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

It was aged in a number of different casks, including first-fill bourbon, second-fill sherry, and French red wine casks. —Jonah Flicker, Robb Report, 15 Apr. 2026

Pop into Bar Santurce for a glass of sherry and a few spit-roasted sardines before looping back over to Ribera de Curtidores and meandering down to the finish line, Ronda de Toledo. —Condé Nast, Condé Nast Traveler, 11 Apr. 2026

A little nutty, drying sherry lingers at the very end of a deep inhale. —David Thomas Tao, Forbes.com, 30 Mar. 2026

Next came a real-estate heiress, who, between sips of the Edith (a heady blend of vermouth, sherry, and rum), beckoned one of the guests to the club’s back room. —Rachel Syme, New Yorker, 27 Mar. 2026

Word History

Etymology

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

First Known Use

1584, in the meaning defined above

Rhymes for sherry

• aerie
• airy
• arie
• barre
• cherry
• clary
• dairy
• eyrie
• faerie
• faery
• fairy
• ferry

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named for Xeres (now spelled Jerez), a city in Spain where the wine was originally made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