Word.ws English Dictionary

rancour

rancour is the alternative spelling of rancor.

Meaning of rancor

Noun

rancor (countable and uncountable, plural rancors)

  1. (US) A feeling of long-lasting ire for another, sometimes to the point of hatred, over a perceived wrongdoing; bitterness.
    • I could almost see the rancor in his eyes when he challenged me to a fight.
  2. (US, rare) Rancidity, rankness.

See all 3 meanings of rancor

Proper noun capitalized: Rancour

Rancour (plural Rancours)

  1. A surname from French.

Forms of rancour

Noun
pluralrancours
Verb
third-person singular presentrancours
present participlerancouring
past participlerancoured
pastrancoured
Proper noun
pluralRancours

Origin of rancour

Variant of Rancourt.

Words formed from rancour

Questions about rancour

What does rancour mean?
Rancour means a surname from French.
What is rancour the alternative spelling of?
Rancour is the alternative spelling of rancor.
What part of speech is rancour?
Rancour is a proper noun.

Words near rancour in the dictionary

  1. rancorless
  2. rancorous
  3. rancorously
  4. rancorousness
  5. rancors
  6. rancour
  7. rancoured
  8. rancouring
  9. rancourless
  10. rancourlessness
  11. rancourous

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: rancour (page history and authors); Rancour (page history and authors); rancor (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.

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