Wordie: Or: Comments

Comment by VanishedOne, about 1 month ago

Thu, 24 Jul 2008 15:41:20 +0000

It's hard to find a good citation for 'or' as a verb, but Googling produces quite a few cases of 'ORed together' or 'OR'd together'—as in, having the logical operator applied to make a combination.

Comment by chained_bear, about 1 year ago

Sun, 04 Feb 2007 18:17:45 +0000

In heraldry, it's or. My understanding is many medieval heraldry terms were bastardized from middle French.

Here's what the OED says:
Etymology: derived from Anglo-Norman and Middle French, French or gold (9th cent. in Old French, earliest in fig. sense ‘wealth, riches’), derived from classical Latin aurum gold (see AURO-).
1. Gold (the metallic element). Obs. rare.
1437 Rolls of Parl. IV. 503/2 It be lefull to the Maire and Citezeins of ye Citee of Lincoln..to shipp..lx sakkes of Wolle, withoute any Subsidee of the said v Nobles of or.
2. Heraldry. Gold or yellow in armorial blazoning. One of the two metals, the other being argent.

Comment by seanahan, about 1 year ago

Sun, 04 Feb 2007 17:29:51 +0000

Are you sure this is the spelling? In Latin, gold is "aurum" and in spanish, "oro", so this is probably a bastardized version of those.

Comment by chained_bear, about 1 year ago

Sun, 04 Feb 2007 15:51:46 +0000

a very useful conjunction indeed. Also used in medieval heraldry to indicate the color gold.