moor
MOOR · noun
Origin
Moor comes from Middle English mor, from Old English mōr, tracing back through Proto-West Germanic *mōr and Proto-Germanic *mōraz to Proto-Indo-European *móri.
This is Curio: one word's origin story, every morning. No feed, no backlog.
One short email each morning. Free; stop anytime. See a sample →
Journey
The word's deep root, *móri, is the same one behind words for 'sea' in other languages — though in English it settled into meaning open, boggy wasteland rather than water.
Related words
It's cognate with Welsh môr and Old Irish muir, both meaning 'sea,' as well as Dutch moer and German Moor — and it shares a root with the English word mere.