ore

UK/ɔː//oɹ/

ore noun: rock or other material that contains valuable or utilitarian materials; primarily a rock containing metals or gems for which it is typically mined and processed. Also the obsolete form of over.

Image: James St. John, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun (1)

ore (countable and uncountable, plural ores)

Rock or other material that contains valuable or utilitarian materials; primarily a rock containing metals or gems for which it is typically mined and processed.
- They generally occur in the earth in what are called veins, and are seldom found in the pure metallic state, but generally in combination with some other substance, in which state they are called ores.1846, editorial staff, “CHEMISTRY: Continued from No. 12”, in Scientific American, series 1, Volume 2, Issue 13, page 102
- Manganism has been known about since the 19th century, when miners exposed to ores containing manganese, a silvery metal, began to totter, slur their speech and behave like someone inebriated.2014 April 21, “Subtle effects”, in The Economist, volume 411, number 8884, archived from the original on 20 Jan 2021

Noun (2)

ore (plural ores)

A unit of currency used in England around the 10th to 12th centuries.
- In the time of Æthelred the Unready when the pound contained 240 pence, the ore was reckoned at 16 pence, but in earlier times there was probably much variation.1956, Peter Hunter Blair, An Introduction to Anglo-Saxon England, London; New York, N.Y.: Cambridge University Press, →ISBN, page 295
Synonyms:

ora

Noun (3)

ore (uncountable)

(archaic, dialectal) Seaweed, especially that which is washed up ashore.

Noun (4)

ore (uncountable)

(historical) A type of fine wool, especially of the type historically produced in the market town of Leominster, Herefordshire.
- But then the ore of Lempſter / By Got is never a Sempſter; / That when he is ſpun, ore did, / Yet match him with hir thrida. 1638 (date written), Ben Jonson, “For the Honour of Wales”, in The Works of Beniamin Jonson, […] (Third Folio), London: […] Thomas Hodgkin, for H[enry] Herringman, E. Brewster, T. Bassett...

Proper noun (1) capitalized: Ore

Ore

A suburban area, formerly a village, in Hastings borough, East Sussex, England (OS grid ref TQ8311).
A river in Suffolk, England, in two sections; a non-tidal section that joins the River Alde, and a tidal section, a renaming of the Alde parallel to the coast south of Aldeburgh, passing Orford before entering the North Sea.
A tributary of the River Leven, Fife council area, Scotland.

Proper noun (2) capitalized: ORE

ORE

(abbreviation) Abbreviation of Oregon.

Also used as

ore is also the obsolete form of over.

ore is also the alternative form of öre.

ore meaning in Hindi, Marathi, Telugu and Malayalam

ore in Hindi

rock that contains materials that can be economically extracted and processed: अयस्क ayask

ore in Marathi

rock that contains materials that can be economically extracted and processed: धातुक dhātuk

ore in Telugu

rock that contains materials that can be economically extracted and processed: ఖనిజము khanijamu

ore in Malayalam

rock that contains materials that can be economically extracted and processed: അയിര് ayirŭ

More languagesFewer languages

ore in Kannada: ಅದಿರು
ore in Punjabi: ਓਰੇ
ore in Pashto: معدن ma'dan
ore in Tagalog: dukalin, dulang
ore in Arabic: رِكَاز rikāz, خَامَة ḵāma
ore in Malay: bijih
ore in Indonesian: bijih
ore in Persian: معدن ma'dan, سنگ معدن sang-e ma'dan
ore in Thai: แร่ rɛ̂ɛ, สินแร่ sǐn-rɛ̂ɛ
ore in Vietnamese: quặng
ore in Myanmar: သတ္တုရိုင်း sattu.ruing:

Examples of ore in a sentence

The mine was worked until the last scrap of ore had been extracted.
The ore slurries are directed into an open tank outside the excavation site.
The impurities in the iron ore made extraction of the iron very difficult.

All 40 example sentences with ore

Synonyms of ore

Forms of ore

plural	ores
alternative form	woar
plural	ore

Plural of ore: ores

Origin of ore

From Middle English or, oor, blend of Old English ōra (“ore, unwrought metal”), of uncertain origin, and ār (“brass, copper, bronze”), from Proto-West Germanic *aiʀ, from Proto-Germanic *aiz, from Proto-Indo-European *h₂éyos. Compare Old Norse eir (“brass, copper”), German ehern (“of metal, of iron”), Gothic 𐌰𐌹𐌶 (aiz, “ore”); also Dutch oer (“ferrous hardpan; bog iron ore”). Compare Latin aes (“bronze, copper”), Avestan 𐬀𐬌𐬌𐬀𐬵 (aiiah), Sanskrit अयस् (áyas, “copper, iron”).

Borrowed from Latin ora.

A southern variant of ware (“seaweed”).

Phrases with ore

Words that rhyme with ore

48 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about ore

What does ore mean?: Ore means rock or other material that contains valuable or utilitarian materials; primarily a rock containing metals or gems for which it is typically mined and processed.
What is ore in Hindi?: Ore in Hindi is अयस्क (ayask). See Ore meaning in Hindi.
What part of speech is ore?: Ore can be a noun or a proper noun.
How do you pronounce ore?: Ore is pronounced /oɹ/ (US).
What is the plural of ore?: The plural of ore is ores.

Words near ore in the dictionary

Adapted from Wiktionary: ore (page history and authors); Ore (page history and authors); ORE (page history and authors); ore (Kannada, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); ore (Punjabi, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license). 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-us-ore.ogg.

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