or1
- (used to connect words, phrases, or clauses representing alternatives): books or magazines; to be or not to be.
- (used to connect alternative terms for the same thing): the Hawaiian, or Sandwich, Islands.
- (used in correlation): either … or; or … or; whether … or.
- (used to correct or rephrase what was previously said): His autobiography, or rather memoirs, will soon be ready for publication.
- otherwise; or else: Be here on time, or we'll leave without you.
- Logic. the connective used in disjunction.
Origin of or1
Usage note
or2
- before; ere.
Origin of or2
or3
- the tincture, or metal, gold: represented either by gold or by yellow.
- of the tincture, or metal, gold: a lion or.
Origin of or3
OR
- a Boolean operator that returns a positive result when either or both operands are positive.
Origin of OR
OR
- Law. on (one's own) recognizance.
- operating room.
- operations research.
- Oregon (approved especially for use with zip code).
- owner's risk.
-or1
- a suffix occurring in loanwords from Latin, directly or through Anglo-French, usually denoting a condition or property of things or persons, sometimes corresponding to qualitative adjectives ending in -id4 (ardor; honor; horror; liquor; pallor; squalor; torpor; tremor); a few other words that originally ended in different suffixes have been assimilated to this group (behavior; demeanor; glamour).
Origin of -or1
Usage note
The suffix -or2 is now spelled -or in all forms of English, with the exception of the word savior, often spelled saviour in the U.S. as well as in Britain, especially with reference to Jesus.
-or2
- a suffix forming animate or inanimate agent nouns, occurring originally in loanwords from Anglo-French (debtor; lessor; tailor; traitor); it now functions in English as an orthographic variant of -er1, usually joined to bases of Latin origin, in imitation of borrowed Latin words containing the suffix -tor (and its alternant -sor). The association with Latinate vocabulary may impart a learned look to the resultant formations, which often denote machines or other less tangible entities which behave in an agentlike way: descriptor; plexor; projector; repressor; sensor; tractor.
Origin of -or2
O.R.
- owner's risk.
or1
- used to join alternativesapples or pears; apples or pears or cheese; apples, pears, or cheese
- used to join rephrasings of the same thingto serve in the army, or rather to fight in the army; twelve, or a dozen
- used to join two alternatives when the first is preceded by either or whetherwhether it rains or not we'll be there; either yes or no
- one or two a few
- or else See else (def. 3)
- a poetic word for either or whether as the first element in correlatives, with or also preceding the second alternative
Word Origin
or2
- (subordinating; foll by ever or ere) before; when
- before
Word Origin
or3
- (usually postpositive) heraldry of the metal gold
Word Origin
OR
- operations research
- Oregon
- military other ranks
-or1
- a person or thing that does what is expressed by the verbactor; conductor; generator; sailor
Word Origin
-or2
- indicating state, condition, or activityterror; error
- the US spelling of -our
Word Origin and History for or
conj.
c.1200, from Old English conjunction oþþe "either, or," related to Old Frisian ieftha, Middle Dutch ofte, Old Norse eða, Old High German odar, German oder, Gothic aiþþau "or." This was extended in early Middle English (and Old High German) with an -r ending, perhaps by analogy with "choice between alternative" words that ended thus (e.g. either, whether), then reduced to oþþr, at first in unstressed situations (commonly thus in Northern and Midlands English by 1300), and finally reduced to or, though other survived in this sense until 16c.
The contraction took place in the second term of an alternative, such as either ... or, a common construction in Old English, where both words originally were oþþe (see nor).
-or
word-forming element making nouns of quality, state, or condition, from Middle English -our, from Old French -our (Modern French -eur), from Latin -orem (nominative -or), a suffix added to pp. verbal stems. Also in some cases from Latin -atorem (nominative -ator).
In U.S., via Noah Webster, -or is nearly universal (but not in glamour, curious, generous), while in Britain -our is used in most cases (but with many exceptions: author, error, senator, ancestor, horror etc.). The -our form predominated after c.1300, but Mencken reports that the first three folios of Shakespeare's plays used both spellings indiscriminately and with equal frequency; only in the Fourth Folio of 1685 does -our become consistent.
A partial revival of -or on the Latin model took place from 16c. (governour began to lose its -u- 16c. and it was gone by 19c.), and also among phonetic spellers in both England and America (John Wesley wrote that -or was "a fashionable impropriety" in England in 1791).
Webster criticized the habit of deleting -u- in -our words in his first speller ("A Grammatical Institute of the English Language," commonly called the Blue-Black Speller) in 1783. His own deletion of the -u- began with the revision of 1804, and was enshrined in the influential "Comprehensive Dictionary of the English Language" (1806), which also established in the U.S. -ic for British -ick and -er for -re, along with many other attempts at reformed spelling which never caught on (e.g. masheen for machine). His attempt to justify them on the grounds of etymology and the custom of great writers does not hold up.
Fowler notes the British drop the -u- when forming adjectives ending in -orous (humorous) and derivatives in -ation and -ize, in which cases the Latin origin is respected (e.g. vaporize). When the Americans began to consistently spell it one way, however, the British reflexively hardened their insistence on the other. "The American abolition of -our in such words as honour and favour has probably retarded rather than quickened English progress in the same direction." [Fowler]