sore
UK /sɔː/ · US /soɹ/ adjective, adverb, noun, verb
Forms sorer sorest sores soring sored
- adjective Causing pain or discomfort; painfully sensitive. “Her feet were sore from walking so far.”
- adjective Sensitive; tender; easily pained, grieved, or vexed; very susceptible of irritation.
- adjective Dire; distressing. “The school was in sore need of textbooks, theirs having been ruined in the flood.”
- adjective (informal) Feeling animosity towards someone; annoyed or angered. “Joe was sore at Bob for beating him at checkers.”
- adjective (obsolete) Criminal; wrong; evil.
- adverb (archaic) Very, excessively, extremely (of something bad).
- adverb Sorely.
- noun An injured, infected, inflamed or diseased patch of skin. “They put ointment and a bandage on the sore.”
- noun Grief; affliction; trouble; difficulty.
- verb (transitive) To mutilate the legs or feet of (a horse) in order to induce a particular gait.
- verb (intransitive) To grow sores; to be beset with skin lesions.
- noun A young hawk or falcon in its first year.
- noun A young buck in its fourth year.
Synonyms
aching smarting achesome achy raw hurt hurty griefful pained painfilled painful smartful suffering tender tormented delicate fragile tetchy touchy irked sensitive afflictive huffy mad
Etymology
From Middle English sor, from Old English sār (“ache, wound”, noun) and sār (“painful, grievous”, adjective), from Proto-West Germanic *sair, from Proto-Germanic *sairaz (adjective) from Proto-Indo-European *seh₂iro-, enlargement of *seh₂y- (“to be fierce, afflict”).
See also Dutch zeer (“sore, ache”), Danish sår (“wound”), German sehr (“very”); also Hittite [script needed] (sāwar, “anger”), Welsh hoed (“pain”), Ancient Greek αἱμωδία (haimōdía, “sensation of having teeth on edge”).
From Middle English sor (“sorrel”), from Old French sor (“sorrel; reddish”). Compare French saur (“(archaic) reddish-brown; describing a young bird of prey”).
Webster’s 1913
- adjective Reddish brown; sorrel. [R.] Sore falcon. (Zoöl.) See Sore, n., 1.
- noun A young hawk or falcon in the first year.
- noun A young buck in the fourth year. See the Note under Buck.
- adjective Tender to the touch; susceptible of pain from pressure; inflamed; painful; --said of the body or its parts; as, a sore hand.
Etymology [F. saure, sore, sor; faucon sor a sore falcon. See Sorrel, n.]
Etymology [OE. sor, sar, AS. sar; akin to D. zeer, OS. & OHG. s, G. sehr very, Icel. sarr, Sw. sår, Goth. sair pain. Cf. Sorry.]
Sources: Wiktionary · WordNet 3.0 · Webster’s 1913 — from the Wiktionary entry “sore”, CC BY-SA 4.0. Details