pore
AI In plain words
Writing a short explanation…
Written by a house AI from the entry below, in your language. The entry itself is the source.
pore¹
- /pɔː(ɹ)/ UK
- /poɹ/ US
- /po(ː)ɹ/
- /poə/
Sounds like pour, poor (pour–poor merger), paw (non-rhotic, horse–hoarse merger) · Rhymes with -ɔː(ɹ)
Where it comes from
From Middle English pore, from Old French pore, from Latin porus, from Ancient Greek πόρος (póros, “passage”). Displaced native English sweat hole from Middle English swet hole, which might have been a reformation of Old English swātþȳrel (literally “sweat hole”), which competed with līcþēote (literally “body pipe”).
noun pores
- A tiny opening in the skin. I could sense the sweat dripping out of all my pores.
- By extension any small opening or interstice, especially one of many, or one allowing the passage of a fluid. the pores of a rock.
pore²
- /pɔː(ɹ)/ UK
- /poɹ/ US
- /po(ː)ɹ/
- /poə/
Sounds like pour, poor (pour–poor merger), paw (non-rhotic, horse–hoarse merger) · Rhymes with -ɔː(ɹ)
Where it comes from
From Middle English poren, pouren, puren (“to gaze intently, look closely”), from Old English *pūrian, from Proto-West Germanic *pūrōn, suggested by Old English spyrian (“to investigate, examine”). Akin to Saterland Frisian puurje (“to question, investigate; pry, prod”), West Frisian poarje (“to poke, prod”), Middle Dutch poren (“to pore, look”), Dutch porren (“to poke, prod, stir, encourage, endeavour, attempt”), Low German purren (“to poke, stir”), Danish purre (“to poke, stir, rouse”), dialectal Swedish pora, pura, påra (“to work slowly and gradually, work deliberately”), Old English spor (“track, trace, vestige”). Compare also Middle English puren, piren (“to look, peer”). See peer.
verb pores · poring · pored
- To study meticulously; to go over again and again. Yet each foreign post day she watched for the arrival of letters - knew the postmark, and watched me as I read. I found her often poring over the articles of Greek intelligence in the newspaper.
- To meditate or reflect in a steady way.
