (Marathi, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); harry (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors); harry (Bengali Wiktionary) (page history and authors); harry (Telugu, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); harry (Olam, E.K. Kurup corpus) (dataset and license); harry (Kannada Wiktionary) (page history and authors); harry (Punjabi, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); harry (Gujarati, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); harry (Odia, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); harry (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.

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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-harry.wav, en-us-Harry.ogg.

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