Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun An uncultivated area covered with low-growing vegetation and often high but poorly drained.
  • intransitive verb To make fast (a vessel, for example) by means of cables, anchors, or lines.
  • intransitive verb To fix in place; secure: synonym: fasten.
  • intransitive verb To provide with an abiding emotional attachment.
  • intransitive verb To secure a vessel or aircraft with lines or anchors.
  • intransitive verb To be secured with lines or anchors.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun One of a dark race dwelling in Barbary in northern Africa. They derive their name from the ancient Mauri or Mauritanians (see Mauritanian), but the present Moors are a mixed race, chiefly of Arab and Mauritanian origin. The name is applied especially to the dwellers in the cities. The Arabic conquerors of Spain were called Moors.
  • noun A dark-colored person generally; a negro; a black.
  • noun The act of mooring.
  • A dialectal form of more.
  • noun An officer in the Isle of Man who summons the courts for the several districts or sheadings.
  • To confine or secure (a ship) in a particular station, as by cables and anchors or by lines; specifically, to secure (a ship) by placing the anchors so that she will ride between them, thus occupying the smallest possible space in swinging round.
  • To secure; fix firmly.
  • To be held by cables or chains.
  • To fasten or anchor a boat or ship.
  • noun A tract of open, untilled, and more or less elevated land, often overrun with heath.
  • noun A tract of land on which game is strictly preserved for the purposes of sport.
  • noun Any uninclosed ground.
  • noun Synonyms Morass, etc. See marsh.
  • noun A bailiff of a farm.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • intransitive verb To cast anchor; to become fast.
  • transitive verb (Naut.) To fix or secure, as a vessel, in a particular place by casting anchor, or by fastening with cables or chains
  • transitive verb Fig.: To secure, or fix firmly.
  • noun One of a mixed race inhabiting Morocco, Algeria, Tunis, and Tripoli, chiefly along the coast and in towns.
  • noun (Hist.) Any individual of the swarthy races of Africa or Asia which have adopted the Mohammedan religion.
  • noun An extensive waste covered with patches of heath, and having a poor, light soil, but sometimes marshy, and abounding in peat; a heath.
  • noun A game preserve consisting of moorland.
  • noun (Zoöl.), [Prov. Eng.] the marsh harrier.
  • noun (Geol.) a friable variety of lignite.
  • noun (Zoöl.) the male of the moor fowl or red grouse of Europe.
  • noun (Zoöl.) See Gallinule.
  • noun (Zoöl.) Same as Moor fowl.
  • noun (Bot.) a tufted perennial grass (Sesleria cærulea), found in mountain pastures of Europe.
  • noun (Zoöl.) the marsh harrier.
  • noun (Zoöl.) An Australian rail (Tribonyx ventralis).
  • noun (Zoöl.) the black macaque of Borneo (Macacus maurus).
  • noun (Zoöl.) the European stonechat (Pratinocola rubicola).

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun an extensive waste covered with patches of heath, and having a poor, light soil, but sometimes marshy, and abounding in peat; a heath
  • noun a game preserve consisting of moorland
  • verb intransitive To cast anchor or become fastened.
  • verb transitive, nautical To fix or secure, as a vessel, in a particular place by casting anchor, or by fastening with cables or chains; as, the vessel was moored in the stream; they moored the boat to the wharf.
  • verb transitive To secure or fix firmly.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • verb secure with cables or ropes
  • verb come into or dock at a wharf
  • noun open land usually with peaty soil covered with heather and bracken and moss
  • noun one of the Muslim people of north Africa; of mixed Arab and Berber descent; converted to Islam in the 8th century; conqueror of Spain in the 8th century
  • verb secure in or as if in a berth or dock

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English mor, from Old English mōr.]

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English moren.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Old English mōr. Cognates include Dutch moer, German Moor and perhaps also Gothic 𐌼𐌰𐍂𐌴𐌹 (marei). See mere.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From the imperfect past participle moored; present participle and verbal noun mooring. Probably from middle Dutch marren "to tie, fasten or moor a ship" (now only means to procrastinate; > modern terms (aan)meren). See mar.

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Examples

  • To pray. _v.a. _ To drive all the cattle into one herd in a moor; _to pray the moor_, to search for lost cattle.

    The Dialect of the West of England; Particularly Somersetshire James Jennings

  • But this year, on this very sunshiny morning, he had announced at breakfast that he could not let us go to what we called our moor-home.

    Melchior's Dream and Other Tales Juliana Horatia Gatty Ewing 1863

  • The moor is now home to a herd of goats and over 25 black slugs.

    Inverness « Mad Dave and Lil 2005

  • The moor is now home to a herd of goats and over 25 black slugs.

    2005 May « Mad Dave and Lil 2005

  • I think running water is much more attractive in moor and mountain country than in the fat and sluggish South.

    North and South 1937

  • I think running water is much more attractive in moor and mountain country than in the fat and sluggish South.

    The Road to Wigan Pier 1937

  • The floor of the moor is a thousand feet above the surrounding Devonshire countryside, from which it rises abruptly.

    The Moor King, Laurie R. 1998

  • Postbridge itself was in a little hollow near a river, but the back of this inn faced out over the moor, and the moor was a place transformed, a stark landscape of gentle moonlit hills punctuated by patches of black rock or hollows, quiescent and motionless and unreal.

    The Moor King, Laurie R. 1998

  • On the moor was a throng of phantoms flitting on Petru's right and left hand, before and behind him.

    Roumanian Fairy Tales Various

  • The flowers rain in a gust; it is no racking storm that comes over this green moor, which is afloat, as it would seem, in these waves.

    Certain Noble Plays of Japan From the manuscripts of Ernest Fenollosa Ezra Pound 1928

Comments

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  • Room in reverse.

    July 22, 2007

  • Jane Smiley reworks 'Othello'.

    February 1, 2008

  • "He—for there could be no doubt of his sex, though the fashion of the time did something to disguise it—was in the act of slicing at the head of a Moor which swung from the rafters."

    - Virginia Woolf, 'Orlando'.

    November 1, 2008