yore means in time long past; long ago. It carries an Arena rating of 1585, earned across 7 head-to-head judged battles.
Among words judged in Lexicurio's Arena, yore ranks #2,787 of 17,128 for Most Whimsical Words, #3,313 of 17,120 for Most Beautiful Words, #4,670 of 17,113 for Most Elegant Words, #5,841 of 17,111 for Most Sublime Words.
yore is pronounced /jɔː/.
Why “yore” is a great word
A time long past, or in time long past; the bygone era whose contours blur with myth. From Middle English yore, yoare, etc., from Old English ġeāra (“long ago”), an adverbial genitive plural meaning “of years,” from Proto-Germanic *jērą (“year”). Unlike “yesteryear,” which sighs for the recent, barely-gone seasons steeped in personal nostalgia, or “antiquity,” which confines itself to the formal, stone-laden epochs of documented history, yore drifts free of exact chronology, a spectral expanse where legends take root. It is the chill draft through a castle’s broken arch, the scent of iron-rusted armor in a forgotten armory, and the hush beneath the footsteps of someone walking where no name now remains. Yore is the past not as memory but as atmosphere: gone beyond retrieval, yet still present, like the smell of rain on dry stone—the deep, collective then felt grain by grain in the dust of what endures without record.
Etymology
From Middle English yore, yoare, yare, ȝore, ȝare, ȝeare, from Old English ġeāra (“long ago”), of unclear origin but probably from Proto-Germanic *jērǫ̂ (literally “of years”), the genitive plural of Proto-Germanic *jērą (“year”). More at year.
adv
- In time long past; long ago.e.g.“Which though he hath polluted oft and yore, / Yet I to them for iudgement iust do fly”
noun
- A time long past.e.g.“This word comes from the days of yore.”
Words closest in meaning
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