pore

pore¹ to gaze intently, study

Etymology

The verb meaning to gaze or study is inherited from Middle English pouren, also puren and pore,^[2][3][4][5] a word of uncertain or unknown origin with no obvious counterpart in Old French.^[6][7][8][5] The MED, Barnhart, Etymonline and Hoad suggest an unrecorded Old English *pūrian, perhaps related to spyrian (“to investigate, examine”), which is cognate with Old Norse spyrja, Old High German spurien and Old Frisian spera, and to spor (“trace, vestige”);^[2][3][7][9] Barnhart takes the latter back to Proto-Indo-European *sper- (“to kick”).^[3] Hoad suggests that a form with a changed vowel, *pȳran, may be the source of the Middle English verb pire, of the same meaning,^[9] and the OED too thinks the verb is perhaps related to pire, though the sounds make this difficult; it also compares peer and pry.^[6] Ayto likewise thinks it might be related to the nearly synonymous peer.^[10][8] Partridge suggested instead Middle French purer, from Latin pūrō (“to cleanse”), from pūrus (“clean, pure”), with a development "to sift" and hence "to examine".^[11] The OED notes that the quality of the vowel in Middle and early Modern English is uncertain.^[6]

Earliest recorded meaning

To look intently, to gaze: Barnhart dates the first record, as puren, to about 1225, in King Horn,^[3] and the OED to about 1300, in a manuscript of King Horn first composed perhaps about 1225.^[6] Etymonline gives the early 13th century.^[7]

Semantic evolution

The sense of reading or studying something with fixed attention appears in Chaucer's Canterbury Tales (about 1387–95),^[6] where the verb occurs eleven times;^[12] Etymonline notes that it was used especially, but not at first, of reading something with steady perseverance, with on or over.^[7] The OED says that the plain sense of gazing is now rare except where it shades into this one.^[6] From about 1500 it also meant to think hard about something, to ponder.^[6] Between 1532 and 1788 one could pore one's eyes out, ruining one's eyesight by reading,^[6][8] and in the 18th century the verb also meant to look closely with half-closed eyes, like a short-sighted person.^[6][8] A noun pore, a careful examination, followed in 1871.^[6] In Shropshire dialect a verb pore meant to intrude.^[13]

Timeline

• c. 1225 – puren, to look intently, to gaze.^[3][6]
• c. 1387 – to read or study something with close attention, in Chaucer.^[6]
• c. 1500 – to think intently, to ponder.^[6]
• 1532 – to bring oneself into a state by poring, especially to pore one's eyes out (obsolete by 1788).^[6]
• 1706 – to look closely with half-shut eyes, to peer (obsolete by 1777).^[6]
• 1871 – noun, a close examination.^[6]

Meanings

Verb

1. To read or study something with close attention, usually with over: The students pored over old maps of the city.^[14][15][6]
2. To think deeply about something; to ponder, with over, on or upon.^[14][6]
3. (rare) To look intently or fixedly; to gaze.^[14][15][6]

pore² tiny opening

Etymology

The opening in the skin is inherited from Middle English poore, also pore,^[3][5][16] borrowed from Middle French pore,^[6][15][5] and directly borrowed from Latin porus (“passage, channel in the body”),^[6][3][7] from Ancient Greek πόρος (póros, “passage, way; pore”).^{[6][7][9][10]} The French word is recorded in Old French at the end of the 13th century for an opening in the skin,^[6] and the Anglo-Norman word in the mid-13th century, for an opening in the skin or in a fabric and for a duct in the body.^[17] The Greek noun is related to πείρω (peírō, “to pierce, run through”),^[5] and comes from Proto-Indo-European *poro- (“passage, journey”), a form of *per- (“to lead, pass over”),^[7] the source also of fare, ferry, ford and port.^[10][9][11] The same Latin word gave poro, poro and poro.^[6]

Earliest recorded meaning

A small opening in the skin or body surface: before 1387, in Trevisa's translation of Higden's Polychronicon, as poore; the spelling pore follows before 1398.^[3][6] Etymonline describes the late 14th-century sense as a minute opening in the earth, a tree, the body of a person, animal or insect, or a bone.^[7]

Semantic evolution

According to Ayto, the anatomical sense had already developed in Greek, where the word first meant a passage.^[10] In English the word spread almost at once, in Trevisa's translation of Bartholomaeus Anglicus (before 1398), to the small openings in plants, the tiny spaces between particles of soil or rock, and ducts in the body; that last sense was rare and died out in the 19th century.^[6] The figurative phrase at every pore, in every part, is recorded from 1632.^[6] Johnson (1755) defined a pore as a passage for sweat in the skin.^[18] In astronomy a pore has been a small sunspot without a penumbra since 1801, in Herschel.^[6] The adjective porous, derived from it through French, is also recorded from the 14th century.^[10][9]

Timeline

• before 1387 – poore, an opening in the skin.^[3][6]
• before 1398 – pore; also an opening in a plant, a minute interstice in matter, and a duct in the body.^[6][3]
• 1632 – figurative, at every pore.^[6]
• 1801 – in astronomy, a small sunspot without a penumbra.^[6]

Meanings

Noun

1. A tiny opening in the skin or outer surface of an animal, through which sweat or other fluids pass: Steam opens the pores of the face.^[14][15][6]
2. (botany) A small opening in the surface of a plant, such as a stoma.^[6][15]
3. A minute space or hole in soil, rock or another material, through which liquid or gas can pass.^[15][6][8]
4. (astronomy) A small dark spot on the Sun without a penumbra.^[6][8]
5. at every pore: in every part, thoroughly.^[6]

Word family

• porelike
• blastopore
• micropore