ferry
see also: Ferry
Pronunciation
  • (America, RP) IPA: /ˈfɛɹi/
  • (North England) IPA: /ˈfɛɹɪ/
Verb

ferry

  1. (transitive) To carry; transport; convey.
    Trucks plowed through the water to ferry flood victims to safety.
    • 2007, Rick Bass, The Lives of Rocks:
      We ferried our stock in U-Haul trailers, and across the months, as we purchased more cowflesh from the Goat Man — meat vanishing into the ether again and again, as if into some quarkish void — we became familiar enough with Sloat and his daughter to learn that her name was Flozelle, and to visit with them about matters other than stock.
  2. (transitive) To move someone or something from one place to another, usually repeatedly.
    Being a good waiter takes more than the ability to ferry plates of food around a restaurant.
  3. (transitive) To carry or transport over a contracted body of water, as a river or strait, in a boat or other floating conveyance plying between opposite shores.
  4. (intransitive) To pass over water in a boat or by ferry.
    • 1667, John Milton, “Book 2”, in Paradise Lost. A Poem Written in Ten Books, London: Printed [by Samuel Simmons], and are to be sold by Peter Parker […] [a]nd by Robert Boulter […] [a]nd Matthias Walker, […], OCLC 228722708 ↗; republished as Paradise Lost in Ten Books: The Text Exactly Reproduced from the First Edition of 1667: […], London: Basil Montagu Pickering […], 1873, OCLC 230729554 ↗:
      They ferry over this Lethean sound / Both to and fro.
Noun

ferry (plural ferries)

  1. A ship used to transport people, smaller vehicles and goods from one port to another, usually on a regular schedule.
  2. A place where passengers are transported across water in such a ship.
    • 1644, John Milton, Areopagitica; a Speech of Mr. John Milton for the Liberty of Vnlicenc’d Printing, to the Parlament of England, London: [s.n.], OCLC 879551664 ↗:
      It can pass the ferry backward into light.
    • to row me o'er the ferry
    • circa 1900 O. Henry, The Ferry of Unfulfilment:
      She walked into the waiting-room of the ferry, and up the stairs, and by a marvellous swift, little run, caught the ferry-boat that was just going out.
  3. The legal right or franchise that entitles a corporate body or an individual to operate such a service.
Translations
Ferry
Proper noun
  1. Surname



This text is extracted from the Wiktionary and it is available under the CC BY-SA 3.0 license | Terms and conditions | Privacy policy 0.004
Offline English dictionary