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lore

UK/lɔː/US/loɹ/
nounB2+Occasional — familiar, but not everyday · #9,689 of 15,258leans written

Other forms: lores

Lore is the body of traditional knowledge a group hands down. Folk lore, the lore of the sea, local lore.

It is handed on by telling rather than by writing, which is what separates it from learning, and it is a mass noun with no plural. In fandom, lore means the invented background of a fictional world, and that use is now everywhere among younger speakers.

Definitions of lore

  1. 1nounloreThe body of traditional knowledge a group hands down.B2+

    “According to local lore, a ghost walks along the castle walls at midnight.”

lore is knowledge.

Where it comes from

Old English lar means teaching, from a Germanic root meaning to teach. Learn is a relative.

  1. Middle English

    lore

  2. English, today

    lore

Built from

  • *laizijaną · Proto-Germanic — to teach

From Middle English lore. From Middle English lore, from Old English lār, from Proto-West Germanic laiʀu, from Proto-Germanic laizō, from laizijaną (“to teach”). Cognate with Dutch leer, German Lehre, Swedish lära and Danish lære. See also learn.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practise this word

lore in the wild

  • Weather lore is the body of informal folklore related to the prediction of the weather and its greater meaning.

    Weather lore

  • Much like regular folklore, weather lore is passed down through speech and writing from normal people without the use of external measuring instruments.

    Weather lore

  • The lore (adj. loreal) is the region between the eyes and nostrils of birds, reptiles, and amphibians.

    Lore (anatomy)

From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.