Other forms: harries, harried, harrying
To harry is to keep attacking or pestering somebody. Harry the enemy, harried by creditors, harrying attacks.
The military sense is repeated raiding rather than a battle, which is what wore armies down. The Harrying of the North is what the Norman conquest did to Yorkshire, and the word still carries that weight.
1verbharryTo keep attacking or pestering somebody.
“Wolves harried the herd for days, picking off the weak and the young.”
harry is an attacking.
Old English hergian means to make war or ravage, from a root meaning an army.
Proto-Indo-European
*ker-
Proto-Indo-European
*koryos
Proto-Germanic
*harjōną
Proto-West Germanic
*harjōn
Old English
herġian
Middle English
herien
English, today
harry
Built from
From Middle English herien, harien, from Old English herġian, from Proto-West Germanic harjōn, from Proto-Germanic harjōną, from harjaz (“army”), from Proto-Indo-European koryos, from ker- (“army”). 2 See also wa hairyî, Old French hairier, harier; also stq ferheerje, German verheeren (“to harry, devastate”), Swedish härja (“ravage, harry”); also Old English here, West Frisian hear, Dutch heer, German Heer); also mga cuire (“army”), Lithuanian kãrias (“army; war”), cu кара (“strife”), Ancient Greek κοίρανος (“chief, commander”), peo). More at here (“army”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA