Hoar

Pronunciation

• Rhymes: -ɔː(r)

Origin

From Middle English hore, from Old English hār ("hoar, hoary, grey, old"), from Proto-Germanic *hairaz ("grey"), from Proto-Indo-European *ḱēy(w)-, *ḱyē(w)- ("grey"). Cognate with German hehr ("noble, sublime").

Full definition of hoar

Noun

1. A white or greyish-white colour.
2. Hoariness; antiquity.
• BurkeCovered with the awful hoar of innumerable ages.

Adjective

1. Of a white or greyish-white colour.
• Spenserhoar waters
2. (poetic) Hoarily bearded.
• 1847 Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Evangeline, A Tale of AcadieThis is the forest primeval. The murmuring pines and the hemlocks,Bearded with moss, and in garments green, indistinct in the twilight,Stand like Druids of eld, with voices sad and prophetic,Stand like harpers hoar, with beards that rest on their bosoms.
• Byronold trees with trunks all hoar
3. (obsolete) Musty; mouldy; stale.
• 1593, William Shakespeare, , II. iv. 134:But a hare that is hoar
  Is too much for a score
  When it hoars ere it be spent.

Derived terms

• hoarfrost
• hoary
• hoared

Related terms

• haar
• horehound

Verb

1. (obsolete, intransitive) To become mouldy or musty.
• 1593, William Shakespeare, , II. iv. 136:But a hare that is hoar
  Is too much for a score
  When it hoars ere it be spent.

Anagrams

• haor, hora