oar

From Middle English ore (“oar”), from Old English ār, from Proto-West Germanic *airu, from Proto-Germanic *airō (“oar”). Cognate with Old Norse ár.

• In British & some other non-rhotic accents:
  • (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ɔː/
  • (non-rhotic, without the horse–hoarse merger) IPA^(key): /oə/
  • Homophones: aw, awe (in non-rhotic accents with the horse–hoarse merger)
• In US & some other rhotic accents:
  • (General American) enPR: ôr, IPA^(key): /ɔɹ/

  • Audio (US)

    (file)

  • (rhotic, without the horse–hoarse merger) enPR: ōr, IPA^(key): /o(ː)ɹ/
  • Homophones: ore, o'er; or (in accents with the horse-hoarse merger)
• Rhymes: -ɔː(ɹ)

oar (plural oars)

1. A type of lever used to propel a boat, having a flat blade at one end and a handle at the other, and pivoted in a rowlock atop the gunwale, whereby a rower seated in the boat and pulling the handle can pass the blade through the water by repeated strokes against the water's resistance, thus moving the boat.

   Synonym: paddle

   • 19 October 1979, Madness (lyrics and music), “Night Boat to Cairo”, Suggs (lyrics)‎:

     The oar snaps in his hand
     Before he reaches dry land
     But the sound doesn't deafen his smile
     Just pokes at wet sand
     With an oar in his hand
     Floats off down the river Nile
     Floats off down the river Nile...

2. An oarsman; a rower.

   He is a good oar.

3. (zoology) An oar-like swimming organ of various invertebrates.

oar (third-person singular simple present oars, present participle oaring, simple past and past participle oared)

1. (literary) To row; to travel with, or as if with, oars.
   • 1866, Thomas S. Muir, Barra Head, page 52:

     The weather was fine, and whilst oaring along I would fain have landed on the islands between; but fearful of a change, and already half worn-out by my previous trail, I let them go by with the comforting resolve of turning them up on some future occasion.

   • 1950, Mervyn Peake, Gormenghast, London: Eyre & Spottiswoode, →OCLC:

     Turning the long tables upside down — and there were twelve of them — they seated themselves, one behind another, within the upturned table tops as though they were boats and were about to oar their way into some fabulous ocean.

   • 1996, Peter J. Bowler, Life's Splendid Drama:

     In Nopsca's theory, flight evolved as a means of running more quickly over the ground: "Birds originated from bipedal, long-tailed cursorial reptiles which during running oared along in the air by flapping their free anterior extremities."

• AOR, AoR, Ora, ROA, Rao, Roa, aro, ora

From Old Frisian other.

oar

1. other
2. different

This adjective needs an inflection-table template.

• feroarje

• “oar (I)”, in Wurdboek fan de Fryske taal (in Dutch), 2011