ferry

From Middle English ferien (“to carry, convey, convey in a boat”), from Old English ferian (“to carry, convey, bear, bring, lead, conduct, betake oneself to, be versed in, depart, go”), from Proto-West Germanic *farjan, from Proto-Germanic *farjaną (“to make or let go, transfer, ferry”), from Proto-Indo-European *per- (“to bring or carry over, transfer, pass through”).

Cognate with German dialectal feren, fähren (“to row, sail”), Danish færge (“to ferry”), Swedish färja (“to ferry”), Icelandic ferja (“to ferry”), Norwegian Nynorsk/Norwegian Bokmål ferje (“to ferry”) Old Norse ferja. Related to fare.

• (Received Pronunciation, General American) IPA^(key): /ˈfɛɹi/

  • Audio (US):

    (file)

• (General Australian, New Zealand) IPA^(key): /ˈfeɹi/
• Rhymes: -ɛɹi
  • Homophone: fairy (only in accents with the Mary-marry-merry merger)

ferry (third-person singular simple present ferries, present participle ferrying, simple past and past participle ferried)

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.

   • 2013 June 1, “Ideas coming down the track”, in The Economist, volume 407, number 8838, page 13 (Technology Quarterly):

     A “moving platform” scheme […] is more technologically ambitious than maglev trains even though it relies on conventional rails. Local trains would use side-by-side rails to roll alongside intercity trains and allow passengers to switch trains by stepping through docking bays. […] This would also let high-speed trains skirt cities as moving platforms ferry passengers to and from the city centre.

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 II”, in Paradise Lost. […], London: […] [Samuel Simmons], and are to be sold by Peter Parker […]; [a]nd by Robert Boulter […]; [a]nd Matthias Walker, […], →OCLC; republished as Paradise Lost in Ten Books: […], London: Basil Montagu Pickering […], 1873, →OCLC:

     They ferry over this Lethean sound / Both to and fro.

ferry (plural ferries)

2. (nautical) A boat or ship used to transport people, smaller vehicles and goods from one port to another, usually on a regular schedule.

   Hypernyms: boat, ship < watercraft < vessel < vehicle < conveyance

   Coordinate terms: water bus, water taxi

   Near-synonym: ferryboat

   • 2019 November 22, Ilaria Maria Sala, “After the Protests: How Will Hong Kong Vote?”, in The New York Times‎^[1], →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 22 November 2019, Opinion‎^[2]:

     To reach Mui Wo, a small town on Lantau Island, you take a ferry from central Hong Kong, and after a 30-minute ride arrive at a small square with a car park and bus stops blackened by fumes.

3. 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 Unlicenc’d Printing, to the Parlament of England, London: [s.n.], →OCLC:

     It can pass the ferry backward into light.

   • 1809, Thomas Campbell, Lord Ullin's Daughter:

     to row us o'er the ferry

   • c. 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.

4. The service constituted by this watercraft's operation; the business (company) that operates such a service.

   In those days there was a ferry at Sleepytown. Modern roads and bridges for motor vehicles have rendered such local river ferries obsolete.

5. The legal right or franchise that entitles a corporate body or an individual to operate such a service: a right of ferry.

   granted a ferry to

   • 1831 [1829 October 9], J.J. Marshall, Reporter of the Decisions of the Court of Appeals, quoting Judge Robertson, “Trustees of Maysville vs. Boon, &c. Appeal from Mason County Court”, in Reports of the Cases at Law and in Equity, Argued and Decided in the Court of Appeals of the Commonwealth of Kentucky‎^[3], volume II, page 224:

     In 1794, the county court of Mason, granted a ferry to Benjamin Sutton, who owned two lots on the front of water street.
     In 1801, the same privilege was re-granted to him by the court.
     In 1797, a ferry was granted to Edmund Martin, by the county court.
     In 1808, a ferry was granted, by the county court, to Jacob Boon.
     In 1818, a ferry was granted, by the court, to J. K. Ficklin, and in 1823, another ferry was granted, by the court, to Benjamin Baylies.
     Bonds with security, were executed by the grantees respectively. The ferrys of Ficklin and Baylies have not been in operation for two or three years past. Those of Sutton, Martin and Boon, have been in operation ever since their establishment. Boon and Martin are both dead. Sutton sold his lots and ferry to Armstrong. Powers and Campbell, who attended to the ferrys granted to Boon and Martin, live in the state of Ohio. Armstrong resides in Maysville.

• boat
• ship

• Freyr, Fryer, fryer, refry

Borrowed from English ferry.

• IPA^(key): /fɛ.ʁi/ ~ /fe.ʁi/

ferry m (plural ferries or ferrys)

1. ferry

• car-ferry

Unadapted borrowing from English ferry.^[1][2]

ferry m (plural ferries)

1. ferry (boat)

   Synonym: ferryboat

Unadapted borrowing from English ferry.

• IPA^(key): /ˈferi/ [ˈfe.ri]
• Rhymes: -eri
• Syllabification: fe‧rry

ferry m (plural ferrys or ferries)

1. alternative spelling of ferri

According to Royal Spanish Academy (RAE) prescriptions, unadapted foreign words should be written in italics in a text printed in roman type, and vice versa, and in quotation marks in a manuscript text or when italics are not available. In practice, this RAE prescription is not always followed.

• “ferry”, in Diccionario de la lengua española [Dictionary of the Spanish Language] (in Spanish), online version 23.8, Royal Spanish Academy [Spanish: Real Academia Española], 10 December 2024