Moor

How to spell moor

4 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce moor

What does moor mean?

1. nounA tract of open, uncultivated upland, often covered with heather and rough grass.
2. verbTo secure a boat or ship in place with ropes, chains, or an anchor.

Moor in a sentence

• noun

  The hikers crossed a windswept moor before reaching the village.

• verb

  They decided to moor the yacht in the sheltered bay overnight.

• noun

  Thick fog settled over the moor and hid the footpath.

• verb

  Sailors must moor the boat firmly before the storm arrives.

Where does moor come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This spelling actually covers two words that fell together. The land sense descends directly from Old English mor, meaning a barren upland, marsh, or fen, a native Germanic word with relatives in Old Saxon and Old High German. The verb meaning to secure a vessel is a separate arrival, appearing in late Middle English and most likely borrowed from Middle Low German or Middle Dutch maren, meaning to tie or fasten, which is why a moored boat is held fast by ropes or chains. Over time the two converged on the same four-letter spelling, which is also a homophone of 'more' in many accents, making it a genuine ear trap rather than a logic trap. The double 'o' is the feature to remember, since the rhyming word 'more' uses a different vowel spelling entirely. None of this is connected to the capitalised 'Moor', the term for the medieval North African Muslims, which comes through Latin Maurus from Greek.

How the word is built

• moor (single root; in the boat sense, related to Middle Dutch maren 'to tie or moor')