Etymology

oar

O1A1R1

Today it means: A type of lever used to propel a boat, having a flat blade at one end and a handle at the other, and pivoted in a rowlock atop the gunwale, whereby a rower seated in the boat and pulling the handle can pass the blade through the water by repeated strokes against the water's resistance, thus moving the boat. Full definition →

Middle English ore ← Old English ār ← Proto-West Germanic *airu
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The story

  1. Proto-Germanic · inherited from*airō“oar”
  2. Proto-West Germanic · inherited from*airu
  3. Old English · inherited fromār
  4. Middle English · inherited fromore“oar”
  5. English todayoar

From Middle English ore (“oar”), from Old English ār, from Proto-West Germanic *airu, from Proto-Germanic *airō (“oar”). Cognate with Old Norse ár.

Words from the same roots

Old Englishār all →

or

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.