What does quarried mean?
Quarried is the past tense and past participle of quarry. In its principal sense, it describes material that has been removed from a quarry or another natural source: a company may quarry limestone, granite, marble, or ore for construction, industry, or decoration. The word can also mean to search insistently for a resource or to obtain something through persistent effort. In figurative and journalistic contexts, reporters or interviewers may be said to have “quarried” a person for information, suggesting that the questioning was thorough and demanding. As an adjective, quarried describes material formed or obtained by this process, as in “quarried stone.” The word is familiar in the mining sense across British and American English, while its use for prolonged questioning is especially associated with formal reporting and public interviews.
To extract stone, minerals, or other material from a quarry or natural source; to seek or obtain something by searching; or to question someone persistently.
"The miners quarried copper ore throughout the summer."
The sense of persistent questioning is formal and commonly used figuratively in reporting.
Formed, obtained, or shaped by extracting material from a quarry or natural source.
"The building's façade is made of finely quarried limestone."
This use is common in architectural, geological, and industrial descriptions.
An interviewer can leave you feeling as though every answer has been quarried from you.
Reviewed by Deb Chak, Editor. AI-assisted content curated by RJS Tech Solutions LLP.
Where does quarried come from?
The mining sense of quarry developed from the noun denoting a place where stone or minerals are extracted. That noun comes through Middle English and Old French from Latin quadrāre, related to the source of words such as square and quadrant. A separate tradition of quarry, meaning “to seek” or “to search for,” derives from Old French quarre and ultimately from Latin quaerere, “to ask” or “to seek.” The modern senses of quarried reflect these closely related histories of extraction and searching.
Related word forms
How quarried is actually used
In its mining sense, the word is normally transitive and takes the material being extracted as its object. In the sense of persistent questioning, it is formal and often implies repeated or probing questions.
Easily confused with quarried
Quarried refers to material removed from a source or information obtained through persistent questioning, whereas carried refers to transporting or bearing something.