gore
Pluralgores (some meanings)
Pluralgores (some meanings)
- 1Blood from wounds and violent injuries, especially when shown in a horrible, detailed way in films.
That movie has way too much gore for my little brother.
The old song tells of a battle full of gore and death.
UsageOften in blood and gore, about violent films and games.
- 2Of an animal, to push a horn or tusk into someone or something.
The angry bull gored the farmer's leg.
Elephants can gore people with their tusks.
UsageOften said as was gored by a bull or other animal.
Similarhorn
Note
- 3A piece of cloth shaped like a triangle or diamond, used to shape a skirt, sail, or similar thing.
Her skirt is made of six gores, so it swings when she walks.
The sailmaker sewed a new gore into the torn sail.
Similargusset
- 4A curved strip of a globe between two lines from pole to pole, or a similar piece of a dome.
The mapmaker printed twelve gores and pasted them onto a wooden ball.
Each gore of the beach ball is a different color.
- 5A stretchy piece in the side of a shoe that helps it fit tightly.
My boots have a gore on each side, so I can pull them on fast.
The gores in these old shoes have stretched out, so they feel loose.
Similargusset
Less common meanings
- 6A three-cornered piece of ground where roads split, or in older use, a wedge of land at a field's edge.
A car was parked on the grassy gore where the two roads join.
The town planted flowers in the gore at the end of Main Street.
Note
- 7A small piece of land left outside any town because land measurements disagreed or were wrong.
Their cabin sits on a gore that no town ever claimed.
The map shows a tiny gore between the two towns.
Note
- 8To cut cloth into long three-cornered pieces, or sew them into a skirt or sail to shape it.
Ask the tailor to gore the skirt so it flares out at the bottom.
Her mother gored the apron to make it wider at the hem.
- 9
- 10To hurt someone's feelings with sharp or unkind words.
Note
- 11A lump or thick patch of blood.
And I beheld the roof and the walls one gore of blood.
1922, E[ric] R[ücker] Eddison, The Worm Ouroboros: A RomanceHere, gore means a thick mass of blood.Note
- 12To cover something with blood or smear blood on it.
Note
- 13
- 14In a coat of arms, a shape made by two curved lines that meet in the middle of the shield.
Showing meanings only.
Practice
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Origins
From Old English gor, meaning "dung" or "dirt". In Middle English it meant mud or muck.
Checked 1 Nov 2026 · 2 facts
- Gore derives from Old English gor, meaning dung or dirt. en.wiktionary.org
- The Middle English word meant mud or muck. en.wiktionary.org
From an Old English word for a spear.
Checked 1 Nov 2026 · 1 fact
- The verb gore ultimately derives from Old English gār, meaning spear. en.wiktionary.org
From an Old English word for a point of land jutting out.
Checked 1 Nov 2026 · 2 facts
- Gore derives from an Old English word. en.wiktionary.org
- The Old English source word meant a projecting point of land. archive.org