yore

From Middle English yore, yoare, yare, ȝore, ȝare, ȝeare, from Old English ġeāra (literally “of years”), from Proto-Germanic *jērǫ̂, the genitive plural of Proto-Germanic *jērą (“year”). More at year.

• (Received Pronunciation) enPR: yô, IPA^(key): /jɔː/
• (General American) enPR: yôr, IPA^(key): /jɔɹ/

  • Audio (US)

    (file)

• (rhotic, without the horse–hoarse merger) enPR: yōr, IPA^(key): /jo(ː)ɹ/
• (non-rhotic, without the horse–hoarse merger) IPA^(key): /joə/
• Rhymes: -ɔː(ɹ)
• Homophones: your, you're (accents with the pour–poor merger); yaw (non-rhotic accents with the horse–hoarse merger)

yore (uncountable)

1. (poetic) time long past.

   This word comes from the days of yore.

   • 1886-88, Richard F. Burton, The Supplemental Nights to the Thousand Nights and a Night:

     In days of yore and times long gone before there was a Sultan of India who begat three sons; the eldest hight Prince Husayn, the second Prince Ali, and the youngest Prince Ahmad; moreover he had a niece, named Princess Nur al-Nihár, the daughter of his cadet brother who, dying early, left his only child under her uncle's charge.

A fossil; not used outside the phrase of yore, especially the idiom days of yore.

yore (not comparable)

1. (obsolete) In time long past; long ago.
   • Spenser

     Which though he hath polluted oft and yore, / Yet I to them for judgment just do fly.

• Roye, oyer, yero