quarry

1. 1.

   a person who is the aim of an attack (especially a victim of ridicule or exploitation) by some hostile person or influence

   “he fell prey to muggers”

   “everyone was fair game”

   “the target of a manhunt”

   Synonymspreytargetfair game

   Broadervictim
2. 2.

   a surface excavation for extracting stone or slate

   “a British term for `quarry' is `stone pit'”

   Synonymspitstone pit

   Broaderexcavation

   Narrowerchalkpitgravel pit
3. 3.

   animal hunted or caught for food

   Synonymsprey

   Broaderanimal

1. 1.

   extract (something such as stones) from or as if from a quarry

   “quarry marble”

   Broaderexploit

   quarrying

Other forms of quarry

plural

quarries·

past tense or participle

quarried

present participle

quarrying·

Forms marked · are formed by the regular rule rather than recorded in the source data. English keeps a few hundred irregulars and the rest follow the pattern, so the rule is right far more often than not — but it is a rule, and the mark says so.

Questions about quarry

What does quarry mean?

quarry means "a person who is the aim of an attack (especially a victim of ridicule or exploitation) by some hostile person or influence". That is the primary sense; the word has 4 in total, listed in full on this page.

How many syllables are in quarry?

quarry has 2 syllables: quar-ry. The stress falls on "quar". In IPA it is /ˈkwɔɹi/.

What is another word for quarry?

Close synonyms include prey, target, fair game, pit, stone pit. Each sense on this page lists its own synonyms, because a word with several meanings rarely has one substitute that works for all of them.

Is quarry a common word?

quarry is banded "Familiar" — widely understood, used when the subject calls for it. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.