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• ore
  ore

  noun

  a metal-bearing mineral or rock, or a native metal, that can be mined at a profit.
• öre
  öre

  noun

  a bronze coin of Norway, one 100th of a krone.
• Ore.
  Ore.

  abbreviation

  Oregon.

ore

¹ American  

[awr, ohr] / ɔr, oʊr /

noun

• ores
  plural

1. a metal-bearing mineral or rock, or a native metal, that can be mined at a profit.

2. a mineral or natural product serving as a source of some nonmetallic substance, as sulfur.

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öre ² American  

[œ-ruh] / ˈœ rə /

Also øre

noun

• öre
  plural

1. a bronze coin of Norway, one 100th of a krone.

2. a zinc or bronze coin of Denmark, one 100th of a krone.

3. a bronze coin of Sweden, one 100th of a krona.

4. a fractional currency of the Faeroe Islands, one 100th of a krona.

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Ore. ³ American  

abbreviation

1. Oregon.

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öre ¹ British  

/ ˈørə /

noun

1. a Scandinavian monetary unit worth one hundredth of a Swedish krona and ( øre ) one hundredth of a Danish and Norwegian krone

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ore ² British  

/ ɔː /

noun

1. any naturally occurring mineral or aggregate of minerals from which economically important constituents, esp metals, can be extracted

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ore Scientific  

/ ôr /

1. A naturally occurring mineral or rock from which a valuable or useful substance, especially a metal, can be extracted at a reasonable cost.

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ore Cultural  

1. In geology, a mineral that contains a commercially useful material, such as gold or uranium.

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Discover More

Ore deposits are generally mined, and the ore is processed to recover the material.

Other Word Forms

Noun Inflected Forms

• ores
  plural
• öre
  plural

Etymology

Origin of ore¹

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

Origin of öre²

First recorded in 1600–10; ultimately from Latin aureus “a gold coin of ancient Rome”; see aureus ( def. )

Explanation

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.

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

ore öre Ore. ores

The boost from oil and gas was tempered somewhat by the mining industry, as declines in coal and non-metallic minerals countered higher metal ore mining.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 31, 2026

Tighter enforcement could redirect ore produced within the tin-metal producer’s concessions away from illegal collectors and competing smelters and back into the company’s formal supply chain, the analyst says.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 27, 2026

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

A new impetus for the project had emerged: fears of a shortage of uranium ore, the raw material for the production of plutonium bomb cores.

From "Big Science" by Michael Hiltzik

"I will give you two öre for your thoughts, if they are worth it," her father said at last.

From Gerda in Sweden by Etta Austin Blaisdell McDonald

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 Oliver Optic

On the coppers, the value in öre is marked.

From Up The Baltic Young America in Norway, Sweden, and Denmark by Oliver Optic

The anxious countryman had got quit of his candle and received his sixty-three öre, and the commercial gentlemen had set to work upon the roast hare.

From Norse Tales and Sketches by Alexander Lange Kielland

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 Edwin Björkman

The Portland, Ore., resident had previously gotten promotional emails for Paze through Capital One and Chase, which she ignored.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 28, 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

She works for a consulting firm in Eugene, Ore., that helps nonprofits raise funding.

From MarketWatch ● Jun. 16, 2026

Mount Hood from Lost Lake Copyrighted photo by W. A. Raymond, Moro, Ore. The old Oregon, the Columbia of to-day, was the gateway to the Pacific for the explorers and the immigrants of yesterday.

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 George Palmer Putnam

Metal ores dug up during mining often contain sulfide minerals.

From Barron's ● Jul. 22, 2026

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

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

Related Words

• gold
• iron
• metal
• mineral
• platinum