merry

Alternative forms

• (obsolete) merrie, (obsolete) mery

Etymology

From Middle English merie, mirie, myrie, murie, murȝe, from Old English meriġe, miriġe, myriġe, myreġe, myrġe (“pleasing, agreeable; pleasant, sweet, delightful; melodious”), from Proto-Germanic *murguz (“short, slow”), from Proto-Indo-European *mréǵʰus (“short”). Cognate with Scots mery, mirry (“merry”), Middle Dutch mergelijc (“pleasant, agreeable, joyful”), Old High German murg, murgi ("short, brief"; > German murk (“short, lazy”)), Norwegian dialectal myrjel (“small object, figurine”), Latin brevis (“short, small, narrow, shallow”), Ancient Greek βραχύς (brakhús, “short”). Doublet of brief.

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˈmɛɹi/
• (General American) enPR: mĕrʹē, IPA^(key): /ˈmɛɹi/

• Audio (US)

  (file)

  (Mary–marry–merry distinction)

• Audio (US)

  (file)

  (Mary–marry–merry merger)
• Rhymes: -ɛɹi
• Hyphenation: mer‧ry

Adjective

merry (comparative merrier, superlative merriest)

1. Jolly and full of high spirits.

   We had a very merry Christmas.

   • c. 1596–1598, W[illiam] Shakespeare, The Excellent History of the Merchant of Venice. With the Extreme Cruelty of Shylocke the Iew towards the saide Merchant, in Cutting a Iust Pound of His Flesh. And the Obtaining of Portia, by the Choyce of Three Caskets, quarto edition, [London]: Printed by J[ames] Roberts [for Thomas Heyes], published 1600, OCLC 24594216, [Act V, scene i]:

     I am neuer merry when I heare ſweet muſique.

2. Festive and full of fun and laughter.
   • 1883, Howard Pyle, The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood Chapter V

     If I have the chance, I will make our worshipful Sheriff pay right well for that which he hath done to me. Maybe I may bring him some time into Sherwood Forest and have him to a right merry feast with us.

   Everyone was merry at the party.

3. Brisk

   The play moved along at a merry pace.

4. Causing laughter, mirth, gladness, or delight.

   a merry jest

   • 1590, Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Qveene. […], London: […] William Ponsonbie, OCLC 960102938, book I, canto XII, stanza 1, page 171:

     There eke my feeble barke a while may ſtay, / Till mery wynd and weather call her thence away.

5. (euphemistic) drunk; tipsy

   Some of us got a little merry at the office Christmas party.

Anagrams

• Rymer