(carries, carrying, carried)
Frequency: The word is one of the 700 most common words in English.
1.
If you carry something, you take it with you, holding it so that it does not touch the ground.
He was carrying a briefcase...
He carried the plate through to the dining room...
If your job involves a lot of paperwork, you're going to need something to carry it all in.
VERB: V n, V n prep/adv, V n prep/adv
2.
If you carry something, you have it with you wherever you go.
You have to carry a bleeper so that they can call you in at any time.
VERB: V n
3.
If something carries a person or thing somewhere, it takes them there.
Flowers are designed to attract insects which then carry the pollen from plant to plant...
The ship could carry seventy passengers.
= transport
VERB: V n adv/prep, V n
4.
If a person or animal is carrying a disease, they are infected with it and can pass it on to other people or animals.
Frogs eat pests which destroy crops and carry diseases.
VERB: V n
5.
If an action or situation has a particular quality or consequence, you can say that it carries it.
Check that any medication you're taking carries no risk for your developing baby...
VERB: no passive, no cont, V n
6.
If a quality or advantage carries someone into a particular position or through a difficult situation, it helps them to achieve that position or deal with that situation.
He had the ruthless streak necessary to carry him into the Cabinet...
VERB: V n prep/adv
7.
If you carry an idea or a method to a particular extent, you use or develop it to that extent.
It's not such a new idea, but I carried it to extremes...
We could carry that one step further by taking the same genes and putting them into another crop.
= take
VERB: V n prep/adv, V n prep/adv
8.
If a newspaper or poster carries a picture or a piece of writing, it contains it or displays it.
Several papers carry the photograph of Mr Anderson.
VERB: V n
9.
In a debate, if a proposal or motion is carried, a majority of people vote in favour of it.
A motion backing its economic policy was carried by 322 votes to 296.
VERB: usu passive, be V-ed
10.
If a crime carries a particular punishment, a person who is found guilty of that crime will receive that punishment.
It was a crime of espionage and carried the death penalty.
VERB: no cont, V n
11.
If a sound carries, it can be heard a long way away.
Even in this stillness Leaphorn doubted if the sound would carry far.
VERB: V adv, also V
12.
If a candidate or party
carries a state or area, they win the election in that state or area. (
AM; in BRIT, usually use take
)
George W. Bush carried the state with 56 percent of the vote.
VERB: no passive, V n
13.
If you carry yourself in a particular way, you walk and move in that way.
They carried themselves with great pride and dignity.
VERB: V pron-refl prep/adv
14.
If a woman is carrying a child, she is pregnant. (OLD-FASHIONED)
VERB: usu cont
15.
If you get carried away or are carried away, you are so eager or excited about something that you do something hasty or foolish.
I got completely carried away and almost cried.
PHRASE: V inflects
16.
to
carry the can: see
can
to
carry the day: see
day