/ʃɔː(ɹ)/, /ʃɔɹ/, /ʃo(ː)ɹ/
OriginFrom Middle English schore, from Old English *sċora (attested as sċor- in placenames), from Proto-Germanic *skurô (“rugged rock, cliff, high rocky shore”). Possibly related to Old English sċieran (“to cut”), which survives today as English shear.
Cognate with Middle Dutch scorre (“land washed by the sea”), Middle Low German schor (“shore, coast, headland”), Middle High German schorre ("rocky crag, high rocky shore"; > German Schorre, Schorren (“towering rock, crag”)), and Limburgish sjaor (“riverbank”). Maybe connected with Norwegian Bokmål skjær.
- Land adjoining a non-flowing body of water, such as an ocean, lake or pond.
“lake shore; bay shore; gulf shore; island shore; mainland shore; river shore; estuary shore; pond shore; sandy shore; rocky shore”
“the fruitful shore of muddy Nile”
“Now we plunged into a deep shade with the boughs lacing each other overhead, and crossed dainty, rustic bridges[…]: or anon we shot into a clearing, with a colored glimpse of the lake and its curving ”
- Land, usually near a port.
“The seamen were serving on shore instead of on ships.”
“The passengers signed up for shore tours.”
- A prop or strut supporting some structure or weight above it.
“The shores stayed upright during the earthquake.”
- transitiveA sewer.
“Emptie olde receptacles, or common-shores of filthe.”
“I need not mention the old common-shore of Rome.”
- intransitive, obsoleteTo arrive at the shore
“the ship quickened her way, and shot past that rocke, where wee thought shee would have shored.”
- obsolete, transitiveTo put ashore.
“I will bring these two moles, these blind ones, aboard him: if he think it fit to shore them again”
- transitiveNot followed by up: to provide (something) with support.
“If houses were present these could be used to conceal the mine opening. As the mine progressed the roof was shored with timbers.”
“Sometimes it's easier to laminate the strips one at a time, shoring each in place only long enough for the epoxy to set.”
“These are called shored exit wounds. They are characterized by a broad, irregular band of abrasion of the skin around the exit. In such wounds the skin is reinforced, or "shored," by a firm surface at”
- transitiveUsually followed by up: to reinforce (something at risk of failure).
“My family shored me up after I failed the GED.”
“The workers were shoring up the dock after part of it fell into the water.”
“... but his caravels were so much worm-eaten and shattered by storms that he could not reach that island, and was forced to run them on shore in a creek on the coast of Jamaica, where he shored them u”
- form-of, past, transitivesimple past of shear
“Then Frodo stepped up to the great grey net, and hewed it with a wide sweeping stroke[…]. The blue-gleaming blade shore through them like a scythe through grass […].”
- Scotland, archaic, transitiveTo threaten or warn unpleasant consequences (for someone); (sometimes) to threaten or warn off or scare away.
“The Gleds might pyked her at the dyke, Before the lads wad shored them off her.”
“Bess flew till him […] and with her fatal Knife shored she would geld him, For peace that day.”
“... a' the freits that were begun To shore us ill Shall, in the crackin' of a gun, Flee owre the hill.”
- Scotland, archaic, transitiveTo threaten (to rain).
“For a' our tears and sighs are but in vain: Come, help me up; — yon sooty cloud shores rain.”
“[…] the cauld win' louder blew, Shorin' o' drift,[…]”
- Scotland, archaic, transitiveTo offer or present (someone something).
“... a compliment kindly and decently shored, […]”
- Scotland, alt-of, archaic, pronunciation-spelling, transitivePronunciation spelling of sure.
- A topographic surname from Middle English.
- A suburb of Littleborough, Metropolitan Borough of Rochdale, Greater Manchester (OS grid ref SD9216).
- A hamlet near Cornholme in Todmorden parish, Calderdale borough, West Yorkshire (OS grid ref SD9126).
Formsshores(plural) · shores(present, singular, third-person) · shoring(participle, present) · shored(participle, past) · shored(past) · more shore(comparative) · most shore(superlative)
Source: Wiktionary