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lore

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Pronunciation

  • /lɔː/, /loɹ/[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English lore, also lare and loor,[2] inherited from Old English lār (“learning, teaching, knowledge, doctrine”),[3][4][5][6][7][8] from Proto-Germanic *laizō,[5][9] a West Germanic formation according to Hoad and the Shorter Oxford.[10][11] It is cognate with Old Frisian lāre (“doctrine, teaching”), Old Saxon lēra, Middle Dutch lēre, Dutch leer, Old High German lēra (“doctrine”) and German Lehre (“teaching, precept, doctrine”).[5][4][3][2] The noun is related to the verbs lǣran (“to teach”),[2][12] Gothic 𐌻𐌰𐌹𐍃𐌾𐌰𐌽 (laisjan, “to teach”) and Old High German lēren,[5] and to leornian, the source of learn.[5][6][13] Etymonline and the American Heritage Dictionary take the root to be Proto-Indo-European *leis- (“furrow, track”),[4][7][9] and Skeat explained the sense as "what is traced out".[14]

Earliest recorded meaning

In Old English (recorded before 725), learning, teaching, knowledge and doctrine;[5] the OED's earliest senses are the act of teaching, a lesson (Blickling Homilies) and that which is taught, a doctrine (Lindisfarne Gospels).[3] Bosworth–Toller also glosses it as exhortation, counsel and persuasion.[8]

Semantic evolution

In Old and Middle English it meant above all instruction and doctrine, mostly religious; it was also used for a creed or religion (about 1225 to 1560), a rule of conduct, advice or a command (from before 1300), and loosely, in alliterative poetry, for speech or a story (about 1375 to 1420).[3] The sense "learning, scholarship" (from about 1225) is now archaic, surviving in Scots as lair or lear,[3] and in the late Middle Ages it could also mean a branch of knowledge or a science.[3][11] Johnson (1755) defined it as "lesson; doctrine; instruction".[15] The Historical Thesaurus places the modern sense, knowledge passed down from one generation to another, from 1663;[16] it became the body of traditional facts, stories and beliefs about a subject or held by a group, as in country lore.[11][7][17]

Timeline

  • before 725 – Old English lār, learning, teaching, doctrine.[5]
  • Old English – the act of teaching, a lesson; a doctrine.[3]
  • c. 1225 – learning, scholarship; a creed or religion.[3]
  • before 1300 – advice, counsel, command.[3]
  • c. 1290 – a body of knowledge, a science (obsolete by 1551).[3]
  • 1663 – traditional knowledge handed down in a community.[16]

Meanings

Noun

  1. A body of traditional knowledge, stories and beliefs about a subject or held by a group, often passed on by word of mouth: sailors' lore about the weather.[7][17][13]
  2. Knowledge or learning, especially that gained by study or experience.[13][6]
  3. (archaic) Something that is taught; a lesson, doctrine or instruction.[13][6][3]

Word family

Usage notes

A separate zoological term lore, the space between the eye and the beak of a bird, comes from Latin lōrum (“strap, thong”) and is recorded from 1828.[3][6][10]

References

  1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
  4. ^ a b c Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  5. ^ a b c d e f g Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
  6. ^ a b c d e Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
  7. ^ a b c d The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
  8. ^ a b Bosworth, Joseph; Toller, T. Northcote (1898), An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press; Toller, T. Northcote (1921), Supplement
  9. ^ a b Köbler, Gerhard (2014), Germanisches Wörterbuch, 5th ed., online, koeblergerhard.de/wikiling
  10. ^ a b Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  11. ^ a b c Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
  12. ^ Holthausen, Ferdinand (1934), Altenglisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, Heidelberg: Carl Winter
  13. ^ a b c d Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
  14. ^ Skeat, Walter W. (1911), A Concise Etymological Dictionary of the English Language, new ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
  15. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
  16. ^ a b Kay, Christian; Roberts, Jane; Samuels, Michael; Wotherspoon, Irené, eds. (2009), Historical Thesaurus of the Oxford English Dictionary, Oxford: Oxford University Press; online edition (2024)
  17. ^ a b Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press