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• carrier
  carrier

  noun

  a person or thing that carries.
• Carrier
  Carrier

  noun

  a member of an Athapaskan Native North American people of British Columbia

carrier

American  

[kar-ee-er] / ˈkær i ər /

noun

• carriers
  plural

1. a person or thing that carries.

2. an employee of the post office who carries mail.

3. a person who delivers newspapers, magazines, etc., on a particular route.

4. Transportation.

   1. an individual or company, as a railroad or steamship line, engaged in transporting passengers or goods for profit.

   2. common carrier.

5. Insurance. a company that acts or functions as an underwriter or insurer.

6. a frame, usually of metal, attached to a vehicle for carrying skis, luggage, etc., as on top of an automobile or station wagon; rack.

7. aircraft carrier.

8. Immunology. an individual harboring specific pathogenic organisms who, though often immune to the agent harbored, may transmit the disease to others.

9. Genetics.

   1. an individual possessing an unexpressed, recessive trait.

   2. the bearer of a defective gene.

10. Also called carrier wave. Radio. the wave whose amplitude, frequency, or phase is to be varied or modulated to transmit a signal.

11. Machinery. a mechanism by which something is carried or moved.

12. Chemistry. a catalytic agent that brings about a transfer of an element or group of atoms from one compound to another.

13. Also called charge carrier. Physics. any of the mobile electrons or holes in a metal or semiconductor that enable it to conduct electrical charge.

14. Physical Chemistry. a usually inactive substance that acts as a vehicle for an active substance.

15. carrier pigeon.

16. Painting. base.

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Carrier ¹ British  

/ ˈkærɪə /

noun

1. a member of an Athapaskan Native North American people of British Columbia

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carrier ² British  

/ ˈkærɪə /

noun

1. a person, thing, or organization employed to carry goods, passengers, etc

2. a mechanism by which something is carried or moved, such as a device for transmitting rotation from the faceplate of a lathe to the workpiece

3. pathol another name for vector

4. pathol a person or animal that, without having any symptoms of a disease, is capable of transmitting it to others

5. Also called: charge carrier. physics an electron, ion, or hole that carries the charge in a conductor or semiconductor

6. short for carrier wave

7. chem

   1. the inert solid on which a dyestuff is adsorbed in forming a lake

   2. a substance, such as kieselguhr or asbestos, used to support a catalyst

   3. an inactive substance containing a radioisotope used in radioactive tracing

   4. an inert gas used to transport the sample through a gas-chromatography column

   5. a catalyst that effects the transfer of an atom or group from one molecule to another

8. See aircraft carrier

9. a breed of domestic fancy pigeon having a large walnut-shaped wattle over the beak; a distinct variety of pigeon from the homing or carrier pigeon See also carrier pigeon

10. a US name for roof rack

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carrier Scientific  

/ kăr′ē-ər /

1. A person, animal, or plant that serves as a host for a pathogen and can transmit it to others, but is immune to it. Mosquitoes are carriers of malaria.

2. An organism that carries a gene for a trait but does not show the trait itself. Carriers can produce offspring that express the trait by mating with another carrier of the same gene.

3. See more at recessive

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Other Word Forms

Derived Forms

• intercarrier
  noun
• noncarrier
  noun
• supercarrier
  noun

Inflected Forms

Nouns

• carriers
  plural

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Etymology

Origin of carrier

Middle English word dating back to 1350–1400; see origin at carry, -er ¹

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Explanation

In medicine, a person is a carrier if they test positive for a pathogen or a genetic defect without showing any symptoms. This person can unwittingly spread the illness to others without ever knowing he or she is the source. If your job involves carrying things or people, you work as a carrier. If you deliver newspapers, you are a newspaper carrier. If the job is to transport household items or people, your business is as a common carrier, such as a moving company or an airline. But if you deliver aircraft, you are not an aircraft carrier — that would be a large, flat-decked, military ship where planes can land or take off at sea.

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

carrier Carrier carriers

Hours later, the pilots slam back onto the carrier traveling more than 100 miles an hour, a cable catching their tailhooks to bring the night’s work to an end in less than two seconds.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 30, 2026

Jeffrey Heames, who commands the carrier strike group.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 30, 2026

They are lifted off the runway by a dual fuselage carrier plane to about 45,000 feet, where they separate, blast off to an altitude of 50 miles above earth and float back down.

From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 29, 2026

The company currently offers Starlink Mobile as an add-on with partners across several countries but aims to provide both satellite and ground-based connectivity as a standalone carrier.

From MarketWatch ● Oct. 28, 2026

Running low on fuel, Stockdale headed back to his carrier, the Ticonderoga.

From "Most Dangerous: Daniel Ellsberg and the Secret History of the Vietnam War" by Steve Sheinkin

Carrier Global plans to invest over $600 million in a new Fort Worth, Texas, plant to make cooling equipment for data centers and other industrial buildings.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 22, 2026

“We have significant demand over the next two years,” said Carrier Chief Executive Dave Gitlin.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 22, 2026

Carrier forces were diverted from the Pacific to the Gulf, including the USS Abraham Lincoln and later the Japan-based USS George Washington.

From BBC ● Sep. 8, 2026

In early August, the Motor Carrier Safety Administration moved to codify those language requirements through the federal rulemaking process.

From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 31, 2026

The air-conditioning is by Carrier, and even the bottled water is by Coke.

From "The World Is Flat" by Thomas L. Friedman

“There are just so many variables that the insurance companies didn’t really know how to price it, and so it’s been very expensive for motor carriers to insure these trucks,” Loya said.

From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 29, 2026

ShipMatrix, which analyzes parcel-shipping data, estimates that carriers will deliver 2.4 billion parcels during the peak holiday season that starts around Thanksgiving and ends in January.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 29, 2026

The airport says other international carriers are coming, including Qatar Airways from December 2027, Fiji Airways from March 2027, and Vietjet Air from January 2027.

From Barron's ● Oct. 26, 2026

Common carriers offering trucking to all comers also had to get approval for their rates and routes.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 23, 2026

Our carriers went first, sending planes against the Okinawan airfields.

From "Code Talker: A Novel About the Navajo Marines of World War Two" by Joseph Bruchac

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Related Words

• aircraft carrier
• warship

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