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sore

Archaic Terms
Pronunciation

Understanding ARPABET Pronunciation

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The pronunciation guide uses the ARPABET phonetic system—the same system used in speech recognition and text-to-speech applications.

Vowel Examples:
AE1 = cat, bat
EH1 = bed, head
IY1 = see, me
OW1 = go, boat
UW1 = boot, do
Stress Numbers:
0 = no stress (unstressed)
1 = primary stress (loud)
2 = secondary stress (medium)
Example:
AH0 TH IY1 N AH0
= a-THEE-na (Athena)

The stressed syllable (marked with 1) is pronounced louder and clearer than others.

Quick Definition

Painful, grievous, or severe; also, a wound—functioning as adjective or noun to express physical or emotional suffering.

Detailed Definition
As adjective, “sore” intensifies suffering—sore heart, sore trial. As noun, it marks injury. In poetry, both appear: sore loss, festering sores. The term’s simplicity suits universal pain. Poets use it to explore physical and emotional wounds, where soreness reveals vulnerability, reinforcing themes of healing, endurance, and the body’s testimony in narrative and lyrical traditions.
Example
Example in poetry:
“Her heart was sore from parting,” in an elegiac line; In Shakespeare’s Sonnet 30: “And moan the expense of many a vanished sight”; “The wound was sore, but not mortal”; “Sore pressed by fate, he stood firm”; “Sore eyes see truth clearer”; The land was sore from war’s ravages.
Additional Notes
“Sore” as adjective intensifies pain or urgency (“sore distress”); in lament or battle poetry, it conveys both physical wounds and emotional anguish, often functioning as an adverb (“sore afraid”) in Early Modern syntax.
Also Known As
painful grievous aching Canker sair
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