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pore

POR · noun

Ancient GreekLatinOld FrenchMiddle EnglishEnglish

Origin

From Middle English pore, from Old French pore, from Latin porus, from Ancient Greek póros, meaning 'passage.' This word displaced the native English term 'sweat hole,' from Old English swātþȳrel, which itself competed with līcþēote, literally 'body pipe.'

Journey

The word arrived through French and Latin carrying the Greek sense of a 'passage,' and it eventually pushed out the older, plainer English term for the same thing on the skin.

Related words

There's also an unrelated verb 'pore,' as in 'pore over a book,' which comes from a separate Old English root meaning 'to gaze intently' — a coincidence of spelling rather than shared history.

More words

From Ancient Greek

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