full of cheerfulness or gaiety; joyous in disposition or spirit.
a merry little man.
laughingly happy; mirthful; festively joyous; hilarious.
a merry time at the party.
Archaic. causing happiness; pleasant; delightful.
cheerful; jolly
very funny; hilarious
informal slightly drunk
archaic delightful
to revel; be festive
informal to disturb greatly; disrupt
See Mary.
First recorded before 900; Middle English meri(e),myrie, murie, Old English myr(i)ge, mer(i)ge “pleasant, delightful”
To be merry is to be happy, especially in a fun, festive way. Parties and celebrations are merry, and so are the fun people who attend them. This old fashioned word for “happy” is popular in December when people say, “Merry Christmas.” To be merry is to be happy, jaunty, and ready to frolic. A group of people laughing as they walk down the street is a merry gang. Anything merry is festive, often involving games, celebrations, and parties. A merry-go-round makes kids happy as it spins them around. Smiling and laughing are signs of being merry. If you go along your merry way, you walk away happily, maybe even skipping.
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His group of merry men held meetups at coffee shops, beer halls and the zoo, hosted holiday hootenannies and even offered CPR classes.
From Los Angeles Times • Jun. 19, 2026
Don’t conflate Fama and his merry band of economists at the business school with the Chicago School of Economics, practitioners in the university’s economics department led by another Nobel laureate, Milton Friedman.
From Barron's • Jun. 18, 2026
This Robin is anything but a merry man, and the film is anything but a fun adventure.
From The Wall Street Journal • Jun. 18, 2026
Bruno Fernandes has had an outstanding season for United, and Liverpool will need to stop the Portuguese Pied Piper from leading them a merry dance.
From BBC • Apr. 30, 2026
The stern, merry eyes turned down on him.
From "The Red Pony" by John Steinbeck
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.
