quarry
1 Americannoun
-
quarries
plural
-
an excavation or pit, usually open to the air, from which building stone, slate, or the like, is obtained by cutting, blasting, etc.
-
an abundant source or supply.
verb (used with object)
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quarries,
present (3rd person singular)
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quarried,
past participle, past
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quarrying
present participle
-
to obtain (stone) from or as if from a quarry.
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to make a quarry in.
noun
-
quarries
plural
-
an animal or bird hunted or pursued.
-
game, especially game hunted with hounds or hawks.
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any object of search, pursuit, or attack.
noun
-
an open surface excavation for the extraction of building stone, slate, marble, etc, by drilling, blasting, or cutting
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a copious source of something, esp information
verb
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to extract (stone, slate, etc) from or as if from a quarry
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(tr) to excavate a quarry in
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to obtain (something, esp information) diligently and laboriously
he was quarrying away in the reference library
noun
-
a square or diamond shape
-
something having this shape
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another word for quarrel 2
noun
-
an animal, bird, or fish that is hunted, esp by other animals; prey
-
anything pursued or hunted
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
-
quarrysimple
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quarriessimple
-
have quarriedperfect
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has quarriedperfect
-
am quarryingprogressive
-
are quarryingprogressive
-
is quarryingprogressive
-
have been quarryingperfect progressive
-
has been quarryingperfect progressive
Past
-
quarriedsimple
-
had quarriedperfect
-
was quarryingprogressive
-
were quarryingprogressive
-
had been quarryingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of quarry1
First recorded in 1350–1400; Middle English noun quarrei, quarey, quar(r)i, from Medieval Latin quareia, quarrea, quareria, from Old French quarriere, from unrecorded Vulgar Latin quadrāria “place where stone is squared,” derivative of Latin quadrāre “to square”
Origin of quarry2
First recorded in 1275–1325; Middle English quirre, querre, quirrei “parts of a deer given to the hounds,” from Old French cuiree, cuiriee, curee “viscera, entrails” (probably influenced by cuir “leather, hide, skin”), from Latin corium “skin, hide, leather”), from Late Latin corāta (plural) “entrails,” from cor “heart”
Origin of quarry3
First recorded in 1535–45; noun use of obsolete adjective quarry “square,” from Old French quarre, from Latin quadrātus quadrate
Explanation
Both meanings of quarry have to do with going after something. An animal being hunted is called quarry, and when you dig a hole in the earth looking for rocks, both the digging and the hole are called quarry as well. Gross fact: Quarry derives from the Latin cor "heart," because hunters used to drape the entrails of their chosen quarry on their dogs' backs. The origin in a word for "heart" can help you remember both quarries: a rock quarry is searching down toward the heart of the earth; a stag's heart is considered a hunter's greatest prize.
Vocabulary lists containing quarry
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
While power plants and oil refineries have been hit, data centers and internet facilities are becoming the latest quarry for drone and missile strikes — and not just in Europe.
From Salon ● Oct. 15, 2026
Barlinnie was known for being a notoriously tough prison, where prisoners carried out hard labour, breaking rocks from a local quarry.
From BBC ● Oct. 10, 2026
Although the quarry was discovered in 1992 and excavated through 2019, many of the fossils recovered there had never been formally described and remained largely unknown to science.
From Science Daily ● Oct. 8, 2026
Lee Heyes jumped into a quarry when he was 15 after he realised the older teen had got into difficulty.
From BBC ● Oct. 3, 2026
Our next task will be to free it from the quarry.
From "The (Mostly) True Story of Cleopatra's Needle" by Dan Gutman
Put into shackles and forced to labor in the limestone quarries of Syracuse, the captive characters speak in a working-class Dublin dialect.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 9, 2026
On another nearby property overlooking an ancient sea wall, excavations revealed two stone quarries "one Roman and the other Phoenician", she said.
From Barron's ● Aug. 29, 2026
The site contains multiple fossil quarries that have been excavated for decades and continues to yield exceptionally preserved specimens from the Late Triassic.
From Science Daily ● May 29, 2026
Because my weekends often take me east to nurseries, rock yards and quarries, I usually end up at Boston Lobster, my favorite place to eat dinner in Alhambra.
From Los Angeles Times ● Nov. 28, 2025
Several of the homes on the way to the quarries were built from huge blocks of granite, containing quartz, feldspar, and mica, all visible to the naked eye, as Fred once showed me.
From "The Line Tender" by Kate Allen
Local artists, with easy access to Carrara marble quarried just down the coast, created thousands of sculpted scenes that by turns commemorate, re-create or just refer to the dead in towering dioramas.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 23, 2026
Most of the Aravallis lie in Rajasthan, and a quarter of the state's hills have been quarried, a 2018 Supreme Court-constituted committee found.
From Barron's ● May 31, 2026
Most of the material will be hauled away in dump trucks, which will make thousands of trips to return the rocks and earth to the original 37-acre pit where material was quarried for dam construction.
From Los Angeles Times ● May 3, 2024
According to Mega Cavern, enough limestone was originally quarried out to rebuild all three pyramids of Giza.
From Salon ● Oct. 7, 2023
Once, it was said, they had quarried immense blocks of ice from frozen lakes deep in the haunted forest, dragging them south on sledges so the Wall might be raised ever higher.
From "A Game of Thrones" by George R.R. Martin
“It builds on our core quarrying competency, expands our geographic footprint and immediately establishes Martin Marietta as the leading national producer of lime solutions,” he said.
From Barron's ● Jun. 29, 2026
Jobs connected to mining, quarrying and oil and gas extraction also saw strong wage growth, according to the analysis.
From MarketWatch ● Jun. 10, 2026
States that depend heavily on extractive industries such as mining, quarrying and oil and gas extraction tended to offer fewer protections for insects and arachnids.
From Science Daily ● Mar. 14, 2026
Nant Gwrtheyrn, the National Welsh Language Centre, which itself occupies what was once a small slate quarrying village, is a short distance down the coast.
From BBC ● Feb. 27, 2026
All the other visible hills, including those facing me across the narrow valley, looked to be in good health, except where they had been scarred and gouged by quarrying or strip mining, which was regularly.
From "A Walk in the Woods" by Bill Bryson
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