oar
verbEtymology From Middle English ore (“oar”), from Old English ār, from Proto-West Germanic *airu, from Proto-Germanic *airō (“oar”). Cognate with Old Norse ár.
1
Literary To row; to travel with, or as if with, oars.
- The weather was fine, and whilst oaring along I would fain have landed on the islands between; but fearful of a change, and already half worn-out by my previous trail, I let them go by with the comforting resolve of turning them up on some future occasion.1866, Thomas S. Muir, Barra Head, page 52:
- Turning the long tables upside down — and there were twelve of them — they seated themselves, one behind another, within the upturned table tops as though they were boats and were about to oar their way into some fabulous ocean.1950, Mervyn Peake, Gormenghast, London: Eyre & Spottiswoode, →OCLC:
1 more example
- In Nopsca's theory, flight evolved as a means of running more quickly over the ground: "Birds originated from bipedal, long-tailed cursorial reptiles which during running oared along in the air by flapping their free anterior extremities."1996, Peter J. Bowler, Life's Splendid Drama:
- Derived terms
- easy-oar