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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

Fellow tourist Vladislav, who arrived by road from the Russian region of Krasnodar, said he had brought jerry cans filled with petrol in case he was unable to find fuel.

From Barron's ● Jul. 31, 2026

Rationing is widespread and many areas have banned the use of jerry cans.

From BBC ● Jul. 8, 2026

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

Mortars lay in the sand, rice spilling out of them; jerry cans leaked water, and fires were left unattended under cooking huts.

From "A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier" by Ishmael Beah

“The allegation that Kelli manipulates or controls Jerry is false and deeply unfair. They share a loving and supportive partnership of more than 25 years,” a spokesman for Gerald and Kelli O. Ford said.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 30, 2026

Jerry Sheldon, an analyst at IHL Group, sees these habits as part of a larger cultural shift.

From BBC ● Aug. 29, 2026

In 2011, former Time Warner Cable executives hammered out the 20-year agreement with the Lakers, then owned by the late Jerry Buss.

From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 21, 2026

Jerry Buss bought the Lakers in 1979 and viewed it as a family business.

From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 21, 2026

The Jerry philistine proceeded to wad everything I could remember of “Tam o’Shanter” into balls of wastepaper.

From "Code Name Verity" by Elizabeth Wein

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

They wanted to know: How many live Jerries are in Crete?

From Time Magazine Archive

He was stunting so wildly and slamming lead so fast the Jerries began giving him a wide berth.

From A Yankee Flier Over Berlin by Paul Laune