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• bury
  bury

  verb (used with object)

  to put in the ground and cover with earth.
• Bury
  Bury

  noun

  a town in NW England, in Bury unitary authority, Greater Manchester: an early textile centre. Pop: 60 178 (2001)

bury

American  

[ber-ee] / ˈbɛr i /

verb (used with object)

• buries,
  present (3rd person singular)
• buried,
  past participle,  past
• burying
  present participle

1. to put in the ground and cover with earth.

   The pirates buried the chest on the island.

2. to put (a corpse) in the ground or a vault, or into the sea, often with ceremony.

   They buried the sailor with full military honors.

   Synonyms:

   inhume, entomb, inter

   Antonyms:

   exhume, disinter

3. to plunge in deeply; cause to sink in.

   to bury an arrow in a target.

4. to cover in order to conceal from sight.

   She buried the card in the deck.

   Synonyms:

   secrete, hide

   Antonyms:

   uncover

5. to immerse (oneself).

   He buried himself in his work.

6. to put out of one's mind.

   to bury an insult.

7. to consign to obscurity; cause to appear insignificant by assigning to an unimportant location, position, etc..

   Her name was buried in small print at the end of the book.

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noun

• buries
  plural

1. Nautical. housing.

idioms

1. bury the hatchet, to become reconciled or reunited.

2. bury one's head in the sand, to avoid reality; ignore the facts of a situation.

   You cannot continue to bury your head in the sand—you must learn to face facts.

bury ¹ British  

/ ˈbɛrɪ /

verb

1. to place (a corpse) in a grave, usually with funeral rites; inter

2. to place in the earth and cover with soil

3. to lose through death

4. to cover from sight; hide

5. to embed; sink

   to bury a nail in plaster

6. to occupy (oneself) with deep concentration; engross

   to be buried in a book

7. to dismiss from the mind; abandon

   to bury old hatreds

8. to cease hostilities and become reconciled

9. to refuse to face a problem

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Bury ² British  

/ ˈbɛrɪ /

noun

1. a town in NW England, in Bury unitary authority, Greater Manchester: an early textile centre. Pop: 60 178 (2001)

2. a unitary authority in NW England, in Greater Manchester. Pop: 181 900 (2003 est). Area: 99 sq km (38 sq miles)

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Other Word Forms

Derived Forms

• rebury
  verb (used with object)

Inflected Forms

Nouns

• buries
  plural

Participles

• burying
  present
• buried
  past

Conjugated Forms

Present

• bury
  simple
• buries
  simple
• have buried
  perfect
• has buried
  perfect
• am burying
  progressive
• are burying
  progressive
• is burying
  progressive
• have been burying
  perfect progressive
• has been burying
  perfect progressive

Past

• buried
  simple
• had buried
  perfect
• was burying
  progressive
• were burying
  progressive
• had been burying
  perfect progressive

Future

• will bury
  simple
• will have buried
  perfect
• will be burying
  progressive
• will have been burying
  perfect progressive

Etymology

Origin of bury

First recorded before 1000; Middle English berien, buryen, Old English byrgan “to bury, conceal”; akin to Old English beorgan “to hide, protect, preserve”; cognate with Dutch, German bergen, Gothic bairgan, Old Norse bjarga

Explanation

When you dig a hole in the ground, put an object in the hole, and cover it up with dirt, you bury it. Your dog might prefer spending the majority of his time digging holes to bury his toy collection. You can bury something to hide it, or it can be part of a funeral ritual to bury a person who's died. You could also predict that the coming snow will bury the city, or you might bury your face in your hands if you were feeling dejected. The root of bury is the Proto-Indo-European word bhergh, "to protect or preserve." If you bury your money in the yard, maybe you're trying to protect it from thieves.

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

bury Bury buries buried burying

"Let us grieve and bury my son King Oyo."

From BBC ● Sep. 10, 2026

Acme has spent the past several years in cinematic purgatory after its original studio tried to bury it for a tax write-off.

From Slate ● Sep. 1, 2026

The floods and landslides that struck Nepal and China's autonomous Tibet region saw a tsunami-like wall of water bury homes, smash bridges and sweep away vehicles.

From Barron's ● Aug. 28, 2026

My mom, who also had a propensity for hair that could double as armor, often joked we should bury her with a six-pack of Diet Coke and a bottle of hair spray.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 27, 2026

I roll up the top into a ball and bury it at the bottom of the laundry hamper.

From "Maybe He Just Likes You" by Barbara Dee

A teenage boy, arrested on suspicion of assaulting an emergency worker, was taken to Bury St Edmunds Police Investigation Centre and has since been released on bail until 4 October.

From BBC ● Aug. 10, 2026

Ward - whose parents Brendan and Lisa left East Kilbride for Bury before he was born - had just become the country's third gold medallist on day three of the Games.

From BBC ● Jul. 26, 2026

A genetic study of 132 people buried in a large megalithic tomb near Bury, about 50 kilometers north of Paris, has uncovered evidence of a dramatic population collapse and replacement during the Stone Age.

From Science Daily ● Jul. 8, 2026

Jamie Yetter was staying at the Marriott Puerto Vallarta Resort and Spa with her fiancé, Chris Bury, and her teenage daughter when they witnessed the attack Friday night, she told NBC Los Angeles.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 30, 2026

If they took a step, Their hooves would Bury the ant, Little pilgrim of crust And fallen bread.

From "Neighborhood Odes" by Gary Soto

She plucks them, then buries them in silica sand for up to two weeks to drain any moisture.

From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 2, 2026

At every turn, Schoenbrun buries the movie alive, heaping layer upon layer of meta subtext onto it.

From Salon ● Aug. 26, 2026

Instead, Microsoft buries Azure inside a segment called “Intelligent Cloud” that includes legacy software, forcing investors to guess where the legacy products end and the real cloud growth begins.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 26, 2026

Dozens of crumbling buildings in Venezuela's decimated earthquake zone bear a spray-painted letter 'D' -- a sign that buries any hope of finding life beneath the rubble.

From Barron's ● Jul. 1, 2026

She speaks quickly to her husband in Spanish but he just responds, “Ay, Carmelina,” and buries his head in the crook of his arm.

From "Native Speaker" by Chang-rae Lee

Grono and researchers from Australia, France, and New Zealand examined phytoliths recovered from buried sediments inside Cloggs Cave.

From Science Daily ● Sep. 15, 2026

Then she began detailing those believed to have died and where they were buried.

From BBC ● Sep. 12, 2026

Significantly, the Sphinx is moldering half buried in sand.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 12, 2026

Moselakgomo will be buried in the small town of Phake, in northeastern Mpumalanga province on Sunday.

From Barron's

Hospital authorities had buried the unknown old man in the paupers’ cemetery.

From "The Hiding Place" by Corrie ten Boom

Why does tennis keep burying its best product?

From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 11, 2026

With mortuaries overflowing in Nepal, authorities have begun burying hundreds of unidentified bodies after DNA sampling.

From Barron's ● Sep. 1, 2026

Enormous quantities of material would have been thrown outward during the collision and redistributed across Deimos, burying many older surface features.

From Science Daily ● Aug. 26, 2026

A former Monsanto worker who spent three years helping seal toxic waste underground said staff had "cheap" protective equipment and were not told what they were burying.

From BBC ● Aug. 25, 2026

When I finished burying Daisy Mae, I looked up and all the boys except Quentin were there, called by the invisible network that still seemed to connect everybody in Coalwood.

From "October Sky" by Homer Hickam

Related Words

• deposit
• entomb
• plant