hoar

1. A white or greyish-white colour.
2. Hoariness; antiquity.

   His grants are engrafted on the public law of Europe, covered with the awful hoar of innumerable ages.

   1796, Edmund Burke, A Letter from the Right Honourable Edmund Burke to a Noble Lord, 10th edition, London: For J. Owen, and F. and C. Rivington, page 52

   Synonyms: agedness

1. not comparableOf a white or greyish-white colour.

   old trees with trunks all hoar

   1816, Lord Byron, “Canto III”, in Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage. Canto the Third, London: […] [F]or John Murray, […], →OCLC, stanza CI

   2 more examples

   So forth they rowèd; and that ferryman / With his stiff oars did brush the sea so strong, / That the hoar waters from his frigate ran, / And the light bubbles danced all along. / Whiles the salt brine out of the billows sprong.

   1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book II, Canto XII”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC, stanza 10

   Bright fell the moonlight on pillar and court and shattered wall, hiding all their rents and imperfections in its silver garment, and clothing their hoar majesty with the peculiar glory of the night.

   1886 October – 1887 January, H[enry] Rider Haggard, She: A History of Adventure, London: Longmans, Green, and Co., published 1887, →OCLC

   Synonyms: frosty

2. not comparablepoeticHoarily bearded.

   And lo, where rapt in beauty's heavenly dream Hoar Plato walks his olived Academe.

   1751, Thomas Warton, Newmarket, a Satire

   1 more example

   This is the forest primeval. The murmuring pines and the hemlocks, Bearded with moss, and in garments green, indistinct in the twilight, Stand like Druids of eld, with voices sad and prophetic, Stand like harpers hoar, with beards that rest on their bosoms.

   1847 November 1, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Evangeline, a Tale of Acadie, Boston, Mass.: William D. Ticknor & Company, →OCLC, (please specify either |part=I or II)

3. not comparableobsoleteMusty; mouldy; stale.

   But a hare that is hoar Is too much for a score When it hoars ere it be spent.

   c. 1591–1595 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Romeo and Ivliet”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act II, scene iv], line 134

4. archaicnot comparableFiguratively, grey or grey-haired with age; ancient, venerable.

   Be Thou with me until Old-age, and even to hoar hairs do Thou carrie me. P. Isa. 46.4.

   1648, Lancelot Andrewes, A manual of directions for the sick with many sweet meditations and devotions of the R. Reverend Father in God, Lancelot Andrews, late L. Bishop of Winchester: to which are added praiers for the morning, evening and H. communion, page 202

   2 more examples

   Oft list'ning how the hounds and horn Cheerly rouse the slumb'ring morn, From the side of some hoar hill, Through the high wood echoing shrill.

   1645, John Milton, L'Allegro

   The great popularity of the Stuarts—certainly more allied to personal causes than we can at present calculate—is a curious fact. It was not one of those feelings drawn from hoar antiquity, when habit has become religion.

   1834, L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], chapter XVI, in Francesca Carrara. […], volume I, London: Richard Bentley, […], (successor to Henry Colburn), →OCLC, page 173

present singular third person hoars · participle present hoaring · participle past hoared · past hoared

1. intransitiveobsoleteTo become mouldy or musty.

   But a hare that is hoar / Is too much for a score / When it hoars ere it be spent.

   c. 1591–1595 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Romeo and Ivliet”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act II, scene iv], line 136

plural Hoars · alternative Hoare

1. A surname.