tarried
tarried is the simple past and past participle of tarry.
Meaning of tarry
Verb
tarry (third-person singular simple present tarries, present participle tarrying, simple past and past participle tarried)
- To delay; to be late or tardy in beginning or doing anything.
- I believe with perfect faith in the coming of the Messiah; and even though he may tarry, nonetheless, I wait every day for his coming.c. 1170, Maimonides, “Thirteen principles of faith”, in Mishneh Torah
- To linger in expectation of something or until something is done or happens.
- And, thinking of to-morrow, when the church would rise up, singing, under the booming Sunday light, he thought of the light for which they tarried, which, in an instant, filled the soul, causing […] the new-born in Christ to testify: Once I was blind and now I see.1953, James Baldwin, “Florence's Prayer”, in Go Tell It on the Mountain (Penguin Classics), London: Penguin Books, published 2001, →ISBN
- Synonyms:
- abide
- To abide, stay or wait somewhere, especially if longer than planned.
- [...] I have Thoughts to tarry a ſmall Matter in Town, to learn ſomewhat of your Lingo firſt, before I croſs the Seas.1700, [William] Congreve, The Way of the World, a Comedy. […], London: […] Jacob Tonson, […], →OCLC, Act III, scene xv, page 47
- Synonyms:
- hang about, hang around, linger, loiter
- To stay somewhere temporarily.
- In this by-place of nature, there abode, in a remote period of American history, that is to say, some thirty years since, a worthy wight of the name of Ichabod Crane; who sojourned, or, as he expressed it, "tarried," in Sleepy Hollow[…].1820, Washington Irving, The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, published 1864
- To wait for; to stay or stop for; to allow to linger.
- Fly, fly, my lord. There is no tarrying here.1599 (first performance), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Iulius Cæsar”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward]...
Questions about tarried
- What is tarried the simple past and past participle of?
- Tarried is the simple past and past participle of tarry.
Words near tarried in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: tarried (page history and authors); tarry (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:
Cite this entry: “tarried.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/tarried. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.
