Definition of Bore

  • (v. t.) To perforate or penetrate, as a solid body, by turning an auger, gimlet, drill, or other instrument; to make a round hole in or through; to pierce; as, to bore a plank.
  • (v. t.) To form or enlarge by means of a boring instrument or apparatus; as, to bore a steam cylinder or a gun barrel; to bore a hole.
  • (v. t.) To make (a passage) by laborious effort, as in boring; as, to bore one's way through a crowd; to force a narrow and difficult passage through.
  • (v. t.) To weary by tedious iteration or by dullness; to tire; to trouble; to vex; to annoy; to pester.
  • (v. t.) To befool; to trick.
  • (v. i.) To make a hole or perforation with, or as with, a boring instrument; to cut a circular hole by the rotary motion of a tool; as, to bore for water or oil (i. e., to sink a well by boring for water or oil); to bore with a gimlet; to bore into a tree (as insects).
  • (v. i.) To be pierced or penetrated by an instrument that cuts as it turns; as, this timber does not bore well, or is hard to bore.
  • (v. i.) To push forward in a certain direction with laborious effort.
  • (v. i.) To shoot out the nose or toss it in the air; -- said of a horse.
  • (n.) A hole made by boring; a perforation.
  • (n.) The internal cylindrical cavity of a gun, cannon, pistol, or other firearm, or of a pipe or tube.
  • (n.) The size of a hole; the interior diameter of a tube or gun barrel; the caliber.
  • (n.) A tool for making a hole by boring, as an auger.
  • (n.) Caliber; importance.
  • (n.) A person or thing that wearies by prolixity or dullness; a tiresome person or affair; any person or thing which causes ennui.
  • (n.) A tidal flood which regularly or occasionally rushes into certain rivers of peculiar configuration or location, in one or more waves which present a very abrupt front of considerable height, dangerous to shipping, as at the mouth of the Amazon, in South America, the Hoogly and Indus, in India, and the Tsien-tang, in China.
  • (n.) Less properly, a very high and rapid tidal flow, when not so abrupt, such as occurs at the Bay of Fundy and in the British Channel.
  • () imp. of 1st & 2d Bear.
  • (imp.) of Bear

Antonyms of Bore


Homophones of Bore