Hoar
adj, name, noun, verb ·Moderate ·High school level
Definitions
- 1 A white or greyish-white colour.
- 2 ice crystals forming a white deposit (especially on objects outside) wordnet
- 3 Hoariness; antiquity.
"His grants are engrafted on the public law of Europe, covered with the awful hoar of innumerable ages."
- 1 To become mouldy or musty. intransitive, obsolete
"But a hare that is hoar / Is too much for a score / When it hoars ere it be spent."
- 1 Of a white or greyish-white colour. not-comparable
"hoar waters"
- 2 Hoarily bearded. not-comparable, poetic
"And lo, where rapt in beauty's heavenly dream Hoar Plato walks his olived Academe."
- 3 Musty; mouldy; stale. not-comparable, obsolete
"But a hare that is hoar / Is too much for a score / When it hoars ere it be spent."
- 4 Figuratively, grey-haired with age. archaic, not-comparable
"Be Thou with me until Old-age, and even to hoar hairs do Thou carrie me. P. Isa. 46.4."
- 1 showing characteristics of age, especially having grey or white hair wordnet
- 1 A surname.
Example
More examples"Senator Hoar spoke strongly against the treaty."
Etymology
From Middle English hor, hore, from Old English hār (“hoar, hoary, grey, old”), from Proto-West Germanic *hair, from Proto-Germanic *hairaz (“grey”), from Proto-Indo-European *(s)ḱeh₃- (“grey, dark”). Cognate with German hehr (“noble, sublime”), Herr (“sir, gentleman”), Scottish Gaelic ciar (“dusky”), and Russian се́рый (séryj, “grey”).
* As an English surname, from the adjective hoar (“greyish white”). * Also as an English surname, from Ore in Sussex, or its source Old English ōra (“edge, brink”). Compare Middle English Hore.
Related phrases
More for "hoar"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.