a metal-bearing mineral or rock, or a native metal, that can be mined at a profit.
a mineral or natural product serving as a source of some nonmetallic substance, as sulfur.
a bronze coin of Norway, one 100th of a krone.
a zinc or bronze coin of Denmark, one 100th of a krone.
a bronze coin of Sweden, one 100th of a krona.
a fractional currency of the Faeroe Islands, one 100th of a krona.
Ore deposits are generally mined, and the ore is processed to recover the material.
before 900; conflation of Middle English ore, Old English ōra ore, unreduced metal; and Middle English or(e) ore, metal, Old English ār brass, cognate with Old Saxon, Old High German ēr, Old Norse eir, Gothic aiz; compare Latin aes bronze, coin, money
First recorded in 1600–10; ultimately from Latin aureus “a gold coin of ancient Rome”; see aureus ( def. )
Ore is a rock that contains minerals like iron, gold, or lead. The seven dwarfs in the movie "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs" worked mining ore. Another meaning of ore is a Swedish unit of money. The krona is made up of 100 ore. In this use, ore is usually spelled with an umlaut over the o — öre. In English, ore is most commonly used to mean a material from which valuable metals or gems can be extracted. In Old English, ora means unwrought metal and ar means bronze. Both root words are thought to have influenced this sense of ore.
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Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Already the world’s top oil exporter, it hopes to draw on unproven uranium ore deposits to meet energy needs at home, freeing up more of its oil production to boost exports and revenues.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 22, 2026
More than a valuable economic resource, the dark ore has become one of the pillars of Polish identity -- with miners long wielding political influence.
From Barron's ● Jul. 17, 2026
The furnaces operate at extreme temperatures, with iron ore and coking coal poured in at the top and liquid iron extracted at the bottom.
From BBC ● Jul. 17, 2026
The ore mined at Kamoa has a copper content of 2.8 percent, four times the global average.
From Barron's ● Jun. 26, 2026
“What about the springwater, the metal ore in the ground?”
From "Moon Over Manifest" by Clare Vanderpool
“One rigsdaler and fifty öre each—three rigsdalers in all.”
From Up The Baltic Young America in Norway, Sweden, and Denmark by Optic, Oliver
That would be thirty-two öre for us all, and we must save our money to spend in the Djurgård.
From Gerda in Sweden by McDonald, Etta Austin Blaisdell
After dinner a short walk brought the party to the landing-place of the little steamers, where, paying eight öre, or about two cents, each, they embarked.
From Up The Baltic Young America in Norway, Sweden, and Denmark by Optic, Oliver
These he sent to a binder who put them into simple paper covers for a few öre per volume.
From The Soul of a Child by Björkman, Edwin
So that when he issued a new coin and called it an öre and a half, people were suspicious and refused to take it till he reduced it to something like its value.
From The Swedish Revolution Under Gustavus Vasa by Watson, Paul Barron
When Ed’s health began to fade in 2023, his son, Bryan, arranged with a Keizer, Ore., store called Bricks & Minifigs—the local franchise of a nationwide chain of Lego resellers—to sell the collection on consignment.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 26, 2026
She works for a consulting firm in Eugene, Ore., that helps nonprofits raise funding.
From MarketWatch ● Jun. 16, 2026
The son of a bartender and a liquor salesman, he was raised in Portland, Ore. — which he and his family still called home.
From Los Angeles Times ● May 16, 2026
With the pandemic limiting travel into China for three years, executives at Nike headquarters in Beaverton, Ore., increasingly relied on reports from Angela Dong, the company’s longtime China general manager.
From The Wall Street Journal ● May 12, 2026
Ore. But Sahale, in order to show his appreciation of the care with which Loowit had guarded the sacred fire, now determined to offer her any gift she might desire as a reward.
From In the Oregon Country Out-Doors in Oregon, Washington, and California Together with some Legendary Lore, and Glimpses of the Modern West in the Making by Putnam, George Palmer
Metal ores dug up during mining often contain sulfide minerals.
From Barron's ● Jul. 22, 2026
Africa's exports to China are dominated by minerals and raw materials, such as crude oil and metallic ores.
From BBC ● Apr. 30, 2026
The company estimates that 70% of global copper reserves are contained in such ores, frequently in concentrations that aren’t worth the expense of grinding into powders and hauling—often overseas—for smelting and refining.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jan. 15, 2026
“They are very complex ores with highly unusual mineralogy, and some of them have relatively high contents of the radioactive elements uranium and thorium,” Goodenough notes.
From Barron's ● Jan. 7, 2026
Mercury was produced in large quantities because it was used to extract gold and silver from their ores, and it was widely available because it was used in medicine, particularly to treat syphilis.
From "The Invention of Science" by David Wootton
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
