Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- intransitive verb To make a hole in or through, with or as if with a drill.
- intransitive verb To form (a tunnel, for example) by drilling, digging, or burrowing.
- intransitive verb To make a hole in or through something with or as if with a drill.
- intransitive verb To proceed or advance steadily or laboriously.
- noun A hole or passage made by or as if by use of a drill.
- noun A hollow, usually cylindrical chamber or barrel, as of a firearm.
- noun The interior diameter of a hole, tube, or cylinder.
- noun The caliber of a firearm.
- noun A drilling tool.
- transitive verb To make weary by being dull, repetitive, or tedious.
- noun One that is wearingly dull, repetitive, or tedious.
- noun A high, often dangerous wave caused by the surge of a flood tide upstream in a narrowing estuary or by colliding tidal currents.
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun Any instrument for making holes by boring or turning, as an auger or gimlet.
- noun A hollow hand-tool used in nail-making to hold a nail while its head is being formed.
- noun A hole made by boring, or as if by boring: as, “an auger's bore,” Specifically
- noun Hence The caliber or internal diameter of a hole or perforation, whether made by boring or not, especially of the cavity of a gun or tube.
- noun A wound or thrust.
- To weary by tedious iteration or repetition; tire, especially in conversation, by insufferable dullness; tease; annoy; pester.
- In racing, to annoy or impede by crowding against or out of the way.
- noun Ennui; a fit of ennui or listless disgust or weariness.
- noun One who suffers from ennui.
- noun One who or that which bores one, or causes ennui or annoyance; anything which by dullness taxes the patience, or otherwise causes trouble or annoyance; specifically, a dull, tiresome, or uncongenial person who tires or annoys by forcing his company or conversation on others, or who persists in uninteresting talk or undesired attentions.
- To pierce or perforate with a rotatory cutting instrument; make a circular hole in by turning an auger, gimlet, drill, or anything that will produce the same effect: as, to
bore a plank or a cannon; to bore the ground for water, or with a stick. - To form or produce by rotatory perforation: as, to
bore a hole or a well. - To penetrate, make, or gain as if by boring; push or drive through or into by any penetrating action: as, to
bore a plank, or a hole in a plank, with a rifle-ball. - To befool; trick; overreach.
- To pierce or penetrate, as a gimlet or similar instrument; make a hole or holes: as, the auger bores well.
- To sink a bore-hole, as in searching for water, coal, etc.
- To be suited for piercing with an auger or other boring-tool: as, wood that bores well or ill.
- To push forward or through toward a certain point: as, “boring to the west,”
- In the manège, to thrust the head forward as far as possible: said of a horse.
- noun An obsolete spelling of
boar . - noun Preterit of
bear . - noun An abrupt tidal wave which breaks in an estuary, the water then rushing up the channel with great violence and noise.
- noun A kind of cabbage; borecole.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- imp. of 1st & 2d
bear . - intransitive verb To make a hole or perforation with, or as with, a boring instrument; to cut a circular hole by the rotary motion of a tool.
- intransitive verb To be pierced or penetrated by an instrument that cuts as it turns.
- intransitive verb To push forward in a certain direction with laborious effort.
- intransitive verb (Man.) To shoot out the nose or toss it in the air; -- said of a horse.
- noun A hole made by boring; a perforation.
- noun The internal cylindrical cavity of a gun, cannon, pistol, or other firearm, or of a pipe or tube.
- noun The size of a hole; the interior diameter of a tube or gun barrel; the caliber.
- noun A tool for making a hole by boring, as an auger.
- noun obsolete Caliber; importance.
- noun A person or thing that wearies by prolixity or dullness; a tiresome person or affair; any person or thing which causes ennui.
- transitive verb To perforate or penetrate, as a solid body, by turning an auger, gimlet, drill, or other instrument; to make a round hole in or through; to pierce.
- transitive verb To form or enlarge by means of a boring instrument or apparatus.
- transitive verb To make (a passage) by laborious effort, as in boring; ; to force a narrow and difficult passage through.
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
Support
Help support Wordnik (and make this page ad-free) by adopting the word bore.
Examples
-
To-morrow we go up to Town "pour ce bore," as the good King always said to me; whenever there were tiresome people to present he always said: "Je vous demande pardon de ce _bore_."
The Letters of Queen Victoria, Vol 2 (of 3), 1844-1853 A Selection from her Majesty's correspondence between the years 1837 and 1861 Queen of Great Britain Victoria 1860
-
Another folio, Rochefort's History of the Caribby Islands, was lettered "Davies 'Carriby Islands," because the title bore the statement "Rendered into English by John Davies."
A Book for All Readers An Aid to the Collection, Use, and Preservation of Books and the Formation of Public and Private Libraries Ainsworth Rand Spofford
-
Because of the heroic size of the bottles, the pictured bottle on the label bore
Null-ABC H. Beam Piper 1934
-
The Court, after listening to the evidence concerning the sums paid by individual Natives of the tribe, of the total sum paid for the farm, and of the legal reason why the title bore a white man's name, held that however unfortunate was the position of those Natives if their story was true, it could only give judgment in terms of the title deeds.
Chapter XXIV Solomon Tshekisho 1916
-
Who should presume to doubt its administration by the Prisoner, when the label bore directions in his own characteristic handwriting?
The Dop Doctor Richard Dehan 1897
-
The ashes were in one of Mom’s old prescription pill bottles—in fact, the label bore a prescription for medicine taken by cancer patients for nausea—and they’d been given to me by Dad.
Misty Misty May-Treanor With Jill Lieber Steeg 2010
-
The ashes were in one of Mom’s old prescription pill bottles—in fact, the label bore a prescription for medicine taken by cancer patients for nausea—and they’d been given to me by Dad.
Misty Misty May-Treanor With Jill Lieber Steeg 2010
-
Chateaubriand is getting what you call a bore; and the whole city is mad about a new opera by Boieldieu.
Vivian Grey Benjamin Disraeli 1842
-
The title bore "People I Have Shared the Gospel With."
Bisaya Bloggers Brazen Lass 2008
-
They were so huge that the diameter of their bullets was given in "bore," the English equivalent of gauge.
chained_bear commented on the word bore
Iron-tipped battering ram for attacking masonry; also known as a pick.
August 24, 2008