mary
/ˈmeːɹi/
Word Rarity
Uncommon
Frequency: Zipf frequency 4.78 in modern English
9
Scrabble Score
4
Letters
2
Syllables
4
Unique Chars
Meaning
name
A female given name from Aramaic or Hebrew.
name
The mother of Jesus; believed in Christianity and Islam to have been a virgin, and believed by most Christians to have been born herself without sin, to have been assumed into Heaven without death, and to act as a sympathetic intercessor for believers.
name
Any of several other women in the New Testament, notably:
name
Any of several other women in the New Testament, notably:
name
A city, the capital of the region of Mary, in southeastern Turkmenistan.
Example Sentences
- "I have a passion for the name of Mary, For once it was a magic sound to me: And still it half calls up the realm of fairy Where I beheld what never was to be."
- "Mary, which is as common as a white violet, and like that has something indestructibly sweet and simple, and fit for all wear, high or low, suits the cottage or the palace, the garden or the field, the pretty and the ugly, the old and the young;"
- "For it was Mary; Mary / Plain as any name can be / But with propriety, society / Will say "Marie". / But it was Mary; Mary / Long before the fashions came / And there's something there that sounds so square / It's a grand old name."
- "They had called their children Ann, Mary, and John as a reaction against their own fancy tricksy names. Both mothers thought these names sadly unimaginative and each blamed the child of the other for the lack of vision and style."
- "For the last decade at least, the trend seems to be that more untraditional names are being chosen over the Bobs, the Toms, the Sues and the Marys."
- "Life on Martha’s Vineyard has been mostly ideal for 11-year-old Mary Elizabeth Lambert, the protagonist of Ann Clare LeZotte’s historical novel SHOW ME A SIGN (Scholastic, 288 pp., $18.99; ages 8 to 12)."
Etymology
Etymology tree Biblical Hebrew מִרְיָם (miryɔm)bor. Aramaic מריםbor. Koine Greek Μᾰρῐ́ᾱ (Mărĭ́ā)bor. Latin Marīa Old French Mariebor. Middle English Marie English Mary From Middle English Marie, from Old French Marie, from Latin Maria, from Ancient Greek Μαρία (María), Μαριάμ (Mariám), from post-Biblical Hebrew and Aramaic מַרְיָם (Maryām), from Biblical Hebrew מִרְיָם (Miryām), of uncertain meaning. (See the Hebrew entry for more.) Doublet of Miriam, Marie, Maria, and Mariah.
Origin
Word Breakdown
Regional Pronunciation
- American English: /ˈmeːɹi/
- British English: /ˈmɛə.ɹi/