nor
UK/nɔː//nɔɹ/
nor conjunction: and... not (introducing a negative statement, without necessarily following one). Also the alternative form of NOR.
Conjunction
nor
- And... not (introducing a negative statement, without necessarily following one).
- Nor did I stop to think, but ran.
- They are happy, nor need we worry.
- A function word introducing each except the first term of a series, indicating none of them is true.
- I am neither hungry nor thirsty.
- I love your majesty / According to my bond, nor more nor less.c. 1603–1606, William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of King Lear”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount...
- Neither.
- I love your majesty / According to my bond, nor more nor less.c. 1603–1606, William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of King Lear”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount...
- Nor you nor your house were so much as spoken of before I disbased myself.1601, Ben Jonson, Poetaster or The Arraignment: […], London: […] [R. Bradock] for M[atthew] L[ownes] […], published 1602, →OCLC, Act I, scene ii
- Used to introduce a further negative statement.
- The struggle didn't end, nor was it diminished.
- I hardly spoke with nor listened to anybody else.
- Than.
- He's no better nor you.
- The river was runnin' very hard, so he was whirled away at a grate rate; but he played away as fast, ay, and faster nor the river run.1850, Thomas Keightley, The Fairy Mythology, London: H.G. Bohn, page 527
Noun capitalized: NOR
NOR (plural NORs)
- A binary operator composite of NOT OR; negation of OR function.
- 0 NOR 0 is 1; 1 NOR anything is 0.
- The associativity of OR and AND is not at all obvious. It is tempting to assume that because OR and AND are commutative that they must be associative also. This is not the case, however, and some commutative Boolean operators are not associative. Examples include NAND and NOR.2022 August 4, William Bahn, “Boolean Algebra Laws—Delving Into Boolean Identities”, in All About Circuits
- Acronym of nucleolus organiser region.
Also used as
nor is also the alternative form of NOR.
nor meaning in Arabic and Persian
nor in Arabic
- nor
- وَلَا walā
nor in Persian
- nor
- نه na, و نه va na
Examples of nor in a sentence
- She had no way of knowing, nor did we, that he’d done it.
- Water, water, every where, / Nor any drop to drink.1797, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, The Rime of the Ancient Mariner:
- And, moreover, I had made my vow to preserve my rank unknown till the crusade should be accomplished; nor did I mention it […]1825, Sir Walter Scott, The Talisman:
- Not so for otroverts, who are neither willing nor able to passively adopt the social scripts that others do.2025 June 19, Rami Kaminski, ““Otroverts” and why nonconformists often see what others can’t”, in Big Think:
- But I see I will have to amend that, because he was not a celebrity then, nor, indeed, did he achieve fame until some time after I left New York for the West.1897 December (indicated as 1898), Winston Churchill, chapter I, in The Celebrity: An Episode, New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company...
Antonyms of nor
Forms of nor
| plural | nors |
|---|---|
| plural | NORs |
Origin of nor
From Middle English nauther, from nother. Cognate with neither. By surface analysis, not + or.
From Etymology 1 (sense 2 above), reinterpreted as not + or or negation + or.
From nor. Reinterpreted as NOT + OR or negation + OR (see also NAND, formed analogically).
Words formed from nor
- XNOR
- buff nor stye
- common sense is neither common nor sensical
- for love nor money
- gentle nor simple
- hide nor hair
- make head nor tail of
- make neither head nor tail of
- meddle nor make
- neither a borrower nor a lender be
- neither employed nor retired
- neither fish, flesh, nor fowl
- neither fish, flesh, nor good red herring
- neither fish nor flesh, nor good red herring
- neither fish nor flesh
- neither fish nor fowl
- neither here nor there
- neither use nor ornament
- neither … nor
- rhyme nor reason
- tide nor time tarrieth no man
Phrases with nor
- Nor Am
- Lop Nor
- nee nor
- Koko Nor
- NOR gate
- NOR gates
- Nor Shirakan
- Nor Nakhichevan
- meddled nor made
- meddles nor makes
- meddling nor making
- made neither head nor tail of
2 more phrasesFewer phrases
Words that rhyme with nor
48 more rhymesFewer rhymes
Questions about nor
- What does nor mean?
- Nor means and... not (introducing a negative statement, without necessarily following one).
- What is nor in Arabic?
- Nor in Arabic is وَلَا (walā). See Nor meaning in Arabic.
- How do you use nor in a sentence?
- She had no way of knowing, nor did we, that he’d done it.
- What part of speech is nor?
- Nor can be a conjunction or a noun.
- How do you pronounce nor?
- Nor is pronounced /nɔː/ (UK).
Words near nor in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: nor (page history and authors); NOR (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:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-nor.ogg.
Cite this entry: “nor.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/nor. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.