Larry

See also: larry

English

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˈlæ.ɹi/

• Audio (Southern England):

  (file)

• (General American) enPR: lărʹē
  • (without the Mary–marry–merry merger) IPA^(key): /ˈlæ.ɹi/
  • (Mary–marry–merry merger) IPA^(key): /ˈlɛɹ.i/
• Homophone: lairy (only in accents with the Mary–marry–merry merger)
• Hyphenation: Lar‧ry
• Rhymes: -æɹi

Etymology 1

Proper noun

Larry

1. A diminutive of the male given name Laurence or Lawrence, popular as a male given name in the U.S. in the 1940s and the 1950s.
   • 1998, Carol Shields, Larry's Party, Penguin, →ISBN, page 254:

     No one gets named Larry anymore. It's had it as a name. Think of someone called Larry and you automatically conjure up a guy drinking beer in a sixties rec room.

   • 2002, Laurell K. Hamilton, Circus of the Damned, JOVE, →ISBN, page 149:

     "Larry, name's Larry." I smiled, it was too ridiculous. He was worried about me calling him Lawrence instead of Larry with a rogue zombie climbing out of the dirt.

   • 2025 October 3, Ray Bogan, “Wikipedia co-founder says site has liberal bias — here’s his plan to fix that”, in Straight Arrow News‎^[1], archived from the original on 4 October 2025:

     Wikipedia co-founder Larry Sanger is alleging that the online encyclopedia has a left-leaning bias and “a lot of problems,” and recently released a nine-point plan to fix it.

Derived terms

• happy as Larry
• Larry Dooley

Translations

diminutive of Laurence

• Danish: Lars, Lasse
• German: Lars (de), Lenz (de)
• Italian: Loris (it), Enzo (it)
• Norwegian: Lars (no), Lasse
• Serbo-Croatian: Lovre (sh), Lovro
• Spanish: Renzo
• Swedish: Lars (sv), Lasse (sv)

Etymology 2

Blend of Louis +‎ Harry.

Proper noun

Larry

1. (fandom slang) The real-person fiction ship of Louis Tomlinson and Harry Styles of the band One Direction.
   • 2013, Andrea Flores, "Is Your (Relation)Ship Sailing?", TheBearCat (San Mateo High School), 1 November 2013, page 8:

     "Larry" shippers even make evidence videos on YouTube to try to prove that they are actually a couple, showing a more extreme side of shipping.

   • 2014, Mary Sheehan, "One Direction: Why We Need To Pay Attention", The Edge (Elon University), Fall 2014, page 25:

     Fan platforms often include some type of Larry fan fiction, fan art and detailed explanations of their fan theories.

   • 2016, Bethan Jones, “'I Will Throw You off Your Ship and You Will Drown and Die': Death Threats, Intra-Fandom Hate, and the Performance of Fangirling”, in Lucy Bennett, Paul Booth, editors, Seeing Fans: Representations of Fandom in Media and Popular Culture, page 60:

     Perhaps the most striking example of this intra-fandom antagonism comes in responses to Larry shippers.

   • For more quotations using this term, see Citations:Larry.

Synonyms

• Larry Stylinson

Derived terms

• Larrie

Further reading

• Larries on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

Spanish

Etymology

Unadapted borrowing from English Larry.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈlari/ [ˈla.ri]
• Rhymes: -ari
• Syllabification: La‧rry

Proper noun

Larry m

1. a male given name from English