Etymologically
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moor

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Pronunciation

  • UK: /mɔː/, /mʊə/[1]
  • US: /mʊɹ/, /mɔɹ/[1]

moor1 open upland, heath

Etymology

The open upland is inherited from Middle English mor, also more,[2][3][4] inherited from Old English mōr (“moor, marsh, waste land”),[5][6][7][8][9] from Proto-Germanic *mōraz.[10][7][11] Its cognates mostly mean "marsh" or "fen": Old Saxon mōr, Middle Dutch moer, Middle Low German mōr, the source of German Moor, Old High German muor (“swamp; sea”) and Old Norse mœrr (“land, moorland”).[5][8][3][4][12][11] The OED, Kroonen and Orel take the Germanic word as a variant, with a lengthened vowel, of *mari (“sea, lake”), the source of mere and a relative of marine.[5][11][12][10][7] Barnhart traces it to Proto-Indo-European *mōro- (“standing water”),[13] while Etymonline also mentions the root *mer- (“to die”), as if "dead land".[8] The Germanic word was borrowed as Medieval Latin mora and as Anglo-Norman more (“marsh, swamp”), recorded from about 1136.[5][14]

Earliest recorded meaning

Marsh, fen or waste land: the word is in Beowulf, which Barnhart dates to about 725,[13] and the OED's first records are early Old English glosses on Aldhelm and the Old English translation of Bede.[5] Bosworth–Toller defines it as waste and damp land, and also as high waste ground or a mountain.[6] Dictionary.com dates it to before 900.[15]

Semantic evolution

In Old English it is often hard to tell the sense "marsh" from the sense "waste ground".[5] The marsh sense was common mainly in the lowlands of southern and eastern England, while the uplands of England and Scotland used the word for waste ground; the OED thinks that this second sense, found only in English, may have been influenced by the Scandinavian word represented by Old Norse mór (“heath, moorland”), which probably lies behind many place names in -moor.[5] According to the Cambridge Dictionary of English Place-Names, quoted by Etymonline, the basic sense in place names is "marsh", and the shift to dry heath may reflect the idea of infertile land.[8] The marsh sense survives in the low-lying moors of Somerset, once marshland.[5] In Scotland from 1386 a moor was unenclosed land held by a proprietor or by a town as common land,[5] and after 1596 the word also meant the peaty soil of a moor, now chiefly in Shetland.[5] In Cornwall it meant a waste where tin was found (1602–1778), and then a vein of ore.[5] Johnson (1755) still gave "a marsh; a fen; a bog" as the first sense.[16] In British slang the Moor has meant Dartmoor Prison since 1869.[5][17] Compounds include moorhen (mid-14th century) and moorfowl, the grouse (about 1500);[8] moorland goes back to Old English mōrland.[7] In Scots the word is muir or mure.[18]

Timeline

  • c. 725 – marsh, waste land, in Beowulf.[13]
  • 1150 – in the compound morsecge, sedge from a marsh.[13]
  • c. 1200 – open, untilled ground, often covered with heath.[8][2]
  • 1386 – in Scotland, unenclosed land held as common land.[5]
  • 1596 – the soil of a moor; peat.[5]
  • 1602 – in Cornwall, a waste where tin is found (obsolete by 1778).[5]
  • 1869 – the Moor, Dartmoor Prison, in British slang.[5]

Meanings

Noun

  1. Chiefly in Britain, a broad stretch of open, uncultivated upland, usually with peaty soil covered with heather, coarse grass, bracken and moss: They crossed the moor for hours without meeting anyone.[9][4][5]
  2. A boggy, peaty area dominated by grasses and sedges; a fen.[4][19]
  3. In Somerset, any of the flat, low-lying areas that were once marshland.[5]
  4. (Scotland) Unenclosed land held by a proprietor or as common land.[5]
  5. the Moor (British slang): Dartmoor Prison.[5][17]
  6. (obsolete) A marsh or fen.[5][16]

Word family

  • moorland
  • moory
  • moorhen
  • moorcock
  • moorfowl
  • Dartmoor
  • Exmoor

moor2 to secure a ship

Etymology

The verb is inherited from Middle English moren,[4][13] probably borrowed from Middle Low German mōren,[10][7][20] a relative of Middle Dutch māren and mēren (“to tie up, moor”), now Dutch meren.[20][5][4][13] The OED and Etymonline also allow that it continues an unrecorded Old English verb, Etymonline's *mærian, from the base of the first part of mǣrelsrāp (“mooring rope”), also mārels;[5][8][13] the OED adds that a borrowing of the Dutch verb would have to predate the change of ā to ō in early Middle English.[5] Etymonline traces the Dutch verb to Proto-West Germanic *mairojan,[8] and Merriam-Webster compares Old Frisian mere (“thong, strap”) and Old High German marawen (“to tie together”).[4][13] The verb is the source of amarrer (“to moor”), through Dutch,[8][21] while vermoren in Low German is from English.[5]

Earliest recorded meaning

To secure a ship or other floating object in place with chains, ropes or cables: 1378–81, in a record printed in Sandahl's Middle English Sea Terms.[5] Barnhart dates the sense "to fix or fasten" to about 1380 and "to secure a ship" to before 1497;[13] Etymonline, Ayto and the Shorter Oxford place the verb in the late 15th century.[8][10][20]

Semantic evolution

The OED takes Medieval Latin moragium (“moorage”) as evidence that the verb was in use before its first English record.[5] From 1614 it was used reflexively, or in the passive with a person as subject, and after 1621 also in extended senses.[5] The intransitive use, to moor one's ship, is recorded from 1627 in J. Smith's Sea Grammar, and of a ship itself, to lie secured in place, from 1697 in Dryden's translation of Virgil.[5] In the 20th century the verb was used of seaplanes (moor up, 1936),[5] and Merriam-Webster also has airships moored to a mast.[4] The noun mooring is recorded from 1420, and moorings, the place where a ship is moored, from 1774.[13] A noun moor, an act or method of mooring, dates from 1750.[5][4]

Timeline

  • 1378–81 – to secure a vessel with cables or anchors.[5]
  • 1420 – moring, the mooring of a ship.[13]
  • 1614 – reflexive and passive uses.[5]
  • 1627 – intransitive, to moor one's ship.[5]
  • 1697 – of a ship, to lie moored.[5]
  • 1750 – noun, an act or method of mooring.[5]
  • 1936 – moor up, of a seaplane.[5]

Meanings

Verb

  1. To make a boat, ship or other floating object fast with cables, ropes or anchors: They moored the dinghy to a post on the jetty.[4][19][5]
  2. To fix something firmly in place, as if with cables or anchors.[19][5]
  3. Of a ship or its crew, to be made fast in a place; to lie at anchor.[5][19]

Noun

  1. The act or a method of mooring.[4][5]

Word family

  • mooring
  • moorage
  • unmoor

References

  1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
  3. ^ a b Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
  4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
  5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
  6. ^ a b Bosworth, Joseph; Toller, T. Northcote (1898), An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press; Toller, T. Northcote (1921), Supplement
  7. ^ a b c d e Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  8. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  9. ^ a b Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
  10. ^ a b c d Ayto, John (2005), Word Origins: The Secret Histories of English Words from A to Z, 2nd ed., London: A & C Black
  11. ^ a b c Kroonen, Guus (2013), Etymological Dictionary of Proto-Germanic, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 11, Leiden / Boston: Brill
  12. ^ a b Orel, Vladimir (2003), A Handbook of Germanic Etymology, Leiden / Boston: Brill
  13. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
  14. ^ Anglo-Norman Dictionary (AND2), Aberystwyth University, anglo-norman.net (2nd ed., 2005–)
  15. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
  16. ^ a b Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
  17. ^ a b Green, Jonathon (2010), Green's Dictionary of Slang, London: Chambers; digital ed. 2016–, https://greensdictofslang.com
  18. ^ Wright, Joseph, ed. (1898–1905), The English Dialect Dictionary, 6 vols., Oxford: Henry Frowde; via EDD Online 4.0, University of Innsbruck (CC BY 4.0)
  19. ^ a b c d Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary (2003), 11th ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
  20. ^ a b c Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
  21. ^ Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray