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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 wireless carrier has focused on amassing “higher quality accounts” after introducing new plans last year.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 23, 2026

EasyJet is at the centre of a bidding war between two US private equity firms vying for ownership of the carrier that flies mainly across Europe.

From Barron's ● Jul. 23, 2026

Marshall Islands-flagged vehicle carrier Liu Jiang Kou was sailing to Saudi Arabia's Jeddah port from China before completely changing course on Monday in the Gulf of Aden.

From BBC ● Jul. 22, 2026

Several other vessels including a vehicle carrier and an oil supertanker in the Gulf of Aden heading toward the Red Sea also made U-turns, according to financial data provider LSEG.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 21, 2026

And I recognize one of the Jewish boys from our synagogue—Benny, whose father works as a water carrier, delivering water to the houses from the town fountain, la fuentezica, as we call it.

From "Across So Many Seas" by Ruth Behar

The UK's Carrier Strike Group is currently deployed off Iceland under Nato command, with 1,500 British personnel on board.

From BBC ● Jul. 6, 2026

The Air Carrier Access Act prohibits commercial airlines from discriminating against passengers with disabilities.

From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 27, 2026

Whether that’s what happened on Wednesday with Carrier and Lennox shares, he said, there are too many variables to make a direct connection.

From MarketWatch ● Apr. 16, 2026

Madison is much smaller than Carrier, which has over $20 billion in annual sales, and is more comparable to Lennox International, which has about $5 billion.

From Barron's ● Apr. 15, 2026

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

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

Oil and gas tankers, bulk carriers and container ships loaded with raw materials and goods pass through these narrow natural corridors.

From Barron's ● Jul. 21, 2026

Originating thousands of years ago in Indonesia, it moved west as its carriers travelled along merchant routes, Prof Laron believes.

From BBC ● Jul. 17, 2026

He said all six commodity carriers traveling through the strait on Sunday did so with transponders off.

From MarketWatch ● Jul. 13, 2026

A basket of U.S. carriers is beating the S&P 500 despite a war and an oil-price spike.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 9, 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