Word.ws English Dictionary

oars

UK/ɔːz//ɔɹz/

oars is the plural of oar.

oars is the third-person singular simple present indicative of oar.

Meaning of oar

Noun

oar (plural oars)

  1. A type of lever used to propel a boat, having a flat blade at one end and a handle at the other, and pivoted in a rowlock atop the gunwale, whereby a rower seated in the boat and pulling the handle can pass the blade through the water by repeated strokes against the water's resistance, thus moving the boat.
    • The oar snaps in his hand
      Before he reaches dry land
      But the sound doesn't deafen his smile
      Just pokes at wet sand
      With an oar in his hand
      Floats off down the river Nile
      Floats off down the river Nile...19 October 1979, Madness, “Night Boat to Cairo”, Suggs (lyrics)
    Synonyms:
    paddle
  2. An oarsman; a rower.
    • He is a good oar.
  3. An oar-like swimming organ of various invertebrates.

See all 4 meanings of oar

Phrases with oars

Words that rhyme with oars

4 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about oars

What is oars the plural of?
Oars is the plural of oar.
How do you pronounce oars?
Oars is pronounced /ɔːz/ (UK).

Words near oars in the dictionary

  1. oarlops
  2. oarman
  3. oarmen
  4. Oaro
  5. OARP
  6. oars
  7. oarsman
  8. oarsmanship
  9. oarsmen
  10. oarsperson
  11. oarswoman

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: oars (page history and authors); oar (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-oars.ogg.

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