Other forms: deliveries
Delivery is the bringing of something to the person who ordered it. The pizza box handed over at the door, the parcel the driver leaves with your neighbour, the van that pulls up at eight in the morning with a sofa.
Delivery is also the birth of a baby — a delivery room, a long delivery, a midwife who has seen hundreds. It covers the way words come out of a speaker's mouth too: a comedian's delivery, a flat delivery that kills a good joke. In cricket and baseball, a delivery is one single ball sent down. You take delivery of a car, you pay cash on delivery, and you complain when a company is slow on delivery. Delivery is the noun; the verb is deliver.
1noundeliveryThe bringing of goods, letters or food to a person or place, or the things brought.~70%
“The delivery arrived two days late and the box was crushed.”
2nounbirthThe birth of a baby, or the process of giving birth.~13%
“She had an easy delivery and was home the next day.”
3nounspeakerThe way a speaker or performer says the words.~4%
“His jokes were good but his delivery was flat.”
4nounsingleA single ball bowled or pitched in cricket or baseball.~13%
“The bowler's third delivery took the wicket.”
Shares are an estimate: a language model read 25 sentences found in the wild and placed 23 of them on a sense (2 were unclear) — a count of our sample, not a measurement of English.
delivery is an act of bringing something to someone.
Delivery reached English through Middle English deliveri, from Anglo-Norman — the French spoken in the English courts — and before that Old French delivrer. The same French verb stands behind deliver, so the parcel, the speech and the baby all end up sharing one word.
Old French
delivrer
Middle English
deliveri
English, today
delivery
From Middle English deliveri et al., from Anglo-Norman -, from Old French delivrer.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA