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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

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

"I used to sell up to five jerry cans of shea oil a week, right now I can only fill two jerry cans at most."

From BBC ● May 1, 2025

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

From Seattle Times ● Feb. 23, 2024

A lengthy line of yellow, black, green and blue jerry cans were placed in a tidy line as people settled in for hours of waiting to get a meagre ration.

From Reuters ● Nov. 7, 2023

Behind her, one of the firemen placed the charred remnants of the jerry can into the truck—to send to the insurance company, she had no doubt.

From "Little Fires Everywhere" by Celeste Ng

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

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

Written by founding member Jerry Dammers, "it was recorded on eight-track in a tiny little basement in Royal Leamington Spa," Panter recalled.

From BBC ● Jul. 4, 2026

Linda had tried doing the album a different way — did some versions with Jerry Wexler and it didn’t work out.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 26, 2026

At the Democratic National Convention in 2016, 102-year-old Jerry Emmett of Prescott, Arizona, announced that the Arizona delegation was casting fifty-one of its eighty-five votes for Hillary Clinton for president.

From "Votes for Women!" by Winifred Conkling

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

From Textbooks ● Jan. 1, 2012

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

Did you hear that German girls threw flowers at the Jerries as they marched into Sibiu and Seghisoara?

From Time Magazine Archive

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

From Time Magazine Archive

"If we tell a lot o' brass hats, the Jerries will sure hear about it," O'Malley said sourly.

From A Yankee Flier Over Berlin by Laune, Paul