yore

See also: yöre

English

Etymology

From Middle English yore, yoare, yare, ȝore, ȝare, ȝeare, from Old English ġeāra (literally “of years”), of unclear origin but probably from Proto-Germanic *jērǫ̂, the genitive plural of Proto-Germanic *jērą (“year”). More at year.

Pronunciation

• enPR: yô, IPA^(key): /jɔː/
• enPR: yôr, IPA^(key): /jɔɹ/

  • Audio (US):

    (file)

• enPR: yōr, IPA^(key): /jo(ː)ɹ/
• IPA^(key): /joə/
• Rhymes: -ɔː(ɹ)
• Homophones: your, you're (accents with the pour–poor merger); yaw (non-rhotic accents with the horse–hoarse merger)

Noun

yore (uncountable)

1. (poetic) a time long past.

   This word comes from the days of yore.

   • 2019 November 21, Samanth Subramanian, “How our home delivery habit reshaped the world”, in The Guardian‎^[1]:

     Several logistics executives told me that if half-full freight vans from multiple firms kept congesting the streets, the best solution might be for every retailer to use a single firm instead. One delivery service to rule them all – just like the postal service of yore.

   • 1886-88, Richard Francis Burton, The Supplemental Nights to the Thousand Nights and a Night:

     In days of yore and times long gone before there was a Sultan of India who begat three sons; the eldest hight Prince Husayn, the second Prince Ali, and the youngest Prince Ahmad; moreover he had a niece, named Princess Nur al-Nihár, the daughter of his cadet brother who, dying early, left his only child under her uncle's charge.

Usage notes

A fossil; virtually unused outside the phrase of yore, especially the idiom days of yore.

Synonyms

• foretime, yestertide; see also Thesaurus:the past

Translations

time long past

• Dutch: ver verleden, weleer (nl), eertijds (nl)
• Estonian: ammune
• French: jadis (fr), antan (fr) m
• Hebrew: קֶדֶם (he) m (qédem)
• Icelandic: fyrir (is), langa (is), löngu (is)
• (deprecated template usage) {{trans-mid}}
• Ladino: antanyada
• Norwegian: gamle dager m pl
• Portuguese: antanho (pt), antano (pt)
• Russian: да́вние времена́ pl (dávnije vremená), было́е (ru) n (bylóje)
• Spanish: antaño (es)

Adverb

yore (not comparable)

1. (obsolete) In time long past; long ago.
   • 1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book I, Canto XII”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC, stanza 26:

     Which though he hath polluted oft and yore, / Yet I to them for iudgement iust do fly

Synonyms

• long since, of old; see also Thesaurus:long ago

Anagrams

• Roye, oyer, yero

---

Middle English

Adverb

yore

1. yore (in a time long ago)
2. (with past participle) for a long time
   • c. 1300 Anonymous, "Alison" (as printed in Oxford Dictionary of English Verse, 1900):

     Ichabbe y-yerned yore.

References

• “yōre, adv.”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007.