Other forms: tarried, tarrying
To tarry is to linger and delay setting off. Tarry a while, do not tarry, tarried too long.
It is archaic and deliberately so — it survives in poetry, hymns and mock-antique speech, where linger and wait do the everyday work. It suggests pleasant delay rather than lateness. Note the identical spelling of tarry meaning covered in tar, which is a different word entirely and rhymes with starry.
1verbtarryTo linger and delay setting off.
“Don't tarry on your way home; it will be dark soon.”
tarry is a lingering.
Middle English tarien comes from an Old English verb meaning to vex or provoke. The sense of delaying developed later.
Proto-Indo-European
*derHgʰ- — to pull, tug, irritate
Proto-Germanic
*terganą
Old English
tirian
Middle English
tarien
English, today
tarry
Built from
From Middle English tarien, terien (“to vex, harass, cause to hesitate, delay”), from Old English tirian, tirġan, terġan (“to worry, exasperate, pain, provoke, excite”), from Proto-Germanic terganą, targijaną (“to pull, tease, irritate”), from Proto-Indo-European derHgʰ- (“to pull, tug, irritate”). Cognate with Dutch tergen (“to provoke”), German zergen (“to vex, irritate, provoke”), Norwegian Bokmål terge (“to irritate, provoke”), Russian дёргать (“to pull, yank, jerk, pester”). Compare also wa tårdjî (“to be late, to be slow, to wait”). Compare typologically meškat, ме́шкать (akin to меша́ть), копа́ться (akin to копа́ть).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA