shore

• (Received Pronunciation) enPR: shô, IPA^(key): /ʃɔː/
• (General American) enPR: shôr, IPA^(key): /ʃɔɹ/
• (rhotic, without the horse–hoarse merger) enPR: shōrʹ, IPA^(key): /ʃo(ː)ɹ/
• (non-rhotic, without the horse–hoarse merger) IPA^(key): /ʃoə/

• Audio (US)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɔː(ɹ)
• Homophone: sure (accents with the pour–poor merger); Shaw (non-rhotic accents with the horse–hoarse merger)

From Middle English schore, from Old English *sċora (attested as sċor- in placenames), from Proto-Germanic *skurô (“rugged rock, cliff, high rocky shore”). Possibly related to Old English sċieran (“to cut”), which survives today as English shear. Cognate with Middle Dutch scorre (“land washed by the sea”), Middle Low German schor (“shore, coast, headland”), Middle High German schorre ("rocky crag, high rocky shore"; > German Schorre, Schorren (“towering rock, crag”)), and Limburgish sjaor (“riverbank”).

shore (plural shores)

1. Land adjoining a non-flowing body of water, such as an ocean, lake or pond.

   lake shore;  bay shore;  gulf shore;  island shore;  mainland shore;  river shore;  estuary shore;  pond shore;  sandy shore;  rocky shore

   • Edmund Spenser (c.1552–1599)

     the fruitful shore of muddy Nile

   • 1898, Winston Churchill, chapter 8, in The Celebrity:

     Now we plunged into a deep shade with the boughs lacing each other overhead, and crossed dainty, rustic bridges […] : or anon we shot into a clearing, with a colored glimpse of the lake and its curving shore far below us.

2. (from the perspective of one on a body of water) Land, usually near a port.

   The seamen were serving on shore instead of in ships.

   The passengers signed up for shore tours.

• Generally, only the largest of rivers, which are often estuaries, are said to have shores.
• Rivers and other flowing bodies of water are said to have banks.
• River bank(s) outnumbers River shore(s) about 200:3 at COCA.

• (land adjoining a large body of water): beach, headland, coast

• longshoreman
• shorage

shore (third-person singular simple present shores, present participle shoring, simple past and past participle shored)

1. (obsolete) To set on shore.

   (Can we find and add a quotation of Shakespeare to this entry?)

Of uncertain origin, but found in some other Germanic languages. Compare Middle Dutch schooren (“to prop up, support”), Old Norse skorða (“piece of timber set up as a support”). [1]

shore (plural shores)

1. A prop or strut supporting the weight or flooring above it.

   The shores stayed upright during the earthquake.

shore (third-person singular simple present shores, present participle shoring, simple past and past participle shored)

1. (transitive, without up) To provide with support.
   • 1990, Christopher Gravett, Richard Hook, Medieval siege warfare, page 45:

     If houses were present these could be used to conceal the mine opening. As the mine progressed the roof was shored with timbers.

   • 1993, Jim Trefethen, Wooden Boat Renovation: New Life for Old Boats Using Modern Methods, page 106:

     Sometimes it's easier to laminate the strips one at a time, shoring each in place only long enough for the epoxy to set.

   • 1999, Vincent J. M. Di Maio, Gunshot Wounds, page 94:

     These are called shored exit wounds. They are characterized by a broad, irregular band of abrasion of the skin around the exit. In such wounds the skin is reinforced, or "shored," by a firm surface at the instant the bullet exits.

   • 1999, William P. Spence, Carpentry & Building Construction: A Do-It-Yourself Guide, page 14:

     It must provide the same degree of protection offered by a complete shoring system. Shoring Excavations Shallow trenches can be shored using wood sheet piling braced by stringers and rakers

2. (usually with up) To reinforce (something at risk of failure).

   My family shored me up after I failed the GED.

   The workers were shoring up the dock after part of it fell into the water.

   • 1811, Robert Kerr, A general history of voyages and travels to the end of the 18th century, volume 3, page 342:

     ... but his caravels were so much worm-eaten and shattered by storms that he could not reach that island, and was forced to run them on shore in a creek on the coast of Jamaica, where he shored them upright with spars

• (without up): reinforce, strengthen, support, buttress
• (with up): prop up, bolster

See shear.

shore

1. simple past tense of shear

shore (plural shores)

1. (Obsolete except in Hiberno-English) A sewer.

Perhaps a form of score, or another form of sure, equivalent to assure.

shore (third-person singular simple present shores, present participle shoring, simple past and past participle shored)

1. (Scotland, archaic) To warn or threaten.
2. (Scotland, archaic) To offer.

• H-O-R-S-E, H.O.R.S.E., HORSE, Horse, RSeOH, Rohes, hoers, horse, hoser, shero, shoer