Other forms: sores
Sore is the tender, aching kind of pain you feel when part of you has been used too hard or knocked. A throat after a night of shouting, legs the morning after a long walk, a red patch where a new shoe rubbed.
It is also a noun: a sore is a raw or infected place on the skin that will not heal — a cold sore on the lip, bedsores on someone who cannot move. In American English, sore means annoyed and resentful: do not be sore at me, and a sore loser is the one who sulks after the match. English keeps several fixed phrases here — a sore point is something a person hates being asked about, a sight for sore eyes is someone you are glad to see, and to stick out like a sore thumb is to be painfully obvious. The adverb sorely holds the old strength of the word: sorely missed, sorely tempted. Sore is dull and tender rather than sharp: a cut stings, a shoulder is sore.
1adjectivesorePainful and tender, especially when touched or moved.~70%
“My legs were sore for two days after the hike.”
synonyms: aching, tender
2nounrawA raw or infected place on the skin.~20%
“A cold sore appeared on her lip the morning of the wedding.”
3adjectiveupsetUpset and resentful about something (chiefly American English).~10%
“He was still sore about losing the argument a week later.”
Shares are an estimate: a language model read 12 sentences found in the wild and placed 10 of them on a sense (2 were unclear) — a count of our sample, not a measurement of English.
Also accepted in games: aching
Old English sār covered both sides at once: as a noun it meant an ache or a wound, as an adjective painful or grievous. It comes from Proto-Germanic *sairaz and an Indo-European root *seh₂y-, to be fierce or afflict. The same root stands behind German sehr, which now means simply very — pain worn down into emphasis, the way English still says sorely.
Proto-Indo-European
*seh₂iro-
Proto-Germanic
*sairaz
Proto-West Germanic
*sair
Old English
sār — ache, wound
Middle English
sor
English, today
sore
Built from
From Middle English sor, from Old English sār (“ache, wound”) and sār (“painful, grievous”), from Proto-West Germanic sair, from Proto-Germanic sairaz from Proto-Indo-European seh₂iro-, enlargement of seh₂y- (“to be fierce, afflict”). See also Dutch zeer (“sore, ache”), Danish sår (“wound”), German sehr (“very”); also hit (“anger”), Welsh hoed (“pain”), Ancient Greek αἱμωδία (“sensation of having teeth on edge”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA