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Webster 1913 Edition

Carry

Car′ry

,
Verb.
T.
[
imp. & p. p.
Carried
;
p. pr. & vb. n.
Carrying
.]
[OF.
carier
,
charier
, F.
carrier
, to cart, from OF.
car
,
char
, F.
car
, car. See
Car
.]
1.
To convey or transport in any manner from one place to another; to bear; – often with away or off.
When he dieth he shall
carry
nothing away.
Ps. xiix. 17.
Devout men
carried
Stephen to his burial.
Acts viii, 2.
Another
carried
the intelligence to Russell.
Macaulay.
The sound will be
carried
, at the least, twenty miles.
Bacon.
2.
To have or hold as a burden, while moving from place to place; to have upon or about one’s person; to bear;
as, to
carry
a wound; to
carry
an unborn child
.
If the ideas . . . were
carried
along with us in our minds.
Locke.
3.
To move; to convey by force; to impel; to conduct; to lead or guide.
Go,
carry
Sir John Falstaff to the Fleet.
Shakespeare
He
carried
away all his cattle.
Gen. xxxi. 18.
Passion and revenge will
carry
them too far.
Locke.
4.
To transfer from one place (as a country, book, or column) to another;
as, to
carry
the war from Greece into Asia; to
carry
an account to the ledger; to
carry
a number in adding figures
.
5.
To convey by extension or continuance; to extend;
as, to
carry
the chimney through the roof; to
carry
a road ten miles farther
.
6.
To bear or uphold successfully through conflict, as a leader or principle; hence, to succeed in, as in a contest; to bring to a successful issue; to win;
as, to
carry
an election
.
“The greater part
carries
it.”
Shak.
The
carrying
of our main point.
Addison.
7.
To get possession of by force; to capture.
The town would have been
carried
in the end.
Bacon.
8.
To contain; to comprise; to bear the aspect of ; to show or exhibit; to imply.
He thought it
carried
something of argument in it.
Watts.
It
carries
too great an imputation of ignorance.
Lacke.
9.
To bear (one's self); to behave, to conduct or demean; – with the reflexive pronouns.
He
carried
himself so insolently in the house, and out of the house, to all persons, that he became odious.
Clarendon.
10.
To bear the charges or burden of holding or having, as stocks, merchandise, etc., from one time to another;
as, a merchant is
carrying
a large stock; a farm
carries
a mortgage; a broker
carries
stock for a customer; to
carry
a life insurance
.
Carry arms
(Mil. Drill)
,
a command of the Manual of Arms directing the soldier to hold his piece in the right hand, the barrel resting against the hollow of the shoulder in a nearly perpendicular position. In this position the soldier is said to stand, and the musket to be held, at carry.
–
To carry all before one
,
to overcome all obstacles; to have uninterrupted success.
–
To carry arms
(a)
To bear weapons.
(b)
To serve as a soldier.
–
To carry away
.
(a)
(Naut.)
to break off; to lose; as, to carry away a fore-topmast.
(b)
To take possession of the mind; to charm; to delude; as, to be carried by music, or by temptation.
–
To carry coals
,
to bear indignities tamely, a phrase used by early dramatists, perhaps from the mean nature of the occupation.
Halliwell.
–
To carry coals to Newcastle
,
to take things to a place where they already abound; to lose one's labor.
–
To carry off
(a)
To remove to a distance.
(b)
To bear away as from the power or grasp of others.
(c)
To remove from life;
as, the plague
carried off
thousands
.
–
To carry on
(a)
To carry farther; to advance, or help forward; to continue;
as,
to carry on
a design
.
(b)
To manage, conduct, or prosecute;
as,
to carry on
husbandry or trade
.
–
To carry out
.
(a)
To bear from within.
(b)
To put into execution; to bring to a successful issue.
(c)
To sustain to the end; to continue to the end.
–
To carry through
.
(a)
To convey through the midst of.
(b)
To support to the end; to sustain, or keep from falling, or being subdued.
“Grace will carry us . . . through all difficulties.”
Hammond.
(c)
To complete; to bring to a successful issue; to succeed.
–
To carry up
,
to convey or extend in an upward course or direction; to build.
–
To carry weight
.
(a)
To be handicapped; to have an extra burden, as when one rides or runs.
“He carries weight, he rides a race”
Cowper.
(b)
To have influence.

Car′ry

,
Verb.
I.
1.
To act as a bearer; to convey anything;
as, to fetch and
carry
.
2.
To have propulsive power; to propel;
as, a gun or mortar
carries
well
.
3.
To hold the head; – said of a horse;
as, to
carry
well i
. e., to hold the head high, with arching neck.
4.
(Hunting)
To have earth or frost stick to the feet when running, as a hare.
Johnson.
To carry on
,
to behave in a wild, rude, or romping manner.
[Colloq.]

Car′ry

,
Noun.
;
pl.
Carries
(#)
.
A tract of land, over which boats or goods are carried between two bodies of navigable water; a carrying place; a portage.
[
U.S
.]

Webster 1828 Edition

Carry

CARRY

,
Verb.
T.
1.
To bear, convey, or transport, by sustaining and moving the thing carried, either by bodily strength, upon a beast, in a vehicle, or in any kind of water-craft. In general, it implies a moving from the speaker or the place present or near, to a place more distant, and so is opposed to bring and fetch, and it is often followed by from, away, off, out.
He shall carry the lambs in his bosom. Is. 40.
When he dieth, he shall carry nothing away. Ps. 49.
2.
To convey; as sound is carried in the air.
3.
To effect; to accomplish; to prevail; to gain the object; as, to carry a point, measure, or resolution; to carry a prize; to carry a fortified town by force of arms; sometimes followed by it.
Whose wills will carry it over the rest.
4.
To bear out; to face through.
If a man carries it off, there is so much money saved.
5.
To urge, impel, lead or draw, noting moral impulse.
Pride or passion will carry a man to great lengths.
Men are carried away with imaginary prospects. See Eph. 4:14. Heb. 13:9.
6.
To bear; to have.
In some vegetables, we see something that carries a kind of analogy to sense.
7.
To bear; to show, display or exhibit to view.
The aspect of every one in the family carries satisfaction.
8.
To imply or import.
To quit former tenets carries an imputation of ignorance.
9.
To contain or comprise.
He thought it carried something of argument in it, to prove that doctrine.
10.
To extend or continue in time, as to carry a historical account to the first ages of the world; but usually with a particle, as to carry up or carry back, to carry forward.
11.
To extend in space, as to carry a line or a boundary; or in a moral sense, as to carry ideas very far.
12.
To support or sustain.
Carry camomile on sticks.
13.
To bear or produce, as trees.
Set them a reasonable depth, and they will carry more shoots upon the stem.
14.
To manage or transact, usually with on; as, to carry on business.
15.
To carry ones self, to behave, conduct or demean.
He carried himself insolently. Sometimes with it; as, he carried it high.
16.
To remove, lead or drive.
And he carried away all his cattle. Gen. 31.
17.
To remove; to cause to go.
And the king of Assyria did carry away Israel to Assyria. 2 Kings 18.
18.
To transport; to affect with extraordinary impressions on the mind. Rev. 17.
19.
To fetch and bring.
Young whelps learn easily to carry.
20.
To transfer; as, to carry an account to the ledger.
War was to be diverted from Greece by being carried into Asia.
To carry coals, to bear injuries.
To carry off, to remove to a distance; also, to kill, as to be carried off by sickness.
To carry on,
1.
to promote, advance, or help forward; to continue; as, to carry on a design; to carry on the administration of grace.
2.
To manage or prosecute; as, to carry on husbandry.
3.
To prosecute, continue or pursue; as, to carry on trade or war.
To carry through, to support to the end; to sustain or keep from failing, or being subdued.
Grace will carry a man through all difficulties. Hammond.
To carry out, to bear from within; also, to sustain to the end; to continue to the end.
To carry away, in seamanship, is to break; to carry sail till a spar breaks; as, to carry away a fore-topmast.

CARRY

,
Verb.
I.
1.
To run on rotten ground, or on frost, which sticks to the feet, as a hare.
2.
To bear the head in a particular manner, as a horse. When a horse holds his head high, with an arching neck, he is said to carry well. When he lowers his head too much, he is said to carry low.
3.
To convey; to propel; as, a gun or mortar carries well; but this is elliptical.

Definition 2024

carry

carry

English

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, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz Ch.23:
      "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."
    • 1915, Emerson Hough, The Purchase Price, chapterII:
      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. To 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. 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 by force; to impel; to conduct; to lead or guide.
  5. (transitive) To stock or supply (something).
    The corner drugstore doesn't carry his favorite brand of aspirin.‎
  6. (transitive) To adopt (something); take (something) over.
    I think I can carry Smith's work while she is out.‎
  7. (transitive) To adopt or resolve upon, especially in a deliberative assembly; as, to carry a motion.
  8. (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.‎
  9. (transitive) To have or maintain (something).
    Always carry sufficient insurance to protect against a loss.‎
  10. (intransitive) To be transmitted; to travel.
    The sound of the bells carried for miles on the wind.‎
    • 1912, Stratemeyer Syndicate, Baseball Joe on the School Nine Ch.1:
      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.
  11. (slang, transitive) To insult, to diss.
  12. (transitive, nautical) To capture a ship by coming alongside and boarding.
  13. (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.
  14. (transitive) To have on one's person.
    she always carries a purse;  marsupials carry their young in a pouch‎
    • 1913, Joseph C. Lincoln, chapter 10, in Mr. Pratt's Patients:
      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.
  15. To be pregnant (with).
    The doctor said she's carrying twins.
  16. To have propulsive power; to propel.
    A gun or mortar carries well.‎
  17. To hold the head; said of a horse.
    to carry well, i.e. to hold the head high, with arching neck‎
  18. (hunting) To have earth or frost stick to the feet when running, as a hare.
    (Can we find and add a quotation of Johnson to this entry?)
  19. To bear or uphold successfully through conflict, as a leader or principle; hence, to succeed in, as in a contest; to bring to a successful issue; to win.
    The Tories carried the election.‎
  20. (obsolete) To get possession of by force; to capture.
    • Francis Bacon (1561-1626)
      The town would have been carried in the end.
  21. To contain; to comprise; to bear the aspect of; to show or exhibit; to imply.
    • Isaac Watts (1674-1748)
      He thought it carried something of argument in it.
    • John Locke (1632-1705)
      It carries too great an imputation of ignorance.
  22. (reflexive) To bear (oneself); to behave or conduct.
    • Earl of Clarendon (1609-1674)
      He carried himself so insolently in the house, and out of the house, to all persons, that he became odious.
  23. 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.‎

Synonyms

Antonyms

  • (in arithmetic): borrow (the equivalent reverse procedure in the inverse operation of subtraction)

Derived terms

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?

Derived terms

Translations

Statistics

Most common English words before 1923: won't · plain · rich · #633: carry · immediately · trees · filled

Etymology

From Middle English carrien, from Anglo-Norman carier (modern French: charrier); see Latin carrus ‎(“four-wheeled baggage wagon”). Replaced native Middle English ferien ‎(“to carry, transport, convey”) (from Old English ferian) and Middle English aberen ‎(“to carry, bear, endure”) (from Old English āberan).

Pronunciation

Similar Results