First recorded in 1850–55; of obscure origin
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
The theater foundation The Playwrights Sanctuary directed by St John's University's Dr larry Myers is helping with spirirtuality & onsite participation & empathy.
From New York Times ● Dec. 7, 2017
Horror, larry cohen, populist, @gilbertcruz Kristen Stewart, Robert Pattinson, Taylor Lautner A human gets pregnant by a vampire.
From Time ● Nov. 19, 2011
They receive a huge paycheck for very little work, and then cry when the going gets rough. — larry Brokers should do something to earn their inflated commissions.
From New York Times ● Aug. 23, 2010
A standard larry with a capacity of 8 tons, and the necessary scales for weighing accurately the coal charged and 290 coke produced, complete the equipment.
From Transactions of the American Society of Civil Engineers, vol. LXX, Dec. 1910 Federal Investigations of Mine Accidents, Structural Materials and Fuels. Paper No. 1171 by Wilson, Herbert M.
That wer all a part of the larry!
From Tess of the d'Urbervilles by Hardy, Thomas
In November, Larry Summers, the former president of Harvard University, stepped down from OpenAI’s board following the release of emails linking him to the disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 21, 2026
Unsurprisingly, both Larry and David Ellison are big fans of artificial intelligence, seeing it as a way to streamline their surveillance operations, and for what David Ellison euphemistically calls “cost efficiencies and synergies.”
From Salon ● Jul. 20, 2026
Ellison has backing from his father, tech billionaire and Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 18, 2026
On a call with analysts, BlackRock chief executive Larry Fink said Wednesday he thought the rally in U.S. stocks had more room to run.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 15, 2026
"Listen, nurse, I had this big bunch of larkspur Larry brought last night."
From "The Bell Jar" by Sylvia Plath
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.
