lore

/lɔː//loɹ/

lore noun: all the facts and traditions about a particular subject that have been accumulated over time through education or experience. Also the simple past and past participle of lose.

Noun (1)

lore (countable and uncountable, plural lores)

All the facts and traditions about a particular subject that have been accumulated over time through education or experience.
- the recondite lore of the Ancient Egyptians
- He to them calles and speakes, yet nought avayles; / They heare him not, they have forgot his lore / But go which way they list; their guide they have forelore.1590, Edmund Spenser, “(please specify the book)”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC
(slang) The backstory, especially for a character or setting, created around a fictional universe.
- Lore documents reveal that she was backstabbed by her subordinate, who wanted to become king, and she feels vengeful about it.
- You might have stumbled upon discussions of Bloodborne's lore - there are plenty of discussions about Bloodborne's lore - which can be more than a little dense and, to the outsider, off-putting.2018 March 6, Martin Robinson, “Dispelling the myths of Bloodborne”, in Eurogamer
1. (Internet, broadly, slang) Trivia shared by a person about themselves.
  - It's Ashot lore that I used to have a priv where I posted pictures of weird animals I found on the street.
  - Most new followers don't know about my marching band lore.
(obsolete) Workmanship.
- In her right hand a rod of peace shee bore, / About the which two serpents weren wound; / Entrayled mutually in lovely lore, / And by the tailes together firmely bound […]1590, Edmund Spenser, “(please specify the book)”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC

Noun (2)

lore (plural lores)

The region between the eyes and nostrils of birds, reptiles, and amphibians.
- He’s sticky and encrusted on one side below his beak and amongst the lores around his eyes by the pips and juices he has dined upon, the pith and pulp of feeding.2022, Jim Crace, eden, Picador, page 40
The anterior portion of the cheeks of insects.

Also used as

lore is also the simple past and past participle of lose.

lore is also the simple past and past participle of lese.

Examples of lore in a sentence

Local lore held that the quarry had once been the site of black masses.
Is there a lore reason why I just camed my pants after seeing this pic???
No wonder these conspiring factors decimated the ludodiversity of the children's play lore.

All 40 example sentences with lore

Forms of lore

plural	lores

Plural of lore: lores

Origin of lore

From Middle English lore, from Old English lār, from Proto-West Germanic *laiʀu, from Proto-Germanic *laizō, from *laizijaną (“to teach”). Cognate with Dutch leer, German Lehre, Swedish lära and Danish lære. See also learn.

From Latin lorum (“thong, strap”).

Words formed from lore

Phrases with lore

Words that rhyme with lore

48 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about lore

What does lore mean?: Lore means all the facts and traditions about a particular subject that have been accumulated over time through education or experience.
What part of speech is lore?: Lore is a noun.
How do you pronounce lore?: Lore is pronounced /lɔː/ (UK).
What is the plural of lore?: The plural of lore is lores.

Words near lore in the dictionary

Adapted from Wiktionary: lore (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated: 2026-09-02

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-uk-lore.ogg, en-us-lore.ogg.

Cite this entry: “lore.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/lore. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.