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quarry.

A site for mining stone, such as limestone, or slate.

6 characters2 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

noun/ˈkwɒɹ.i/Received-Pronunciation/ˈk(w)ɔɹ.i/General-American/ˈkwɑɹ.i/New-York-City, Philadelphia
  1. A site for mining stone, such as limestone, or slate.

    Michelangelo personally quarried marble from the world-famous quarry at Carrara.
Where this word comes from

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”).

verb/ˈkwɒɹ.i/Received-Pronunciation/ˈk(w)ɔɹ.i/General-American/ˈkwɑɹ.i/New-York-City, Philadelphia
  1. To obtain (or mine) stone by extraction from a quarry.

    transitive
  2. To extract or slowly obtain by long, tedious searching.

    figuratively · transitive
    They quarried out new, interesting facts about ancient Egypt from old papyri.
Where this word comes from

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”).

noun/ˈkwɒɹ.i/Received-Pronunciation/ˈk(w)ɔɹ.i/General-American/ˈkwɑɹ.i/New-York-City, Philadelphia
  1. A part of the entrails of a hunted animal, given to the hounds as a reward.

    obsolete · uncountable
  2. An animal, often a bird or mammal, which is hunted.

    uncountable
  3. An object of search or pursuit.

    countable
Where this word comes from

From Middle English quyrre, querre, quirre, from Anglo-Norman quiree (“entrails of deer placed on the hide and given to dogs of the chase as a reward”) (influenced by cuir (“skin (of an animal)”), from Latin corium (“a hide”)), from coree (“entrails, viscera”), from Vulgar Latin corata (“entrails”), from Latin cor (“heart”).

verb/ˈkwɒɹ.i/Received-Pronunciation/ˈk(w)ɔɹ.i/General-American/ˈkwɑɹ.i/New-York-City, Philadelphia
  1. To secure prey; to prey, as a vulture or harpy.

Where this word comes from

From Middle English quyrre, querre, quirre, from Anglo-Norman quiree (“entrails of deer placed on the hide and given to dogs of the chase as a reward”) (influenced by cuir (“skin (of an animal)”), from Latin corium (“a hide”)), from coree (“entrails, viscera”), from Vulgar Latin corata (“entrails”), from Latin cor (“heart”).

noun/ˈkwɒɹ.i/Received-Pronunciation/ˈk(w)ɔɹ.i/General-American/ˈkwɑɹ.i/New-York-City, Philadelphia
  1. A diamond-shaped tile or pane, often of glass or stone.

Where this word comes from

Alteration of quarrel (“diamond-shaped piece of coloured glass forming part of a stained glass window; square tile”).

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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.