Nor

//nɔː// conj, noun

conj, noun ·Moderate ·College level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    Alternative form of NOR. alt-of, alternative
  2. 2
    A binary operator composite of NOT OR; negation of OR function.

    "0 NOR 0 is 1; 1 NOR anything is 0."

  3. 3
    Acronym of nucleolus organiser region. abbreviation, acronym, alt-of
Conjunction
  1. 1
    And... not (introducing a negative statement, without necessarily following one). literary

    "Nor did I stop to think, but ran."

  2. 2
    A function word introducing each except the first term of a series, indicating none of them is true. formal

    "I am neither hungry nor thirsty nor tired."

  3. 3
    Neither. archaic

    "I love your majesty / According to my bond, nor more nor less."

  4. 4
    Used to introduce a further negative statement. formal

    "The struggle didn't end, nor was it diminished."

  5. 5
    Than. UK, dialectal

    "He's no better nor you."

Synonyms

All synonyms
and

Example

More examples

"A mathematical truth is neither simple nor complicated; it is."

Etymology

Etymology 1

From Middle English nauther, from nother. Cognate with neither. By surface analysis, not + or.

Etymology 2

From Etymology 1 (sense 2 above), reinterpreted as not + or or negation + or.

Etymology 3

From nor. Reinterpreted as NOT + OR or negation + OR (see also NAND, formed analogically).

Related phrases

buff nor styecommon sense is neither common nor sensicalfor love nor moneygentle nor simplehide nor hairmake head nor tail ofmake neither head nor tail ofmeddle nor makeneither a borrower nor a lender beneither fish nor fleshneither fish nor flesh, nor good red herringneither fish nor fowl

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.