ore
Pluralores, ore
Pluralores, ore
- 1Natural rock or other material that holds enough metal, gems or other valuable minerals to be worth mining and processing.
Trucks haul iron ore from the open pit to the processing plant around the clock.
The region's copper ores are low-grade but plentiful.
UsageUsually after the metal: iron ore, copper ore. Ores means kinds of it.
Note
Old English supplied two words that merged into this one: ōra, unwrought metal, of uncertain origin, and ār, brass, copper or bronze. The currency and the seaweed spelled ore are separate words.
Checked 2 Nov 2026 · 2 facts
- The seaweed word ore has a separate origin. en.wiktionary.org
- The Swedish currency word has a separate origin from mineral ore. en.wiktionary.org
- 2Another spelling of öre: a unit of Swedish money equal to one hundredth of a krona.
The coffee at the station cost twenty-four kronor and fifty ore.
Every price on the old Stockholm menu ended in ninety ore.
UsageUnchanged after a number: fifty ore.
Note
Here the Swedish öre loses its dots. A hundred of them make one krona, and the form stays the same after a number: twenty-four kronor and fifty ore.
Checked 31 Oct 2026 · 2 facts
- Ore is an alternative spelling of Swedish-derived öre with the dots omitted. en.wiktionary.org
- One hundred öre make one Swedish krona. data.riksdagen.se
- 3Obsolete form of over: above, across, or covering, a short spelling found mainly in older poetry.
Note
Poets used this one-syllable spelling to squeeze over into a line: Shakespeare's Sonnet 12 (1609) has "sable curls or silver'd ore with white," that is, covered over with white. Modern readers meet it only in quoted verse, where it is easily mistaken for the metal-bearing rock.
Checked 31 Oct 2026 · 4 facts
- Poets contracted over to one syllable to fit the metre. odp.library.tamu.edu
- Shakespeare wrote Sonnet 12, first published in 1609. shakespearedocumented.folger.edu
- Sonnet 12 contains the quoted words, with silver'd modernizing the original siluer'd. internetshakespeare.uvic.ca
- The passage describes dark hair becoming covered with white. rpo.library.utoronto.ca
Less common meanings
- 4A fine grade of wool, especially that for which the Herefordshire market town of Leominster was once known.
But then the ore of Lempſter / By Got is never a Sempſter; / That when he is ſpun, ore did, / Yet match him with hir thrid
a. 1638 (date written), Ben Jonson, “For the Honour of Wales”Note
The name may first have been a figure of speech: Leominster's wool was the town's wealth, its ore, as if the fleece were precious metal. Ben Jonson writes of the ore of Lempster in his masque For the Honour of Wales, first performed in 1618, trusting his audience to hear wool.
Checked 31 Oct 2026 · 6 facts
- The wool sense may have originated as a figurative use of the mineral sense of ore. en.wiktionary.org
- The wool trade brought Leominster its wealth. en.wikipedia.org
- Ben Jonson wrote the masque For the Honour of Wales. en.wikipedia.org
- The masque was first performed in 1618 and first published in 1641. Under the requested publication-year convention, 1618 must be explicitly identified as the performance year. research.birmingham.ac.uk
- The masque contains the words ore of Lempster. en.wiktionary.org
- Ore in this passage means fine wool. hcmc.uvic.ca
- 5Seaweed, especially the kind washed up on the shore.
Note
Southern speech turned ware, an old name for seaweed, into this form, and it now belongs to dialect and older writing. Like seaweed it takes no plural: a beach heaped with ore after a storm.
Checked 31 Oct 2026 · 2 facts
- Ore meaning seaweed is a southern variant of ware. en.wiktionary.org
- Ware is an old word for seaweed. en.wiktionary.org
- 6A unit of currency used in England from about the 10th to the 12th century.
Showing meanings only.
More uses
- Ore.a short written form of Oregon
Use it in a sentence
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Origins
Middle English used the forms or and oor, combining two Old English words: ōra, meaning "ore, unwrought metal," whose earlier origin is uncertain, and ār, meaning "brass, copper, bronze." The ancestry of ār runs through Proto-Germanic *aiz to Proto-Indo-European *áyos. Comparable words include Latin aes ("bronze, copper"), Sanskrit áyas ("copper, iron"), Old Norse eir ("brass, copper"), Gothic aiz ("brass, bronze, copper"), German ehern ("of metal, of iron"), and Dutch oer ("bog iron ore").
Checked 1 Nov 2026 · 11 facts
- Middle English had the forms or and oor. en.wiktionary.org
- The word combines Old English ōra and ār; ōra meant ore or unwrought metal. en.wiktionary.org
- The earlier origin of ōra is uncertain. en.wiktionary.org
- Old English ār meant brass, copper or bronze. en.wiktionary.org
- Ār descends through Proto-Germanic *aiz from Proto-Indo-European *áyos. en.wiktionary.org
- Latin aes is related and means bronze or copper. en.wiktionary.org
- Sanskrit áyas is related and means copper or iron. en.wiktionary.org
- Old Norse eir is related and means brass or copper. en.wiktionary.org
- Gothic aiz is related and means brass, bronze or copper. en.wiktionary.org
- German ehern is related and means made of metal, especially iron. en.wiktionary.org
- Dutch oer is a comparable word meaning bog iron ore. en.wiktionary.org
A southern variant of ware ("seaweed").
Checked 1 Nov 2026 · 2 facts
- Ore is a southern variant of ware. en.wiktionary.org
- Ware means seaweed. en.wiktionary.org
Possibly first a figurative use of ore in its "metal-bearing" sense, with Leominster's "ore" standing for the wealth of the town.
Checked 1 Nov 2026 · 1 fact
- The wool sense possibly originated as a figurative use of metal-bearing ore, representing Leominster's wealth. en.wiktionary.org