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• jerry
  jerry

  adjective

  of inferior materials or workmanship.
• Jerry
  Jerry

  noun

  a male given name, form of Gerald, Gerard, Jeremiah, and Jerome.

jerry

¹ American  

[jer-ee] / ˈdʒɛr i /

adjective

Building Trades Slang.

1. of inferior materials or workmanship.

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jerry ² American  

[jer-ee] / ˈdʒɛr i /

noun

Chiefly British Slang.

jerries plural

1. a chamber pot.

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Jerry ³ American  

[jer-ee] / ˈdʒɛr i /

noun

1. a male given name, form of Gerald, Gerard, Jeremiah, and Jerome.

2. a female given name, form of Geraldine.

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Jerry ⁴ American  

[jer-ee] / ˈdʒɛr i /

noun

Older Slang: Sometimes Offensive.

Jerries plural

1. a German, especially a German soldier.

2. Germans collectively.

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Jerry ¹ British  

/ ˈdʒɛrɪ /

noun

1. a German, esp a German soldier

2. the Germans collectively

   Jerry didn't send his bombers out last night

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jerry ² British  

/ ˈdʒɛrɪ /

noun

1. an informal word for chamber pot

2. short for jeroboam

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Sensitive Note

Jerry was a nickname used by Allied soldiers for a German soldier during World War I, but it was more commonly used in World War II.

Other Word Forms

Noun Inflected Forms

• Jerries
  plural
• jerries
  plural

Etymology

Origin of jerry¹

First recorded in 1875–80; short for jerry-built

Origin of jerry²

1820–30; short for Jeroboam (because if one drank such a large amount of liquid, one would have to void urine during the night)

Origin of Jerry⁴

First recorded in 1910–15; Ger(man) + -y ¹

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

jerry Jerry Jerries

People bought five-gallon jerry cans, filled them, and bought more.

From Los Angeles Times ● Mar. 18, 2026

Left behind on the street outside the Louvre was the truck, a jerry can, a blowtorch, angle grinders, a walkie-talkie and yellow vests.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 31, 2025

As she filled up plastic jerry cans with water from a standpipe in the street, the 39-year-old admitted she was struggling to provide the food and water her young children needed.

From BBC ● Mar. 18, 2024

A child lugs a jerry can half his size full of water.

From Seattle Times ● Feb. 23, 2024

They sat and rested and drank the last of their good water and left the plastic jerry jug standing in the road.

From "The Road" by Cormac McCarthy

“Saturday Night Live,” Second City, David Letterman, Jerry Seinfeld and Adam Sandler all owe a debt to the artists who started life as Dino Crocetti and Joseph Levitch.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 25, 2026

Jerry Melillo, a Distinguished Scientist at the Marine Biological Laboratory, has spent the past 37 years studying heated plots in the Harvard Forest in central Massachusetts.

From Science Daily ● Jul. 14, 2026

“Our customers really use us as an alternative…to be smarter in what they’re doing based on the economic conditions out there,” said Jerry Jory, a division vice president at Ezcorp.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 6, 2026

I was interviewing Jerry Seinfeld for The New Yorker when I was working on the book, and I read a couple of the behind-the-scenes books, and talked to some “Seinfeld” writers.

From Salon ● Jul. 5, 2026

“I can’t stay very long, I told Father I was helping Jerry Sanford move a log.”

From "My Brother Sam is Dead" by James Lincoln Collier and Christopher Collier

I’m not in Cisterna because the Jerries still got it, but we were pretty darn close.

From Textbooks ● Jan. 1, 2012

I guess the Jerries must have been holding it for the poor fellows caught in the lights.

From Time Magazine Archive

Last week the same boy, now 21, took off in a Hurricane, swept around the Channel looking for Jerries, came back to earth on a sodden British airfield.

From Time Magazine Archive

Now that the Jerries meant business, internal communications broke down: during raids the big red busses pulled to the curb and the high black quacking taxis stopped short and their cabbies ducked.

From Time Magazine Archive

O'Malley had gotten into the formation first and he was taking it apart with a display of aerial gymnastics that made the Jerries forget anything but escape.

From A Yankee Flier with the R.A.F. by Montgomery, Rutherford George