Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. A hunted animal; prey.
- n. Hunted animals considered as a group; game.
- n. An object of pursuit: The police lost their quarry in the crowd.
- n. An open excavation or pit from which stone is obtained by digging, cutting, or blasting.
- n. A rich or productive source: found the book an indispensable quarry of information.
- v. To obtain (stone) from a quarry, as by cutting, digging, or blasting.
- v. To extract (facts, for example) by long, careful searching: finally quarried out the genealogy from hundreds of sources.
- v. To use (land) as a quarry.
- n. A square or diamond shape.
- n. A pane of glass having this shape.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- Square; quadrate.
- Stout; fat; corpulent.
- n. A square or lozenge. Specifically— A small square tile or paving-stone: same as
quarrel , 1 . - n. A small square or lozenge-shaped pane of glass: same as quarrel, 1 .
- n. A bolt or arrow with a square head: same as quarrel, 2.
- n. A place, cavern, or pit where stones are dug from the earth, or separated, as by blasting with gunpowder, from a large mass of rock. The word mine is generally applied to the excavations from which metals, metalliferous ores, and coal are taken; from
quarries are taken all the various materials used for building, as marble, freestone, slate, lime, cement, rock, etc. A quarry is usually open to the day; a mine is generally covered, communicating with the surface by one or more shafts. Seemine . - To dig or take from a quarry: as, to quarry marble.
- n. The refuse parts of an animal slain in the chase, given in the skin to the hounds: as, to make the quarry (to open and skin the animal slain, and give the refuse to the hounds).
- n. A beast of the chase when pursued or slain; any creature hunted by men or by beasts or birds of prey, especially after it has been killed.
- n. Hunted or slaughtered game, or any object of eager pursuit.
- To prey, as a vulture or harpy.
- To provide with prey.
- To pave with quarries. See quarry, 1 .
Wiktionary
- n. A site for mining stone, limestone or slate.
- v. transitive To obtain (mine) stone by extraction from a quarry.
- v. figuratively (transitive) To extract or slowly obtain by long, tedious searching.
- n. An animal which is hunted, notably mammal or bird.
- n. An object of search or pursuit.
- n. A diamond-shaped tile or pane, notably of glass or stone
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. obsolete Same as 1st quarrel.
- adj. obsolete Quadrate; square.
- n. A part of the entrails of the beast taken, given to the hounds.
- n. A heap of game killed.
- n. The object of the chase; the animal hunted for; game; especially, the game hunted with hawks.
- v. To secure prey; to prey, as a vulture or harpy.
- n. A place, cavern, or pit where stone is taken from the rock or ledge, or dug from the earth, for building or other purposes; a stone pit. See 5th mine (a).
- v. To dig or take from a quarry.
WordNet 3.0
- v. extract (something such as stones) from or as if from a quarry
- n. a person who is the aim of an attack (especially a victim of ridicule or exploitation) by some hostile person or influence
- n. a surface excavation for extracting stone or slate
- n. animal hunted or caught for food
Etymologies
- An alteration of quarrel (Wiktionary)
- Middle English querre, entrails of a deer given to hounds as a reward, from Old French cuiriee, alteration (influenced by cuir, skin) of coree, from Vulgar Latin *corāta, viscera, from Latin cor, heart. Middle English quarey, from Medieval Latin quareria, quareia, alteration of Old French quarriere, from *quarre, cut stone, from Latin quadrum, square. Variant of quarrel. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“The base of the quarry is the only flat part of the site and this is used for car access and the entrance to the house.”
Edge House: Mobius Architects Creates an Oddity With Its Creativity
“Their quarry is a U.N. aide worker named Marion Dupuis who has suddenly disappeared from her assignment in war-torn Africa.”
Who’s Thrilling You Now? –The New Guns of the Thriller Genre; an Author Panel
“Hunting, no matter the quarry is what you make it.”
“You mention you intend to start hunting, but you didn't say whether your quarry is small game or medium game.”
“IMHO, anyone who cannot get within 300 yds. of their chosen quarry is not a hunter, he is an optimistic artilaryman!”
“In the afternoon switch your stand to the other side of the valley so that you are covered once again by shadows and darkness and your quarry is in the light with the sun in their eyes.”
“When I go hunting, harvesting my quarry is just a bonus.”
“Sparrows were my main quarry at the farm with a single shot Savage .22/.410.”
“A fossil claw from a sea scorpion, Jaekelopterus rhenaniae, taken out of a German quarry, is much larger than any other found.”
“An evolutionary arms race between predatory garter snakes and their newt quarry is turning out to be something of an illusion.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘quarry’.
-
GRE Barrons Wordlist
A complete Barron's Wordlist for GRE preparation. Your online flashcard replacement.
abase, abash, abate, abbreviate, abdicate, aberrant, aberration, abet, abeyance, abhor, abject, abjure and 4087 more...
-
IMCO - EU nomenclature
includes words of the "Prodcom list"
abaca, abdominal, abrasive, absorbent, absorber, accelerator, accessory, account book, accumulator, acebutolol, acetaldehyde, acetamide and 4515 more...
-
GRE 2014
abase, abate, abdicate, aberrant, abeyance, abhor, abjure, abortive, abound, abrasive, abreast, abridge and 1577 more...
-
January 2012
bloviate, pastiche, apparat, facile, paroxysm, pique, bedfellow, pedigree, tutelage, protege, protégé, retroactive and 196 more...
-
Barron's 1100 words you need to know ...
abjure, allay, complacent, connoisseur, debilitate, deter, discreet, evanescent, foment, glean, impetuous, occult and 8 more...
-
the first list
an immense, grandiloquent list that loads like a thousand years sentence in stone. new words are in the other lists.
ridiculous, brummagem, predicament, sanctimonious, vapid, eschew, admonish, auspicious, capitulation, enumerate, lachrymose, tenet and 1648 more...
-
Good Words
fenestering, cetic, immanent, quickening, archetypal, shibboleth, soma, wetware, heritable, Apotheosis, halcyon, cellar door and 482 more...
-
words found to be generally pleasing
alabaster, mahogany, camphor, coalesce, spire, portmanteau, gadabout, palaver, dolor, dour, dun, luminesce and 610 more...
-
beatricks's Words
tremendous, naiad, thrush, samsara, thronging, nascent, broom, aristeia, streak, susurrant, reverberate, resistentialism and 352 more...
-
Castles and Keeps
Shamelessly ripped off from this site and others (to be named hereinafter). (Fair warning: for my own edification, I may add definitions/comments from the site, but you might want to just go there ...
abutment, adulterine, allure, angle-spur, apse, arbalest, arbalestier, arbalist, arcade, arch, armoury, arrow slit and 410 more...
-
Vocab++
Words as I learn them.
fetid, mezzanine, hiatus, austerity, subliminal, resplendent, implacable, impugn, debase, exiguous, cirque, holster and 2538 more...
-
Scriptie: The Two Towers
dampen, treacherous, black gate, man-flesh, precious, elvish, dwarf, pursuit, quarry, hobbit, sprinters, horse lords and 236 more...
-
Landscape
riparian, littoral, talus, fen, ambit, savanna, remnant prairie, shortgrass prairie, tallgrass prairie, marsh, swamp, marshy and 199 more...
-
stpeter's Words
abase, abasement, abashed, abdicate, aberrant, abeyance, abhor, abhorrent, abide, abject, ablation, abnegation and 3536 more...
-
justin's Words
braii, boerewors, lekker, viva, pap, lipodystrophy, lacticacidosis, sharp, chakalaka, defaulter, eish, oof and 256 more...
-
GRE 3500 Q
quadruped, quaff, quaint, quandary, quarry, quay, queasy, quell, querulous, quibble, quietude, quip and 89 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for quarry.

Comments
No comments yet...
Log in or sign up to get involved in the conversation. It's quick and easy.