Soar

How to spell soar

4 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce soar

What does soar mean?

1. verbTo fly or rise high into the air, or to increase rapidly in amount or intensity.

Soar in a sentence

• Eagles soar on warm currents of rising air above the valley.

• House prices soar whenever interest rates fall sharply.

Where does soar come from?

Language of origin: French

Soar entered English in the late 1300s from the Old French verb essorer, which meant 'to expose to the air' or 'to let fly', as a falconer might release a hawk into the wind. That Old French word traces back to an unrecorded Vulgar Latin form exaurare, built from the Latin prefix ex- 'out' and aura 'breeze' or 'air', so the literal idea was 'to rise out into the air'. The same aura root, meaning a gentle current of air, survives in the modern English word 'aura'. Over time the falconry sense of a bird climbing on rising currents broadened to any high, sustained flight, and then to figurative rises such as prices or spirits climbing sharply. The spelling trap is purely auditory: soar sounds identical to the unrelated 'sore' (meaning painful), and the silent visual difference of the 'oa' versus 'ore' is the only thing keeping them apart.

How the word is built

• soar (single root verb; no prefix or suffix)

Words that sound like soar

They sound the same but mean different things, so the meaning decides which spelling to write.

• sore: Painful or aching, especially from injury, overuse, or illness.