Word.ws English Dictionary

tarry

/ˈtæ.ɹi//ˈtæ.ɹi/

tarry verb: to delay; to be late or tardy in beginning or doing anything.

Verb

tarry (third-person singular simple present tarries, present participle tarrying, simple past and past participle tarried)

  1. (dated, intransitive) 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
    • For the vision is yet for an appointed time, but at the end it shall speak, and not lie: though it tarry, wait for it; because it will surely come, it will not tarry.1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Habakkuk 2:3
  2. (dated, intransitive) 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
  3. (dated, intransitive) 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
  4. (dated, intransitive) 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
  5. (dated, transitive) 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]...
    • He that will have a cake out of the wheat must needs tarry the grinding.c. 1602 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Troylus and Cressida”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and...

Noun

tarry (plural tarries)

  1. (dated) A sojourn.
    Synonyms:
    stay, stop, stop-over

Adjective

IPA/ˈtɑː.ɹi/

tarry (comparative tarrier, superlative tarriest)

  1. (dated) Resembling tar.
    • And he led the way from the station, stopping once to gloat over the sunset across Trafalgar Square, and again to inhale the tarry scent of the warm wood-paving, which was perfume to his nostrils as the din of its traffic was music to his ears, before we came to one of those political palaces which...1909, E[rnest] W[illiam] Hornung, “An Inaugural Banquet”, in Mr. Justice Raffles, 1st American edition, New York, N.Y.: Charles Scribner’s Sons, →OCLC, page 2
    Synonyms:
    pitchy
  2. (dated) Covered with tar.
    Synonyms:
    bituminized, pitchy

Proper noun capitalized: Tarry

Tarry (plural Tarrys)

  1. A surname.

tarry meaning in Tamil, Malayalam, Kannada and Sanskrit

tarry in Tamil

காரெண்ணெய் சார்ந்த, கீல் எண்ணெய் போன்ற, கீல்பூசிய

tarry in Malayalam

procrastinate, linger, loiter
തങ്ങുക, തങ്ങിനില്ക്കുക, വിളംബിക്കുക, വെെകുക, പിൻവാങ്ങി നില്ക്കുക, മെല്ലെയാവുക

tarry in Kannada

ತಡಮಾಡು, ಕಾದಿರು, ತಂಗಿರು, ಆಲಸ್ಯ ಮಾಡು, ವಿಳಂಬ ಮಾಡು, ಇರು

tarry in Sanskrit

to tarry, stand still, pause
मन्द् mand
More languagesFewer languages
tarry in Sinhala
පරක්කුවෙනවා parakkuwenawā
tarry in Arabic
تَلَكَأ talakaʔ, تَلَكَع talakaʕ, تَوَانَى tawānā

Examples of tarry in a sentence

  • But so was Face, crouched before the fire in her banana skins, and so was Mug, smoking a cigarette and saying as he flicked the ash: “Why doth the bridegroom tarry?”1918 August, Katherine Mansfield [pseudonym; Kathleen Mansfield Murry], “Bliss”, in Bliss and Other Stories, London: Constable & Company...
  • "If I had heard otherwise," said the old man, looking up with a stern and menacing countenance, "you should have heard of it too." And he plodded on his way, tarrying no farther question.1815, Walter Scott, chapter 8, in Guy Mannering, volume 1:

Synonyms of tarry

30 more synonymsFewer synonyms

Antonyms

All synonyms and antonyms of tarry

Forms of tarry

Verb
third-person singular presenttarries
present participletarrying
past participletarried
pasttarried
alternative Scotlandtarrow
Noun
pluraltarries
Adjective
comparativetarrier
superlativetarriest
Proper noun
pluralTarrys

Origin of tarry

From Middle English tarien, terien (“to vex, harass, cause to hesitate, delay”), from Old English tirian, tirġan, terġan (“to worry, exasperate, pain, provoke, excite”), from Proto-Germanic *terganą, *targijaną (“to pull, tease, irritate”), from Proto-Indo-European *derHgʰ- (“to pull, tug, irritate”). Cognate with Dutch tergen (“to provoke”), German zergen (“to vex, irritate, provoke”), Norwegian Bokmål terge (“to irritate, provoke”), Russian дёргать (djórgatʹ, “to pull, yank, jerk, pester”). Compare also Walloon tårdjî (“to be late, to be slow, to wait”). Compare typologically Czech meškat, Russian ме́шкать (méškatʹ) (akin to меша́ть (mešátʹ)), копа́ться (kopátʹsja) (akin to копа́ть (kopátʹ)).

From Middle English terrie, equivalent to tar + -y.

Variant of Terry.

Words formed from tarry

Words that rhyme with tarry

5 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about tarry

What does tarry mean?
Tarry means to delay; to be late or tardy in beginning or doing anything.
What is tarry in Tamil?
Tarry in Tamil is காரெண்ணெய் சார்ந்த, கீல் எண்ணெய் போன்ற, கீல்பூசிய. See Tarry meaning in Tamil.
How do you use tarry in a sentence?
But so was Face, crouched before the fire in her banana skins, and so was Mug, smoking a cigarette and saying as he flicked the ash: “Why doth the bridegroom tarry?”
What part of speech is tarry?
Tarry can be a verb, a noun, an adjective or a proper noun.
How do you pronounce tarry?
Tarry is pronounced /ˈtæ.ɹi/ (UK).
What is the past tense of tarry?
The past tense of tarry is tarried.

Words near tarry in the dictionary

  1. tarrs
  2. tarruf
  3. tarrufdar
  4. tarrufdars
  5. tarrufs
  6. tarry
  7. tarryar
  8. tarryars
  9. tarrying
  10. tarryingly
  11. tarryings

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: tarry (page history and authors); Tarry (page history and authors); tarry (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); tarry (Olam, E.K. Kurup corpus) (dataset and license); tarry (Kannada Wiktionary) (page history and authors); मन्द् (Sanskrit) (page history and authors); පරක්කුවෙනවා (Sinhala) (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: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-tarry (verb).wav.

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