Word of the Day

: July 16, 2024

harry

verb HAIR-ee

What It Means

To harry someone or something is to harass or torment them by or as if by constant attack.

// The visiting team harried the home team relentlessly during the first quarter.

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harry in Context

“His side played like a team who understood the magnitude of a fixture laced with bitterness. They hassled and harried their opponents from the first minute and were rewarded with the biggest margin of victory in this fixture since 1956.” — Henry Clark, The Mail on Sunday (London, UK), 4 Feb. 2024

Did You Know?

Harry has been a part of English for as long as there has been anything that could be called English. It took the form hergian (“to make predatory raids, ravage, wage war”) in Old English and harien (“to plunder, ravage, torment, pursue, drag”) in Middle English, passing through numerous variations before finally settling into its modern spelling. While its oldest senses were violent indeed (and harry can still be used today to mean “to make a pillaging or destructive raid upon”) one is just as likely today to encounter the word in less martial, though still fraught, contexts that involve someone or something being troubled or worried. Holiday travelers may be harried, for example, by numerous stresses (traffic, flight delays, lost baggage, etc.), while sports teams are often said to harry one another while vying for control of the ball, puck, or what-have-you.