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.
Metal mining is energy-intensive, and conventional estimates for its carbon footprint attribute most of its emissions to heavy equipment on-site, as well as diesel transport required to haul ore away.
From Barron's ● Jul. 22, 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
That assertion follows a site trip to Eloise, and leans into AIC’s recent exploration success and the relatively immature nature of the adjacent Jericho ore body.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 29, 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
He tested a piece of pitchblende, the principal ore of uranium, and found it to be 700 million years old–very much older than the age most people were prepared to grant the Earth.
From "A Short History of Nearly Everything" by Bill Bryson
"I will give you two öre for your thoughts, if they are worth it," her father said at last.
From Gerda in Sweden by McDonald, Etta Austin Blaisdell
He had to beg especially for every öre, he couldn't get much at that.
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
Now the price of the former is four öre, about one cent, and of the latter a half cent.
From Norwegian Life by Clough, Ethlyn T.
The government has adopted a decimal system, of which the unit is the riksdaler, containing one hundred öre.
From Up The Baltic Young America in Norway, Sweden, and Denmark by Optic, Oliver
The driver was a 21-year-old man from Yuba City, and the two passengers were a 17-year-old boy from San José and a 27-year-old man from Salem, Ore. All three died in the crash.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 24, 2026
In 2022, an ammonia release at a warehouse in Forest Grove, Ore., required a hazmat response, and in 2020, a contractor was killed after an ammonia release inside a warehouse in Statesville, N.C., it states.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 23, 2026
Before that, she was a corporate beat reporter in Chicago covering restaurants and the food industry and worked at newspapers in Detroit, Portland, Ore., and the San Francisco Bay Area.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 19, 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., height of, 156.Seasons, 179-182.Section through Black Hills of Dakota, 117.
From North America by Russell, Israel C. (Cook)
The former provides access to rare earth ores, and the latter can process ores into usable products.
From Barron's ● May 13, 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
Valor, a new company, launched to extract critical minerals from waste and ores using electrochemical liquid-liquid extraction.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Mar. 11, 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
“We can be our own barbarians. Madame Szegeczowska.—Oh, I meant to ask you. The Almaden mercury mines have fallen off quite badly in production. Surely the ores are not declining more rapidly than anticipated?”
From "I, Robot" by Isaac Asimov
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.
