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• moor
  moor

  noun

  a tract of open, peaty, wasteland, often overgrown with heath, common in high latitudes and altitudes where drainage is poor; heath.
• Moor
  Moor

  noun

  a Muslim of the mixed Berber and Arab people inhabiting NW Africa.

moor

¹ American  

[moor] / mʊər /

noun

1. a tract of open, peaty, wasteland, often overgrown with heath, common in high latitudes and altitudes where drainage is poor; heath.

2. a tract of land preserved for game.

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moor ² American  

[moor] / mʊər /

verb (used with object)

• moors,
  present (3rd person singular)
• moored,
  past participle,  past
• mooring
  present participle

1. to secure (a ship, boat, dirigible, etc.) in a particular place, as by cables and anchors or by lines.

2. to fix firmly; secure.

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verb (used without object)

• moors,
  present (3rd person singular)
• moored,
  past participle,  past
• mooring
  present participle

1. to moor a ship, small boat, etc.

2. to be made secure by cables or the like.

noun

1. the act of mooring.

Moor ³ American  

[moor] / mʊər /

noun

• Moors
  plural

1. a Muslim of the mixed Berber and Arab people inhabiting NW Africa.

2. a member of this group that invaded Spain in the 8th century a.d. and occupied it until 1492.

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moor ¹ British  

/ mɔː, mʊə /

verb

1. to secure (a ship, boat, etc) with cables or ropes

2. (of a ship, boat, etc) to be secured in this way

3. (not in technical usage) a less common word for anchor

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Moor ² British  

/ mʊə, mɔː /

noun

1. a member of a Muslim people of North Africa, of mixed Arab and Berber descent. In the 8th century they were converted to Islam and established power in North Africa and Spain, where they established a civilization (756–1492)

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moor ³ British  

/ mɔː, mʊə /

noun

1. a tract of unenclosed ground, usually having peaty soil covered with heather, coarse grass, bracken, and moss

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Other Word Forms

Derived Forms

• moory
  adjective

Inflected Forms

Nouns

• Moors
  plural

Participles

• mooring
  present
• moored
  past

Conjugated Forms

Present

• moor
  simple
• moors
  simple
• have moored
  perfect
• has moored
  perfect
• am mooring
  progressive
• are mooring
  progressive
• is mooring
  progressive
• have been mooring
  perfect progressive
• has been mooring
  perfect progressive

Past

• moored
  simple
• had moored
  perfect
• was mooring
  progressive
• were mooring
  progressive
• had been mooring
  perfect progressive

Future

• will moor
  simple
• will have moored
  perfect
• will be mooring
  progressive
• will have been mooring
  perfect progressive

Etymology

Origin of moor¹

First recorded before 900; Middle English more, Old English mōr; cognate with Dutch moer, German Moor “marsh”

Origin of moor²

First recorded in 1485–95; earlier more, akin to Old English mǣrels- in mǣrelsrāp “rope for mooring a ship”; see marline

Origin of Moor³

First recorded in 1350–1400; Middle English More, from Middle French, variant of Maure, from Latin Maurus, from Greek Maûros, perhaps from Berber

Explanation

To moor is to tie up a ship, as in to moor the ocean liner to the docks. Or, if you're reading Victorian literature, a moor could be a mossy meet-up spot. This word of many hats can also be a noun — a moor is mossy land covered in bushes and grass. The spooky dogs in Sherlock Holmes's The Hound of the Baskervilles lurk in the moor. With a capital "M," a Moor refers to a person descended from Muslims of northwestern Africa. It's usually used as a verb, though, meaning "to fasten a boat" — probably related to the Old English word mærels, "mooring rope." Say the word in a deep voice and it almost sounds like the foghorn on a ship that's about to moor in the harbor on a foggy night.

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

moor Moor Moors moors moored mooring

Grace often takes her granddaughter, nearly five, onto the moor.

From BBC ● Apr. 19, 2026

"They want to come here and experience the Brontes, the moor, and find their own interpretation of Emily," he said.

From Barron's ● Feb. 28, 2026

Its single “Chains of Love” is a hybrid of new and old, with orchestral flourishes bouncing off the singer’s voice, which is processed to sound pinched and distant—as if echoing across a windswept moor, perhaps.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Dec. 30, 2025

Campers were being asked to check the Backpack Code and where camping is permitted on the moor before heading out.

From BBC ● Aug. 12, 2025

The mountain is a biological island of rain forest in the center of Africa, an isolated world rising above dry plains, fifty miles across, blanketed with trees, bamboo, and alpine moor.

From "The Hot Zone" by Richard Preston

More than a month on, the Tintwistle Moor fire is now a sprawling, smouldering blaze the size of a small town, which can be seen from space.

From BBC ● Jul. 24, 2026

Elsewhere, firefighters remain at the scene of a major moorland fire at Tintwistle Moor near Dovestone Reservoir in the Peak District.

From BBC ● Jul. 14, 2026

On Saturday morning, Derbyshire Fire and Rescue Service said crews had returned to wildfires near Arnfield Farm and at Tintwistle Moor - with a helicopter also carrying out water drops on hotspots.

From BBC ● Jul. 12, 2026

Bellamy was a coach under Vincent Kompany at Turf Moor between 2022 and 2024 and had a brief spell in caretaker charge.

From BBC ● Jun. 25, 2026

I wrote to Moor House and to Cambridge immediately, to say what I had done: fully explaining also why I had thus acted.

From "Jane Eyre" by Charlotte Brontë

We had Fylingdales up in the North York Moors last year.

From BBC ● Jul. 24, 2026

Windswept Whitby sits on the east coast of Yorkshire, with its back to the North York Moors National Park and its face to the North Sea.

From Los Angeles Times ● May 14, 2026

In Spain, fritter-like buñuelos showed up with the Moors, and by some reports, churros were a Chinese idea that was later dragged through molten chocolate by hungry Madrileños or wandering shepherds or both.

From Salon ● Feb. 5, 2026

In 2012, he was awarded the Maria Moors Cabot Prize for distinguished coverage in Latin America.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Feb. 3, 2026

‘But this one was walking, I tell you; and there ain’t no elm tree on the North Moors.’

From "The Fellowship of the Ring" by J.R.R. Tolkien

“Wuthering Heights” looks just as the voracious reader imagines it as they tear through the novel: drafty houses, windy moors, color and texture that bound from the screen.

From Salon ● Jun. 10, 2026

As do the moors that stretch behind the parsonage.

From Los Angeles Times ● May 14, 2026

Instead, the experimental units can be plants, plots of land, fields, moors, forests, or oceans.

From Slate ● Apr. 28, 2026

The howl and whine of the opening few bars of “Chains of Love” conjure images of the ghostly moors, before transforming into a catchy midtempo pop number.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Feb. 17, 2026

In the spring of 1685, Maria put most of her belongings in storage, renounced the world—including her increasingly distant husband—and bumped over rutted roads to the flat, open moors of Friesland in the northern Netherlands.

From "The Girl Who Drew Butterflies: How Maria Merian's Art Changed Science" by Joyce Sidman

On Wednesday a drone struck a US-owned gas vessel moored in an Egyptian port, causing a fire.

From Barron's ● Aug. 1, 2026

Samuel West returned to the marina in Braunston, Northamptonshire, where they moored their boat, to unveil a plaque to their memory.

From BBC ● Jul. 2, 2026

Three days before the U.S. game in Seattle some 500 fans, most wearing the blue-and-white striped jerseys of Argentina, filed onto a 322-foot cargo barge moored in Elliott Bay to watch their team play Algeria.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 23, 2026

“Psychologically, I’m moored somewhere. This place is my anchor.”

From MarketWatch ● Jun. 1, 2026

The moored boats were all very similar to one another, Christopher saw—smaller, even, than their own, and painted clinical green or black.

From "Impossible Creatures" by Katherine Rundell

Police said they were aware of a boat having been taken from its mooring in Brightlingsea, which has since been located "adrift in the water".

From BBC ● Mar. 11, 2026

Asked about the 5.5 million barrels of fuel that, according to Kpler data, arrived from Russia at the company’s mooring in the bay of Mersin this year, Ayrik said he couldn’t discuss the company’s customers.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Dec. 27, 2025

A major Russian oil terminal near the southern port of Novorossiysk halted operations early Saturday after a naval drone attack damaged one of its three mooring points.

From Barron's ● Nov. 29, 2025

Analysis of mooring observations and hydrographic data suggest the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation deep water limb in the North Atlantic has weakened.

From Science Daily ● Apr. 19, 2024

“We found him in the lagoon, caught in a gondola’s mooring rope.”

From "The City Beautiful" by Aden Polydoros

Related Words

• dock
• tether
• tie up