Adjective: sore
Comparison Forms
Synthetic
| Comparative | sorer |
| Superlative | sorest |
Perifrastic
Sample Sentences
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Her feet were sore from walking so far.
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Malice and hatred are very fretting and vexatious, and apt to make our minds sore and uneasy. [1671, John Tillotson, “Sermon IV. The Advantages of Religion to Particular Persons. Psalm XIX. 11.”, in The Works of the Most Reverend Dr. John Tillotson, Late Lord Archbishop of Canterbury: […], London: […] B. Aylmer, […]; [a]nd W. Rogers, […], published 1696, →OCLC:]
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The school was in sore need of textbooks, theirs having been ruined in the flood.
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Joe was sore at Bob for beating him at checkers.
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“God damn it.” He was sore as hell. He was really furious. [1951 July 16, J[erome] D[avid] Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye, Boston, Mass.: Little, Brown and Company, →OCLC, page 53:]
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TfN is clearly very sore about last year's axing of part of HS2. [2024 May 1, “Network News: Do TfN and the DfT actually respect each other?”, in RAIL, number 1008, page 13:]
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[…]and your water is a sore decayer of your whoreson dead body. [c. 1599–1602 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmarke”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act V, scene i]:]
Adjectives inflected like sore
scarce,
smoove,
sombre,
wholsome,
sheene,
bolshie,
baroque,
concrete,
seveare,
comf'table,
shrewde,
'umble,
grislie,
unsubtle,
ungentle,
indiscrete,
couthie,
chavvie,
lissome,
cutesie, etc. (List truncated at 20 adjectives)
Etymology
1. From Middle English sor, from Old English sār (“ache, wound”, noun) and sār (“painful, grievous”, adjective), from Proto-West Germanic *sair, from Proto-Germanic *sairaz (adjective) from Proto-Indo-European *seh₂iro-, enlargement of *seh₂y- (“to be fierce, afflict”).
2. See also Dutch zeer (“sore, ache”), Danish sår (“wound”), German sehr (“very”); also Hittite [script needed] (sāwar, “anger”), Welsh hoed (“pain”), Ancient Greek αἱμωδία (haimōdía, “sensation of having teeth on edge”). See: Dutch Adjectives '
zeer'.
Verbs referencing "sore"
Finnish Adjectives
sairas, Latin Adjectives
saevus.