Dictionaries › English

quarry

Pronunciation: /ˈkwɒɹ.i/

The English word “quarry” has 8 meanings listed here.

noun

  1. A site for mining stone, such as limestone, or slate.
  2. A part of the entrails of a hunted animal, given to the hounds as a reward.
  3. An animal, often a bird or mammal, which is hunted.
  4. An object of search or pursuit.
  5. A diamond-shaped tile or pane, often of glass or stone.

verb

  1. To obtain (or mine) stone by extraction from a quarry.
  2. To extract or slowly obtain by long, tedious searching.
  3. To secure prey; to prey, as a vulture or harpy.

Etymology

From Middle English quarere, from Medieval Latin quarreria (1266), literally a “place where stones are squared”, from Old French quarrière (compare modern French carrière), from Vulgar Latin *quadraria, from Latin quadrō (“to square”), itself from quadra (“a square”), from quattuor (“four”), ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *kʷetwóres (“four”).

Keep exploring: in the interactive dictionary every word of a definition is a link. Open “quarry” there

More English words

About this dictionary

The English dictionary on Glottosphere has 650,529 entries with a page. Browse the English dictionary.

Definitions are from Wiktionary, extracted by Kaikki.org, and are available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.