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• carrier
  carrier

  noun

  a person or thing that carries.
• Carrier
  Carrier

  noun

  a member of an Athapaskan Native North American people of British Columbia

carrier

American  

[kar-ee-er] / ˈkær i ər /

noun

• carriers
  plural

1. a person or thing that carries.

2. an employee of the post office who carries mail.

3. a person who delivers newspapers, magazines, etc., on a particular route.

4. Transportation.

   1. an individual or company, as a railroad or steamship line, engaged in transporting passengers or goods for profit.

   2. common carrier.

5. Insurance. a company that acts or functions as an underwriter or insurer.

6. a frame, usually of metal, attached to a vehicle for carrying skis, luggage, etc., as on top of an automobile or station wagon; rack.

7. aircraft carrier.

8. Immunology. an individual harboring specific pathogenic organisms who, though often immune to the agent harbored, may transmit the disease to others.

9. Genetics.

   1. an individual possessing an unexpressed, recessive trait.

   2. the bearer of a defective gene.

10. Also called carrier wave.  Radio. the wave whose amplitude, frequency, or phase is to be varied or modulated to transmit a signal.

11. Machinery. a mechanism by which something is carried or moved.

12. Chemistry. a catalytic agent that brings about a transfer of an element or group of atoms from one compound to another.

13. Also called charge carrier.  Physics. any of the mobile electrons or holes in a metal or semiconductor that enable it to conduct electrical charge.

14. Physical Chemistry. a usually inactive substance that acts as a vehicle for an active substance.

15. carrier pigeon.

16. Painting. base.

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Carrier ¹ British  

/ ˈkærɪə /

noun

1. a member of an Athapaskan Native North American people of British Columbia

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carrier ² British  

/ ˈkærɪə /

noun

1. a person, thing, or organization employed to carry goods, passengers, etc

2. a mechanism by which something is carried or moved, such as a device for transmitting rotation from the faceplate of a lathe to the workpiece

3. pathol another name for vector

4. pathol a person or animal that, without having any symptoms of a disease, is capable of transmitting it to others

5. Also called: charge carrier.  physics an electron, ion, or hole that carries the charge in a conductor or semiconductor

6. short for carrier wave

7. chem

   1. the inert solid on which a dyestuff is adsorbed in forming a lake

   2. a substance, such as kieselguhr or asbestos, used to support a catalyst

   3. an inactive substance containing a radioisotope used in radioactive tracing

   4. an inert gas used to transport the sample through a gas-chromatography column

   5. a catalyst that effects the transfer of an atom or group from one molecule to another

8. See aircraft carrier

9. a breed of domestic fancy pigeon having a large walnut-shaped wattle over the beak; a distinct variety of pigeon from the homing or carrier pigeon See also carrier pigeon

10. a US name for roof rack

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carrier Scientific  

/ kăr′ē-ər /

1. A person, animal, or plant that serves as a host for a pathogen and can transmit it to others, but is immune to it. Mosquitoes are carriers of malaria.

2. An organism that carries a gene for a trait but does not show the trait itself. Carriers can produce offspring that express the trait by mating with another carrier of the same gene.

3. See more at recessive

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Other Word Forms

Derived Forms

• intercarrier
  noun
• noncarrier
  noun
• supercarrier
  noun

Inflected Forms

Nouns

• carriers
  plural

Etymology

Origin of carrier

Middle English word dating back to 1350–1400; see origin at carry, -er ¹

Explanation

In medicine, a person is a carrier if they test positive for a pathogen or a genetic defect without showing any symptoms. This person can unwittingly spread the illness to others without ever knowing he or she is the source. If your job involves carrying things or people, you work as a carrier. If you deliver newspapers, you are a newspaper carrier. If the job is to transport household items or people, your business is as a common carrier, such as a moving company or an airline. But if you deliver aircraft, you are not an aircraft carrier — that would be a large, flat-decked, military ship where planes can land or take off at sea.

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

carrier Carrier carriers

The USS George Washington, the American aircraft carrier, had participated in previous Freedom Edge exercises but is unavailable because of its recent deployment to the Middle East.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 7, 2026

The Boeing 767-300, operated by cargo carrier 21 Air for Amazon, was arriving from San Juan, Puerto Rico, when it went off the runway shortly before 2 p.m., according to the Federal Aviation Administration.

From Salon ● Sep. 7, 2026

Instead, all of these behaviors could arise from the same underlying Dirac electronic structure, with the outcome largely determined by the carrier density and the size of the Fermi surface in each sample.

From Science Daily ● Sep. 5, 2026

The Navy attributed the incidents on the Truman in part to staffing shortages on the carrier and fatigue among overworked sailors.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 5, 2026

A guy emerges from around the corner, two plates clutched in one hand and a cardboard drink carrier in the other.

From "Legendary Frybread Drive-In" by Cynthia Leitich Smith

Robert E. Loughran, commander of Carrier Strike Group 3, which includes the Lincoln, said in a statement Wednesday.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 2, 2026

On Monday, Derek Barrs, administrator of the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, cited Platinum Plus Truck Driving School in Fresno, which certified 36 drivers who were later cited for English language proficiency violations.

From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 31, 2026

Two F-35 jets then flew from the Prince of Wales to escort the Bear-F away from the Carrier Strike Group.

From BBC ● Jul. 6, 2026

"Welcome to the Caribbean, Nimitz Carrier Strike Group!" the Southern Command posted on X, alongside a video flaunting the ship's capabilities.

From Barron's ● May 21, 2026

The air-conditioning is by Carrier, and even the bottled water is by Coke.

From "The World Is Flat" by Thomas L. Friedman

Despite its long deployment, the Lincoln avoided some of the accidents that have afflicted other carriers on recent deployments, including during Operation Epic Fury.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 5, 2026

The billionaire insurance executive was busy enough during a career that lasted more than 70 years, highlighted by his founding of Mercury General Corp., which became one of California’s largest property and casualty carriers.

From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 4, 2026

That signal reveals important information about a material, including whether its current is carried by positive or negative charges, how many charge carriers are present, and how easily they can move.

From Science Daily ● Sep. 3, 2026

It writes that such weapons would be "capable of threatening US aircraft carriers and other warships in the Middle East".

From BBC ● Sep. 2, 2026

By 1910, the greatest minds in biology had accepted that discrete particles of information carried on chromosomes were the carriers of hereditary information.

From "The Gene" by Siddhartha Mukherjee

Related Words

• aircraft carrier
• warship