Library / English Dictionary

HARRY

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

Irregular inflected form: harried   

 I. (verb) 

Sense 1

Meaning:

Make a pillaging or destructive raid on (a place), as in wartimes

Synonyms:

harry; ravage

Classified under:

Verbs of size, temperature change, intensifying, etc.

Hypernyms (to "harry" is one way to...):

destroy; ruin (destroy completely; damage irreparably)

Sentence frame:

Somebody ----s something

Sense 2

Meaning:

Annoy continually or chronically

Example:

This man harasses his female co-workers

Synonyms:

beset; chevvy; chevy; chivvy; chivy; harass; harry; hassle; molest; plague; provoke

Classified under:

Verbs of feeling

Hypernyms (to "harry" is one way to...):

annoy; bother; chafe; devil; get at; get to; gravel; irritate; nark; nettle; rag; rile; vex (cause annoyance in; disturb, especially by minor irritations)

Troponyms (each of the following is one way to "harry"):

goad; needle (annoy or provoke, as by constant criticism)

bedevil; crucify; dun; frustrate; rag; torment (treat cruelly)

haze (harass by imposing humiliating or painful tasks, as in military institutions)

Sentence frames:

Somebody ----s somebody
Something ----s somebody

Sentence example:

Sam cannot harry Sue

Derivation:

harrier (a persistent attacker)

Credits

 Context examples: 

If it were grim and desolate upon the English border, however, what can describe the hideous barrenness of this ten times harried tract of France?

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

I fear that you are yet a 'prentice to that trade, quoth the soldier; for there is no child over the water but could answer what you ask. Know then that though there may be peace between our own provinces and the French, yet within the marches of France there is always war, for the country is much divided against itself, and is furthermore harried by bands of flayers, skinners, Brabacons, tardvenus, and the rest of them. When every man's grip is on his neighbor's throat, and every five-sous-piece of a baron is marching with tuck of drum to fight whom he will, it would be a strange thing if five hundred brave English boys could not pick up a living.

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

After them came twenty-seven sumpter horses carrying tent-poles, cloth, spare arms, spurs, wedges, cooking kettles, horse-shoes, bags of nails and the hundred other things which experience had shown to be needful in a harried and hostile country.

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)