sherry

noun

sher·​ry ˈsher-ē 

plural sherries

: a Spanish fortified wine with a distinctive nutty flavor

also : a similar wine produced elsewhere

Examples of sherry in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

There, Olvera serves up both a taco omakase and a seasonal tasting menu, with Michelin calling out dishes such as scallop ceviche with egg salad and grilled Baja coast rockfish with butternut-squash puree and sherry foam. —Tori Latham, Robb Report, 15 May 2024

Peruvian pisco and Spanish spirits, sherry and wine rule at the dining room bar and in the restaurant’s speakeasy. —Linda Zavoral, The Mercury News, 14 May 2024

Word History

Etymology

alteration of earlier sherris (taken as plural), from Xeres (now Jerez), Spain

First Known Use

1584, in the meaning defined above

Kids Definition

sherry

noun

sher·​ry ˈsher-ē 

plural sherries

: a wine with a nutty flavor

Etymology

named for Xeres (now spelled Jerez), a city in Spain where the wine was originally made

Word Origin

It is common to name wines after the part of a country where they are made. The wine called sherry today was first made in a town originally called, in Spanish, Xeres. The English approximation of the Spanish pronunciation was \ˈsher-ēz\, spelled sherris. After a time, people thought that sherris was a plural and so made a singular form, sherry, by cutting off the supposed plural ending. The \sh\ sound symbolized by x in Spanish (later by j) changed to a \ḵ\ or \h\, so that the modern Spanish pronunciation of Jerez is even less like English sherry.