Lore

How to spell lore

4 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce lore

What does lore mean?

1. nounA body of traditional knowledge, stories, or beliefs about a subject, especially one passed informally from person to person.

Lore in a sentence

• The older sailors shared the lore of the harbour with every new recruit.

• Local lore claims that the well never runs dry, even in the worst drought.

Where does lore come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

Lore comes straight from the Old English word lar, which meant 'teaching', 'instruction', or 'what is learned', and it belongs to the same family as the everyday verb 'learn'. The root is the Germanic stem that also gave German 'Lehre', meaning a doctrine or body of teaching, so the sense of accumulated knowledge has been there from the very start. In early English lore simply meant the act of teaching or the lessons themselves, and only over the centuries did it narrow toward the modern flavour of traditional, often unofficial knowledge passed down by word of mouth. By the time of folklore, coined in the nineteenth century, the word had settled into describing the stories, customs, and beliefs a community hands on across generations. The spelling stayed short and simple, which is partly why writers sometimes pause over the silent stretch of the long vowel, but it has only ever been four letters.

How the word is built

• lore (from Old English lar: teaching, learning, what is taught)