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Origin and history of yore

yore(adv.)

"at a long time past, long ago," Middle English, from Old English geara "of yore, formerly, in former times," literally "of years," originally adverbial genitive plural of gear (see year), and used without of. As a noun, "the past," from mid-14c.

Entries linking to yore

year(n.)

"a full round of seasons, the interval between equinoxes, the time occupied by the sun in passage through the zodiac," Middle English yer, from Old English gear (West Saxon), ger (Anglian) "year," from Proto-Germanic *jēr "year," reconstructed to be from PIE root *yer- "year, season," probably [Watkins] originally "that which makes [a complete cycle]," and from verbal root meaning "to do, make."

Also by Middle English as "any space of about 365 days or 12 calendrical months, without regard to starting point. Years as "period of life" is by early 13c.

Germanic cognates include Old Saxon, Old High German jar, Old Norse ar, Danish aar, Old Frisian ger, Dutch jaar, German Jahr, Gothic jer "year." IE cognates outside Germanic include Avestan yare (nominative singular) "year;" Greek hōra "year, season, any part of a year," also "any part of a day, hour;" Old Church Slavonic jaru, Bohemian jaro "spring;" Latin hornus "of this year;" Old Persian dušiyaram "famine," literally "bad year."

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    Trends of yore

    adapted from books.google.com/ngrams/ with a 7-year moving average; ngrams are probably unreliable.

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    Wyoming
    may I thy lost delights recall, And paint thy Gertrude in her bowers of yore, Whose beauty was the love of Pennsylvania's...
    past
    early 14c., "done with, over, existing no more," a variant of passed, past participle of passen "go by" (see pass (v.)). Meaning "gone by, belonging to a time previous to this" is from mid-14c. The grammatical sense of "expressing past action or state" is from 1520s; past partici
    taps
    U.S. military signal for lights out in soldiers' quarters (played 15 minutes after tattoo), by 1824, from plural of tap (n.2), on the notion of drum taps (the call originally was played on a drum, later on a bugle). As a soldier's last farewell, played over the grave, it may date
    gear
    c. 1200, "fighting equipment, armor and weapons," probably from Old Norse gørvi (plural gørvar) "apparel, gear," related to görr, gørr, gerr "skilled, accomplished; ready, willing," and to gøra, gørva "to make, construct, build; set in order, prepare," a very frequent verb in Old
    authentic
    mid-14c., autentik, "authoritative, duly authorized" (a sense now obsolete), from Old French autentique "authentic; canonical" (13c., Modern French authentique) and directly from Medieval Latin authenticus, from Greek authentikos "original, genuine, principal," from authentes "on
    weird
    c. 1400, "having power to control fate," from wierd (n.), from Old English wyrd "fate, chance, fortune; destiny; the Fates," literally "that which comes," from Proto-Germanic *wurthiz (source also of Old Saxon wurd, Old High German wurt "fate," Old Norse urðr "fate, one of the th
    prosperous
    early 15c., "favorable, auspicious, tending to bring success;" late 15c., "flourishing, successful, making good progress in anything good or desirable;" from Anglo-French prosperous, prospereus, Anglo-Latin prosperosus, or directly from Old French prospereus (15c.), from prospere
    quandary
    "state of great difficulty or perplexity," 1570s, a word of unknown origin and even the pronunciation is unsettled in old dictionaries (it seems to have been originally accented on the second syllable). Perhaps it is a quasi-Latinism based on Latin quando "when? at what time?; at
    butterfly
    common name of any lepidopterous insect active in daylight, Old English buttorfleoge, evidently butter (n.) + fly (n.), but the name is of obscure signification. Perhaps based on the old notion that the insects (or, according to Grimm, witches disguised as butterflies) consume bu
    halcyon
    "calm, quiet, peaceful," 1540s, in halcyon dayes (translating Latin alcyonei dies, Greek alkyonides hemerai), 14 days of calm weather at the winter solstice, when a mythical bird (also identified with the kingfisher) was said to breed in a nest floating on calm seas. The name of

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