Word.ws English Dictionary

merry

Syllables: mer·ryUK/ˈmɛ.ɹi//ˈmɛ.ɹi/

merry adjective: jolly and full of high spirits; happy.

Adjective

merry (comparative merrier, superlative merriest)

  1. Jolly and full of high spirits; happy.
    • We had a very merry Christmas.
    • I am neuer merry when I heare ſweet muſique.c. 1596–1598 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Merchant of Venice”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward]...
    Antonyms:
    miserable, unhappy
  2. Festive and full of fun and laughter.
    • Everyone was merry at the party.
    • If I have the chance, I will make our worshipful Sheriff pay right well for that which he hath done to me. Maybe I may bring him some time into Sherwood Forest and have him to a right merry feast with us.1883, Howard Pyle, chapter V, in The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood […], New York, N.Y.: […] Charles Scribner’s Sons […], →OCLC
    Synonyms:
    convivial, gay, jovial
  3. Brisk.
    • The play moved along at a merry pace.
    • The car moved at a merry clip.
  4. Causing laughter, mirth, gladness, or delight.
    • a merry jest
    • There eke my feeble barke a while may ſtay, / Till mery wynd and weather call her thence away.1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book I, Canto XII”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC, stanza 1, page 171
    Synonyms:
    delightful, gladful
  5. (euphemistic) Drunk; tipsy.
    • Some of us got a little merry at the office Christmas party.

Noun

merry (plural merries)

  1. An English wild cherry.

Proper noun capitalized: Merry

Merry

  1. A surname transferred from the nickname. Originally a nickname for a merry person.
  2. A female given name from merry.
  3. A diminutive of the female given name Mercy.
    • 'Is he handsome, Pa?' inquired the younger daughter.
      'Silly Merry!' said the eldest: Merry being fond for Mercy. 'What is the premium, Pa? tell us that.'1842 December – 1844 July, Charles Dickens, chapter 2, in The Life and Adventures of Martin Chuzzlewit, London: Chapman and Hall, […], published 1844, →OCLC
    • It was on account of she had such a happy temperament I persuaded Mr. van der Most to let me call her Merry. Lots of folks, when they first meet her, they think she's called Mary - Maria, as you would say it, Signor Lumaca - but no, her name is really Merry, M-E-double-R-Y, because, I always tell...1964 Brigid Brophy, The Waste Disposal Unit, Best Short Plays of the World Theatre 1958-1967, page 50
  4. A diminutive of the male given name Meredith.

merry meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Urdu and Bengali

merry in Hindi

merry, cheerful, energetic, flirty
रंगीला raṅgīlā

merry in Tamil

உவகை மிக்க, களிப்பான, களிப்புமிக்க, மகிழ்வாந்த

merry in Urdu

merry, cheerful, energetic, flirty
رنگیلا raṅgīlā

merry in Bengali

সুচেতা, আমুদে, প্রফুল্ল, উল্লসিত, প্রফুল্লিত, রঙ্গপ্রি়
More languagesFewer languages
merry in Malayalam
മേരി mēri
merry in Kannada
ಗೆಲುವಿನ, ಸಡಗರದ
merry in Tagalog
maligaya, masaya, masigla
merry in Arabic
مَرِح mariḥ, فَرِح fariḥ
merry in Persian
شادکام šâdkâm, سرمست sarmast, شاد šâd, تند tond
merry in Thai
ครึกครื้น krʉ́k-krʉ́ʉn, ครื้นเครง, รื่นเริง
merry in Vietnamese
vui

Examples of merry in a sentence

  • They gave each other a quick hello when they met, and went back on their merry ways.
  • She was a merry person, glad and prodigal of smiles.
  • The new junior employee joined our merry after-hours coterie.

All 40 example sentences with merry

Synonyms of merry

30 more synonymsFewer synonyms

Antonyms

All synonyms and antonyms of merry

Forms of merry

Adjective
comparativemerrier
superlativemerriest
alternative form (obsolete)merie
alternative form (obsolete)merrie
alternative form (obsolete)mery
Noun
pluralmerries

Origin of merry

From Middle English myrie, merie, mery, from Old English myrġe, myriġe (“pleasing, agreeable; pleasant, sweet, delightful; melodious”), from Proto-West Germanic *murgī (“short, slow, leisurely”), from Proto-Germanic *murguz (“short, slow”), from Proto-Indo-European *mréǵʰus (“short”). Cognate with Scots mery, mirry (“merry”), Middle Dutch mergelijc (“pleasant, agreeable, joyful”), Norwegian dialectal myrjel (“small object, figurine”), Latin brevis (“short, small, narrow, shallow”), Ancient Greek βραχύς (brakhús, “short”). Doublet of brief.

From French merise.

Words formed from merry

Phrases with merry

19 more phrasesFewer phrases

Words that rhyme with merry

9 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about merry

What does merry mean?
Merry means jolly and full of high spirits; happy.
What is merry in Hindi?
Merry in Hindi is रंगीला (raṅgīlā). See Merry meaning in Hindi.
What part of speech is merry?
Merry can be an adjective, a noun or a proper noun.
How do you pronounce merry?
Merry is pronounced /ˈmɛ.ɹi/ (UK).

Words near merry in the dictionary

  1. merroir
  2. merrow
  3. merrowed
  4. merrowing
  5. merrows
  6. merry
  7. Merry Andrew
  8. Merry Andrews
  9. merry as a cricket
  10. merry as a grig
  11. merry chase

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: merry (page history and authors); Merry (page history and authors); रंगीला (Hindi) (page history and authors); merry (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); رنگیلا (Urdu) (page history and authors); merry (Bengali Wiktionary) (page history and authors); മേരി (Malayalam) (page history and authors); merry (Kannada Wiktionary) (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.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-ne-merry.ogg.

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