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

Here, the winery’s kitchen shares a recipe that’s perfect for sunny days out on the grass — a French green bean salad, zesty with aged sherry vinegar and sweet with peaches picked at the peak of the season. —John Metcalfe, The Mercury News, 3 June 2024

Perched on a baguette slice and drizzled generously with sharp sherry vinegar and olive oil, the pimiento relleno is a San Sebastián classic, and the poster child of the oldest family-run bar in the Parte Vieja. —Marti Buckley, Saveur, 30 May 2024

The glorious sun makes this a land of ingredients—of copious olives and sherry (dry fino and amontillado, sunnier oloroso and salty-fresh manzanilla). —Lydia Bell, Condé Nast Traveler, 29 May 2024

Signature cocktails include the Sticky Ricky ($14), made with rum, coconut cream, mango, mint and orgeat, and An Unsympathetic Gentlemen ($15), made with blended scotch, Amontillado sherry, amaro and kumquat vermouth. —Kate Bradshaw, The Mercury News, 17 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named for Xeres (now spelled Jerez), a city in Spain where the wine was originally made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.