What's the difference between happy and merry?

Happy


Definition:

  • (superl.) Favored by hap, luck, or fortune; lucky; fortunate; successful; prosperous; satisfying desire; as, a happy expedient; a happy effort; a happy venture; a happy omen.
  • (superl.) Experiencing the effect of favorable fortune; having the feeling arising from the consciousness of well-being or of enjoyment; enjoying good of any kind, as peace, tranquillity, comfort; contented; joyous; as, happy hours, happy thoughts.
  • (superl.) Dexterous; ready; apt; felicitous.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) This is not an argument for the status quo: teaching must be given greater priority within HE, but the flipside has to be an understanding on the part of students, ministers, officials, the public and the media that academics (just like politicians) cannot make everyone happy all of the time.
  • (2) Infants were habituated to models posing either prototypically positive displays (e.g., happy expressions) or positive expression blends (e.g., mock surprise).
  • (3) His greatest legacy, besides his three children, is the joy and happiness he offered to others, particularly to those fighting personal battles.
  • (4) United and West Ham are on similar runs and can feel pretty happy about themselves but are not as confident away from home as they are at home and that will have to change if they are to make ground on the top teams.
  • (5) Not even housebuilders are entirely happy, although recent government policies such as Help to Buy and the encouragement of easy credit have helped their share prices rise.
  • (6) I’m so happy to be joining Arsenal, a club which has a great manager, a fantastic squad of players, huge support around the world and a great stadium in London,” said Sánchez.
  • (7) As for gay men, there is absolutely nothing that suggests they are any less war-happy than heterosexuals.
  • (8) While the Spielberg of popular myth is Mr Nice Guy, Lean was known as an obsessive, cantankerous tyrant who didn't much like actors and was only truly happy locked away in the editing suite.
  • (9) That latter issue is quite controversial in Germany, where the Bundesbank is not happy about surrendering control to the ECB .
  • (10) The first problem facing Calderdale is sheep-rustling Happy Valley – filmed around Hebden Bridge, with its beautiful stone houses straight off the pages of the Guardian’s Lets Move To – may be filled with rolling hills and verdant pastures, but the reality of rural issues are harsh.
  • (11) Outwardly, his life was successful, happy, on course.
  • (12) Pointing out that “the army has its own fortune teller”, he sounds less than happy at the state of affairs: “The country is run by superstition.” Weerasethakul is in a relatively fortunate position, in that his arcane films are not exactly populist and don’t depend on the mainstream Thai film industry for funding, but he has become cast as a significant voice of dissent in a difficult time .
  • (13) John Hansen, president of the Nebraska Farmers Union, said the landowners his group represents "are obviously not happy" that the beetles are being removed.
  • (14) I was just happy he got his licence back so I could clean him out."
  • (15) He is an academy product and truthfully we are, and me above all, happy to have him with us.
  • (16) Thirty-two nursing students were shown silent films in which 10 normal and 10 schizophrenic women described a happy, sad, and an angry personal experience.
  • (17) Indeed, the distribution of couples according to a multifactorial risk index does in fact establish a connection between the couple's happiness and the level of risk during sexual relations within and outside the couple.
  • (18) But some wise old heads sniff into their handkerchiefs because they have sat through too many costly "happy ever after" ceremonies that ended in acrimony.
  • (19) I can calmly say that his future will still be at Juventus, where he feels very happy,” he parped.
  • (20) In a series of analyses guided by intuitive hypotheses, the Smith and Ellsworth theoretical approach, and a relatively unconstrained, open-ended exploration of the data, the situations were found to vary with respect to the emotions of pride, jealousy or envy, pride in the other, boredom, and happiness.

Merry


Definition:

  • (superl.) Laughingly gay; overflowing with good humor and good spirits; jovial; inclined to laughter or play ; sportive.
  • (superl.) Cheerful; joyous; not sad; happy.
  • (superl.) Causing laughter, mirth, gladness, or delight; as, / merry jest.
  • (n.) A kind of wild red cherry.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) I did a quick survey of friends' and neighbours' families and found 11 young people and three men in their 40s and 50s on this merry-go-round.
  • (2) The grotesque merry-go-round of more people selling fewer overpriced homes is in full swing.
  • (3) On hearing the Rolf Harris verdicts, I felt vengeful, like many, I expect – condemning this man who led the public a merry dance and enjoyed enormous success while perpetrating abuse.
  • (4) Steph Merry, head of marine renewables at the Renewable Energy Association, said last year that only the giant barrage made sense.
  • (5) Interesting that there should be so many applications who are, according to the Merry Hill store, of an “incredibly high” standard, and so soon after graduation.
  • (6) Dinner guests were serenaded by opera singer Renee Fleming, a triple-Grammy award-winning soprano, who sang Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas and the Puccini aria O Mio Babbino Caro.
  • (7) Banks stopped lending almost overnight, and the Wilsons' property merry-go-round suddently started looking increasingly shaky.
  • (8) Merry Go 'Round was praised by Katy Perry and a song that Musgraves co-wrote, Undermine , was played on the TV series Nashville , shown in the UK on Channel 4.
  • (9) With the private sector now calling the tune on affordable housing, while hiding the score in a locked room, it’s not hard to see why the chief executive of the National Housing Federation, David Orr, recently told his members that developers are “leading local authorities on a merry dance”.
  • (10) Amid all the schadenfreude, it’s worth remembering that two years ago, Arsène Wenger and his merry men were similarly derided after suffering a comical opening day home defeat at the hands of Aston Villa, before going on to win eight and draw one of their next nine league matches.
  • (11) Allowing for the odd lapse – such as his terrible musical version of The Merry Wives of Windsor in 2006 – he has done much fine work.
  • (12) Interviewed about the cuts and the economic outlook on the Andrew Marr Show on BBC1 on Sunday , Osborne looked grim and statesmanlike in repose – he has grown fleshier in office – but every time he began to speak his dimpled mouth formed a half-smile and his quick eyes were almost merry.
  • (13) A two-part German-South African co-production based on the bestselling Kate Mosse novel, it's a window-rattling potboiler bubbling with ancient religious conspiracies, comely medieval wenches, comely 21st-century academics, fogbanks of swirly past-times skulduggery, evil pharmaceutical CEOs in 10 denier tights, priapic chevaliers and, verily, a script that does dance a merry jig upon the very phizog of credibility.
  • (14) We decided we wanted to offer it to a young asylum seeker.” At the Paris parish of Saint Merry to which and her husband, Philippe, belong, Pépin had heard of the Welcome to France project run by the Jesuit Refugee Service (JRS).
  • (15) "And going on that IVF merry-go-round with all the drugs and the stress, given the limited return ..." We also need to confront our illusions about having a genetic child if we are going to put so much faith in medical solutions, he adds.
  • (16) The last time he quit, two years ago as general election coordinator, he told Miliband: “After nearly 30 years of this, I feel like I’ve seen the merry-go-round turn too many times.” Unite had hijacked the selection process for the candidate for West Falkirk in favour of Watson’s office manager, Karie Murphy.
  • (17) At 14 she was high jumping 1.80m, she'd broken Katharine Merry's schools record, there was no hiding after that.
  • (18) Outside, a more than faintly surreal urban beach scene in a June downpour: battered garden chairs and tables, dripping merry-go-round horse, Cinderella's pumpkin.
  • (19) Given the attackers have only released a slice of the 100 terabytes of information they claim to have, Sony and its workers are set for a not-so-merry Christmas.
  • (20) Smoke, drink and make merry On the other hand, the British war veteran Henry Allingham had wildly differing advice (though he agrees on the smoking, at least), putting his longevity down to "cigarettes, whisky and wild, wild women. "