wherry

plural wherries

1. countableA boat or light ship used to navigate inland waterways.

   He went out for Freshman rowing but didn't make any of the crews and took to rowing by himself in a wherry three afternoons a week.

   1932, John Dos Passos, 1919, Houghton Mifflin Company 2000, p. 67

   1 more example

   O how I should like to see her floating in the water yonder, turban and all, with her train streaming after her, and her nose like the beak of a wherry.

   1847 January – 1848 July, William Makepeace Thackeray, chapter 2, in Vanity Fair […], London: Bradbury and Evans […], published 1848, →OCLC

2. countablehistoricalA flat-bottomed vessel once employed by British merchants, notably in East Anglia, sometimes converted into pleasure boats.

   The river was astir early and late with barges, wherries, and craft of every description.

   1928, Virginia Woolf, Orlando: A Biography, London: The Hogarth Press, →OCLC; republished as Orlando: A Biography (eBook no. 0200331h.html), Australia: Project Gutenberg Australia, July 2015

   1 more example

   Here I used to enjoy myself in playing about the bridge stairs, and often in the watermen's wherries, with other boys. On one of these occasions there was another boy with me in a wherry, and we went out into the current of the river: while we were there two more stout boys came to us in another wherry, and, abusing us for taking the boat, desired me to get into the other wherry-boat. Accordingly I went to get out of the wherry I was in; but just as I had got one of my feet into the other boat the boys shoved it off, so that I fell into the Thames; and, not being able to swim, I should unavoidably have been drowned, but for the assistance of some watermen who providentially came to my relief.

   1789, Olaudah Equiano, The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano

3. countableuncountableA liquor made from the pulp of crab-apples after the verjuice is extracted.

present singular third person wherries · participle present wherrying · participle past wherried · past wherried

1. To travel or transport in a wherry.

plural Wherrys

1. A surname.