carry

See also: Carry

English

Etymology

From Middle English carrien, from Anglo-Norman carier (modern French charrier); from a derivative of Latin carrus (“four-wheeled baggage wagon”), ultimately of Gaulish origin.

Pronunciation

Verb

carry (third-person singular simple present carries, present participle carrying, simple past and past participle carried)

  1. (transitive) To lift (something) and take it to another place; to transport (something) by lifting.
    • 1900, L. Frank Baum, chapter 23, in The Wonderful Wizard of Oz:
      "By means of the Golden Cap I shall command the Winged Monkeys to carry you to the gates of the Emerald City," said Glinda, "for it would be a shame to deprive the people of so wonderful a ruler."
    • 1910, Emerson Hough, chapter II, in The Purchase Price: Or The Cause of Compromise, Indianapolis, Ind.: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, →OCLC:
      Carried somehow, somewhither, for some reason, on these surging floods, were these travelers, of errand not wholly obvious to their fellows, yet of such sort as to call into query alike the nature of their errand and their own relations. It is easily earned repetition to state that Josephine St. Auban's was a presence not to be concealed.
    • 2013 June 29, “Unspontaneous combustion”, in The Economist, volume 407, number 8842, page 29:
      Since the mid-1980s, when Indonesia first began to clear its bountiful forests on an industrial scale in favour of lucrative palm-oil plantations, “haze” has become an almost annual occurrence in South-East Asia. The cheapest way to clear logged woodland is to burn it, producing an acrid cloud of foul white smoke that, carried by the wind, can cover hundreds, or even thousands, of square miles.
  2. (transitive) To notionally transfer from one place (such as a country, book, or column) to another.
    to carry the war from Greece into Asia
    to carry an account to the ledger
  3. (transitive) To convey by extension or continuance; to extend.
    The builders are going to carry the chimney through the roof.  They would have carried the road ten miles further, but ran out of materials.
  4. (transitive, chiefly archaic) To move; to convey using force
    Synonyms: impel, conduct
  5. (transitive) To lead or guide.
  6. (transitive) To stock or supply (something); to have in store.
    The corner drugstore doesn't carry his favorite brand of aspirin.
  7. (transitive) To adopt (something); take (something) over.
    I think I can carry Smith's work while she is out.
  8. (transitive) To adopt or resolve on, especially in a deliberative assembly
    The court carries that motion.
  9. (transitive, arithmetic) In an addition, to transfer the quantity in excess of what is countable in the units in a column to the column immediately to the left in order to be added there.
    Five and nine are fourteen; carry the one to the tens place.
  10. (transitive) To have, hold, possess or maintain (something).
    Always carry sufficient insurance to protect against a loss.
  11. (intransitive) To be transmitted; to travel.
    The sound of the bells carried for miles on the wind.
    • 1912, Stratemeyer Syndicate, chapter 1, in Baseball Joe on the School Nine:
      It might seem easy to hit the head of a barrel at that distance, but either the lads were not expert enough or else the snowballs, being of irregular shapes and rather light, did not carry well. Whatever the cause, the fact remained that the barrel received only a few scattering shots and these on the outer edges of the head.
  12. (slang, transitive) To insult, to diss.
  13. (transitive, nautical) To capture a ship by coming alongside and boarding.
  14. (transitive, sports) To transport (the ball) whilst maintaining possession.
    • 2011 December 21, Tom Rostance, “Fulham 0-5 Man Utd”, in BBC Sport:
      Nani collected the ball on the halfway line, drifted past Bryan Ruiz, and carried the ball unchallenged 50 yards down the left before picking out Welbeck for a crisp finish from seven yards.
  15. (transitive) To have on one's person.
    she always carries a purse;  marsupials carry their young in a pouch
    • 1913, Joseph C[rosby] Lincoln, chapter X, in Mr. Pratt’s Patients, New York, N.Y., London: D[aniel] Appleton and Company, →OCLC:
      Men that I knew around Wapatomac didn't wear high, shiny plug hats, nor yeller spring overcoats, nor carry canes with ivory heads as big as a catboat's anchor, as you might say.
    • 2013 July 20, “Old soldiers?”, in The Economist, volume 408, number 8845:
      Whether modern, industrial man is less or more warlike than his hunter-gatherer ancestors is impossible to determine. […] One thing that is true, though, is that murder rates have fallen over the centuries, as policing has spread and the routine carrying of weapons has diminished. Modern society may not have done anything about war. But peace is a lot more peaceful.
  16. To be pregnant (with).
    The doctor said she's carrying twins.
  17. To have propulsive power; to propel.
    A gun or mortar carries well.
  18. To hold the head; said of a horse.
    to carry well, i.e. to hold the head high, with arching neck
  19. (hunting) To have earth or frost stick to the feet when running, as a hare.
    • 1892, […] Field […] :
      The frost […] caused the fallows and seeds to ‘carry’ a good deal, and they could only hunt very slowly.
  20. To bear or uphold successfully through conflict, for example a leader or principle
    • 1708, Joseph Addison, The Present State of the War, and the Necessity of an Augmentation:
      the carrying of our main point
  21. To succeed in (e.g. a contest); to succeed in; to win.
    The Tories carried the election.
  22. (obsolete) To get possession of by force; to capture.
    • 1622, Francis Bacon, History of the Reign of King Henry VII, page 63; republished as Francis Bacon, Francis Godwin, The History of the Reigns of Henry the Seventh, Henry the Eighth, Edward the Sixth, and Queen Mary the First‎, London: R. Scot, T. Basset, J. Wright, R. Chiswell, and J. Edwyn, 1676:
      The Town [of Bulloign] was both well fortified, and well manned; yet it was distressed, and ready for an Assault: which if it had been given (as was thought) would have cost much blood; but yet the Town would have been carried in the end.
    • 1803, John Browne Cutting, A Succinct History of Jamaica; published in Robert Charles Dallas, The History of the Maroons‎, volume 1, London: Longman and Rees, 1803, page xxxvii:
      But the gallant D’Oyley, landing at the head of his well disciplined band, immediately attacked the Spaniards in their intrenchments, carried the principal fortress by a vigorous assault, destroyed one half of Arnaldo’s forces, and compelled him to return to Cuba with the remainder […]
  23. To contain; to comprise; have a particular aspect; to show or exhibit
    • 2014, Gregg Olsen, Rebecca Morris, If I Can't Have You: Susan Powell, Her Mysterious Disappearance, and the Murder of her Children:
      Things of little value carry great importance.
    • 1689 (indicated as 1690), [John Locke], chapter 4, in An Essay Concerning Humane Understanding. […], London: […] Eliz[abeth] Holt, for Thomas Basset, […], →OCLC, book I, page 16:
      It carries too great an imputation of ignorance.
  24. (reflexive) To bear (oneself); to behave or conduct.
  25. To bear the charges or burden of holding or having, as stocks, merchandise, etc., from one time to another.
    A merchant is carrying a large stock;  a farm carries a mortgage;  a broker carries stock for a customer;  to carry a life insurance.
  26. (intransitive) To have a weapon on one's person; to be armed.
    • 2001, Dana Stabenow, The Singing of the Dead, →ISBN, page 72:
      Nobody looked like they were carrying, other than those who had knives strapped to their belts, although with Alaska's new concealed-carry permit, available to anyone who trundled themselves down to the local police station to take the class, someone in this crowd could have a rocket launcher stuffed into their boot and she'd never know it.
  27. (gaming) To be disproportionately responsible for a team's success.
    He absolutely carried the game, to the point of killing the entire enemy team by himself.
  28. (Southern US) To physically transport (in the general sense, not necessarily by lifting)
    Will you carry me to town?
  29. (Canada, US) To bear a firearm, such as a gun.
    A holster can help you carry in confidence, knowing that your weapon is secure and close at hand.

Synonyms

Antonyms
  • (antonym(s) of “in arithmetic”): borrow (the equivalent reverse procedure in the inverse operation of subtraction)

Derived terms

Descendants
  • → Cantonese: carry

Translations
to carry — see bear
The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout § Translations.

Noun

carry (plural carries)

  1. A manner of transporting or lifting something; the grip or position in which something is carried.
    Adjust your carry from time to time so that you don't tire too quickly.
  2. A tract of land over which boats or goods are carried between two bodies of navigable water; a portage.
    • 1862, The Atlantic Monthly, volume 10, page 533:
      Undrowned, unducked, as safe from the perils of the broad lake as we had come out of the defiles of the rapids, we landed at the carry below the dam at the lake's outlet.
  3. (computing) The bit or digit that is carried in an addition operation.
    • 1988, Michael A. Miller, The 68000 Microprocessor, page 45:
      On paper, simply add the carry to the next addition; that is, $B2 + $9C + 1. That's fine for paper, but how is it done by computer?
  4. (finance) The benefit or cost of owning an asset over time.
    The carry on this trade is 25 basis points per annum.
  5. (golf) The distance travelled by the ball when struck, until it hits the ground.
  6. (finance) Carried interest.
  7. (UK, dialect) The sky; cloud-drift.

Derived terms

Translations

Anagrams

Chinese
FWOTD – 16 March 2023

Etymology

From English carry or English carry off.

Pronunciation

  • (closer to English pronunciation) IPA(key): /kʰɛː⁵⁵ ɹiː²¹/

Verb

carry (Hong Kong Cantonese)

  1. (in group work) to contribute disproportionately; to contribute for others
    佢一個人carry晒我哋成team人。 [Cantonese, trad.]
    佢一个人carry晒我哋成team人。 [Cantonese, simp.]
    keoi5 jat1 go3 jan4-2 ke1 wi4 saai3 ngo5 dei6 seng4 tim1 jan4. [Jyutping]
    He makes most of the contributions for our entire team on his own.
  2. to master; to be suited to (clothing, hairstyle or fashionable items)
    佢係名模嚟㗎喎，乜嘢裙都carry到㗎啦。 [Cantonese, trad.]
    佢系名模嚟㗎㖞，乜嘢裙都carry到㗎啦。 [Cantonese, simp.]
    keoi5 hai6 ming4 mou4 lai4 gaa3 wo3, mat1 je5 kwan4 dou1 ke1 wi4 dou3-2 gaa3 laa1. [Jyutping]
    She's a famous model. She'll do justice to any dress she wears.
  3. to master; to handle well; to have to ability of doing something (songs, talents or skills)

Quotations
  • For quotations using this term, see Citations:carry.

Antonyms
  • (antonym(s) of “to contribute disproportionately”): free ride
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