Hoar
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hoar¹
- /hɔː/ UK
- /hoɹ/ US
- /ho(ː)ɹ/
- /hoə/
Sounds like whore · Rhymes with -ɔː(ɹ)
Where it comes from
From Middle English hor, hore, from Old English hār (“hoar, hoary, grey, old”), from Proto-West Germanic *hair, from Proto-Germanic *hairaz (“grey”), from Proto-Indo-European *(s)ḱeh₃- (“grey, dark”). Cognate with German hehr (“noble, sublime”), Herr (“sir, gentleman”), Scottish Gaelic ciar (“dusky”), and Russian се́рый (séryj, “grey”).
noun
- A white or greyish-white colour.
- Hoariness; antiquity. His grants are engrafted on the public law of Europe, covered with the awful hoar of innumerable ages.
Similar: ancientness, oldhood
adjective
- Of a white or greyish-white colour. So forth they rowèd; and that ferryman / With his stiff oars did brush the sea so strong, / That the hoar waters from his frigate ran, / And the light bubbles danced all along. / Whiles the salt brine out of the billows sprong.
- Hoarily bearded. And lo, where rapt in beauty's heavenly dream Hoar Plato walks his olived Academe.
- Musty; mouldy; stale. But a hare that is hoar Is too much for a score When it hoars ere it be spent.
- Figuratively, grey or grey-haired with age; ancient, venerable. Oft list'ning how the hounds and horn Cheerly rouse the slumb'ring morn, From the side of some hoar hill, Through the high wood echoing shrill.
verb hoars · hoaring · hoared
- To become mouldy or musty. But a hare that is hoar / Is too much for a score / When it hoars ere it be spent.
Hoar²
Where it comes from
* As an English surname, from the adjective hoar (“greyish white”).
* Also as an English surname, from Ore in Sussex, or its source Old English ōra (“edge, brink”).
Compare Middle English Hore.
proper noun Hoars · Hoare
- A surname.
