bury
verb (used with object)
to put in the ground and cover with earth.
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bury
American
[ber-ee]
/ ˈbɛr i /
verb (used with object)
-
buries,
present (3rd person singular)
-
buried,
past participle, past
-
burying
present participle
-
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
-
buries
plural
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.
bury
1
British
/ ˈbɛrɪ /
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
Bury
2
British
/ ˈbɛrɪ /
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"
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List 5
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"Mysteries of the Ancient Past"
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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:
Look forward to a delightful movie with a wild backstory: Its corporate ownership tried to bury Coyote vs.
From Slate ● Aug. 27, 2026
I don’t want to bury that under caveats.
From MarketWatch ● Aug. 27, 2026
My mom, who also had a propensity for hair that could double as armor, often joked we should bury her with a six-pack of Diet Coke and a bottle of hair spray.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 27, 2026
"We're waiting to recover the body so we can bury her," he told AFP.
From Barron's ● Aug. 14, 2026
I bury myself in math and social studies worksheets and backward writing—sffumrae, sffumrae—as if earmuffs protect me.
From "Muffled" by Jennifer Gennari
But West Ham raced to a 5-0 half‑time lead, with Alvin Martin, Trevor Brooking and Tony Cottee tearing Bury apart.
From BBC ● Aug. 8, 2026
A genetic study of 132 people buried in a large megalithic tomb near Bury, about 50 kilometers north of Paris, has uncovered evidence of a dramatic population collapse and replacement during the Stone Age.
From Science Daily ● Jul. 8, 2026
The buses operate as part of the Bee Network alongside trams and bicycles, which helps connect Manchester city centre with the areas around it like Salford, Bury and Rochdale.
From BBC ● Jul. 5, 2026
Jamie Yetter was staying at the Marriott Puerto Vallarta Resort and Spa with her fiancé, Chris Bury, and her teenage daughter when they witnessed the attack Friday night, she told NBC Los Angeles.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 30, 2026
“This is trickier. They’re dormant, waiting. Bury them in soil. Give them water and sunlight and they’ll grow. In a way, they’re immortal. And they were inside the apple all along.”
From "The Fourteenth Goldfish" by Jennifer L. Holm
At every turn, Schoenbrun buries the movie alive, heaping layer upon layer of meta subtext onto it.
From Salon ● Aug. 26, 2026
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
Mr. Yasunaga, however, forms his creations out of glaze and other ornaments, then buries the objects in sand or unrefined clay to fire them.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Dec. 26, 2025
The boy wiggles his finger and Carmine buries his head in my lap.
From "Orphan Train" by Christina Baker Kline
With mortuaries overflowing, Nepal has buried hundreds of bodies in mass graves after collecting DNA samples for future identification, according to police.
From Barron's ● Sep. 8, 2026
"So to be fair to them, they only buried that information for 25 years," he said sarcastically.
From BBC ● Sep. 8, 2026
Archival discoveries, including a long-forgotten 19th-century autobiography, are changing how historians understand Shadrack Byfield, an English veteran of the War of 1812 who buried his own amputated arm and later created a custom prosthesis.
From Science Daily ● Sep. 7, 2026
Markham-Lee is a keen metal detectorist and the ring he used to propose to his partner was one he found buried deep in the mud at Walton-on-the-Naze.
From BBC ● Sep. 4, 2026
Slowly, I slid down the side of the bookcase until I was sitting on my heels, then buried my face in my hands.
From "Bye Forever, I Guess" by Jodi Meadows
"In the Wasatch, the mountains themselves are eroding and burying the snow, and that's why the rock glaciers exist," Anderson noted.
From Science Daily ● Aug. 28, 2026
On Wednesday morning, a tsunami-like wall of water and mud powered down, caused by a glacial collapse that sent a torrent of debris downstream, burying homes and sweeping away bridges.
From Barron's ● Aug. 28, 2026
One of them was a former Monsanto worker who spent three years helping to seal toxic waste underground and said staff had "cheap" protective equipment and were not told what they were burying.
From BBC ● Aug. 27, 2026
The burying of the hatchet is a great relief for Edwards, who was troubled by the tension between his colleagues during their time on “Good Day L.A.”
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 4, 2026
“Strange that they are burying him in the sea,” another said.
From "When the Sea Turned to Silver" by Grace Lin
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.
