bury
Americanverb (used with object)
-
to put in the ground and cover with earth.
The pirates buried the chest on the island.
-
to put (a corpse) in the ground or a vault, or into the sea, often with ceremony.
They buried the sailor with full military honors.
-
to plunge in deeply; cause to sink in.
to bury an arrow in a target.
-
to cover in order to conceal from sight.
She buried the card in the deck.
- Antonyms:
- uncover
-
to immerse (oneself).
He buried himself in his work.
-
to put out of one's mind.
to bury an insult.
-
to consign to obscurity; cause to appear insignificant by assigning to an unimportant location, position, etc..
Her name was buried in small print at the end of the book.
noun
idioms
-
bury the hatchet, to become reconciled or reunited.
-
bury one's head in the sand, to avoid reality; ignore the facts of a situation.
You cannot continue to bury your head in the sand—you must learn to face facts.
verb
-
to place (a corpse) in a grave, usually with funeral rites; inter
-
to place in the earth and cover with soil
-
to lose through death
-
to cover from sight; hide
-
to embed; sink
to bury a nail in plaster
-
to occupy (oneself) with deep concentration; engross
to be buried in a book
-
to dismiss from the mind; abandon
to bury old hatreds
-
to cease hostilities and become reconciled
-
to refuse to face a problem
noun
-
a town in NW England, in Bury unitary authority, Greater Manchester: an early textile centre. Pop: 60 178 (2001)
-
a unitary authority in NW England, in Greater Manchester. Pop: 181 900 (2003 est). Area: 99 sq km (38 sq miles)
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
-
burysimple
-
buriessimple
-
have buriedperfect
-
has buriedperfect
-
am buryingprogressive
-
are buryingprogressive
-
is buryingprogressive
-
have been buryingperfect progressive
-
has been buryingperfect progressive
Past
-
buriedsimple
-
had buriedperfect
-
was buryingprogressive
-
were buryingprogressive
-
had been buryingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of bury
First recorded before 1000; Middle English berien, buryen, Old English byrgan “to bury, conceal”; akin to Old English beorgan “to hide, protect, preserve”; cognate with Dutch, German bergen, Gothic bairgan, Old Norse bjarga
Explanation
When you dig a hole in the ground, put an object in the hole, and cover it up with dirt, you bury it. Your dog might prefer spending the majority of his time digging holes to bury his toy collection. You can bury something to hide it, or it can be part of a funeral ritual to bury a person who's died. You could also predict that the coming snow will bury the city, or you might bury your face in your hands if you were feeling dejected. The root of bury is the Proto-Indo-European word bhergh, "to protect or preserve." If you bury your money in the yard, maybe you're trying to protect it from thieves.
Vocabulary lists containing bury
"Eleven"
Looking to grow your vocabulary? Check out this interactive, curated word list from our team of English language specialists at Vocabulary.com – one of over 17,000 lists we've built to help learners worldwide!
List 5
Interested in learning more words like this one? Our team at Vocabulary.com has got you covered! You can review flashcards, quiz yourself, practice spelling, and more – and it's all completely free to use!
"Mysteries of the Ancient Past"
Want to remember this word for good? Start your learning journey today with our library of interactive, themed word lists built by the experts at Vocabulary.com – we'll help you make the most of your study time!
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
"It is not a natural order. I'm not supposed to bury my son," she told the court.
From BBC ● Jul. 24, 2026
A procurement decision can build a company, and a regulatory finding can bury one.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 20, 2026
Together, these processes erase or bury many ancient impact craters.
From Science Daily ● Jul. 18, 2026
“All I want is to bury my son beside his brothers,” Al-Zaharnah said, his voice quiet as he stared at the excavator.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 9, 2026
They’ll bury him and make him into everything he wasn’t.
From "On the Come Up" by Angie Thomas
![]()
A consultation will be held over the proposals, which would concentrate British Sugar's beet processing operations at Wissington in west Norfolk, Bury St Edmunds in Suffolk and Newark in Nottinghamshire.
From BBC ● Jul. 21, 2026
Bury got into a kayak but there were no oars nearby to help him paddle, he told the station.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 30, 2026
Katherine Ahluwalia, of domestic abuse charity Restore Women's Aid in Bury St Edmunds, said deepfakes were part of a wider issue related to social media.
From BBC ● Jun. 5, 2026
A new study published in Nature Ecology & Evolution examines the remains of 132 individuals buried in a large megalithic tomb near Bury, about 50 kilometers north of Paris.
From Science Daily ● Apr. 22, 2026
“Keep this. Bury it with her when you take her back home.”
From "Between Shades of Gray" by Ruta Sepetys
![]()
The road ahead is still uncertain as Iran buries the last of the first-generation founders of its 1979 revolution.
From BBC ● Jul. 7, 2026
Dozens of crumbling buildings in Venezuela's decimated earthquake zone bear a spray-painted letter 'D' -- a sign that buries any hope of finding life beneath the rubble.
From Barron's ● Jul. 1, 2026
A revamped Rose Garden that buries the past and statues that diminish what the people they depict stood for.
From Slate ● May 18, 2026
She buries some of her most colorful observations in the endnotes.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 3, 2026
“But this one, Aragog, the first one Hagrid ever got, it died last night. He’s devastated. He wants company while he buries it and I said I’d go.”
From "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince" by J.K. Rowling
![]()
Finding the biologically important ones is difficult because genuine peptide hormones are relatively rare and can be buried among large numbers of ordinary fragments created during normal protein processing and breakdown.
From Science Daily ● Jul. 24, 2026
A month after the earthquakes, search efforts continue for victims whose remains might be buried underneath rubble, but operations have evolved to focus on post-earthquake humanitarian aid and rebuilding.
From Barron's ● Jul. 23, 2026
“The military options here aren’t great. The site is likely too deeply buried for U.S. munitions to penetrate, so it can’t be ‘destroyed,’” Eric Brewer, of the Nuclear Threat Initiative, wrote on X.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 22, 2026
"Not long after we buried my friend, she became pregnant with our fourth child, a boy," he wrote.
From BBC ● Jul. 19, 2026
Grandma says she’s gonna be buried with it.
From "Split the Sky" by Marie Arnold
![]()
After months of burying the accusations, and more than two years of dithering, the International Criminal Court at last fired its prosecutor, Karim Khan.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 24, 2026
"I just came from burying my father and mother, and I came here to rescue my sister," she said.
From Barron's ● Jul. 3, 2026
"We're not going to change the stigma that still exists by burying our heads in the sand and ignoring it anymore, but by getting it out there," he says.
From BBC ● Jun. 26, 2026
But a big part of him burying himself has so much to do with his brother, with his family.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 26, 2026
I pull the ribbon from the spout and shove it into my bag, burying it beneath a graveyard of almost-used-up pencils, a sketchbook, and a pack of cinnamon chewing gum.
From "Starfish" by Akemi Dawn Bowman
![]()
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.