ferry

The word “ferry” means a boat or ship that carries passengers and vehicles across a stretch of water on a regular route. In plain terms, a boat that regularly carries people or vehicles across water, or the act of transporting something back and forth.

“Ferry” is pronounced FEH-ree (/ˈfɛɹi/ in IPA).

Here is “ferry” used in a sentence: “We took the ferry across the channel instead of flying.”

Depending on how it is used, “ferry” can be a noun and a verb.

The word “ferry” comes from Old English. The verb comes from Old English ferian, "to carry," related to English "fare" (as in "thoroughfare"); the noun sense of a water crossing developed under the influence of Old Norse ferja.

“Ferry” is a fairly common word in modern English, usually learned at around the B1 level.

“Ferry” has 2 distinct senses listed in this dictionary. The most common is: a boat or ship that carries passengers and vehicles across a stretch of water on a regular route.

A ferry is a specific kind of boat or ship: one that carries passengers and vehicles across a stretch of water on a regular route. Boat is the general word for a watercraft, so every ferry is a boat or ship, but only vessels running a scheduled crossing service are ferries.

A ferry provides transport, carrying passengers and often vehicles across water on a regular route, so reaching the destination is the point. A cruise ship provides a leisure voyage where the journey itself is the vacation, typically with cabins, restaurants, and entertainment on board.

Yes. To ferry people or things means to transport them, especially back and forth or across water, as in "parents ferrying children to school" or "boats ferried supplies to the island." The verb keeps the idea of repeated trips over the same route.

The plural of ferry is "ferries." Because the word ends in a consonant plus -y, the -y changes to -ies, and the same spelling change appears in the verb forms "ferries" and "ferried."