Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. A member of a Muslim people of mixed Berber and Arab descent, now living chiefly in northwest Africa.
- n. One of the Muslims who invaded Spain in the 8th century and established a civilization in Andalusia that lasted until the late 15th century.
Wiktionary
- n. historical A member of an ancient Berber people from Numidia.
- n. historical A member of an Islamic people of Arab or Berber origin ruling Spain and parts of North Africa from the 8th to the 15th centuries.
- n. archaic A Muslim or a person from the Middle East or Africa.
- n. dated A person of mixed Arab and Berber ancestry inhabiting the Mediterranean coastline of northwest Africa.
- n. A person of an ethnic group speaking the Hassaniya language, mainly inhabiting Western Sahara, Mauritania, and parts of neighbouring countries (Morocco, Mali, Senegal etc.).
Etymologies
- French More, Maure; from the Latin Maurus, a Moor, meaning a Mauritanian, an inhabitant of Mauritania. Webster 1913 also says: Ancient Greek Μαῦρος; confer μαῦρος black, dark. Confer {Morris} a dance, {Morocco}. Morris dance is from the Middle English moreys daunce, “Moorish dance”. The Moroccan connection is doubtful, as Morocco is from Marrakech, itself from the Berber murt 'n akush, “the country of God”. (Wiktionary)
- Middle English More, from Old French, from Medieval Latin Mōrus, from Latin Maurus, Mauritanian, from Greek Mauros. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“Perhaps it was a baby wild cat of Bodmin Moor, who knows?”
“It is high on the edges of Bodmin Moor, north of the ancient market town of Bodmin.”
“Spanish named them indiscriminately _Mauros_, and _Moors_ they have been ever since; but the name Moor can be traced back as far as 23 A.D., when”
“Your typical Moor is a handsome fellow, characterised by marked dignity of demeanour, and distinctly intellectual.”
“And he called a Moor who spake the mixed language, and instructed him how to get out of the city by night, so that the”
“My husband and son were ready to go off-roading, and so we turned off onto what was really a goat superhighway on the side of Bodmin Moor, which, running at a higher gradient than the road we’d left behind, allowed us to watch the poor folk stuck in the jam as we whizzed by them.”
What My Dark Side Did On Holiday « Tales from the Reading Room
“My favorite is called Moor In A Shirt, a wonderful chocolate steamed pudding dressed in whipped cream the shirt from Germany.”
“His woolly hair and Negro-like appearance had already caused him to be called the Moor.”
“A Moor is a born sweet-tooth, and at every corner of the streets a board was stacked with creamy mixtures in which walnuts were embedded, with generously browned toffee full of almonds, with carmine-coloured sticks, with magenta squares of sweet peppermint, with blocks of nougat inches thick.”
“One set have round heads, barley-gold hair and wood-smoke-coloured eyes; they are slow and sunny and see fairies on Bodmin Moor.”
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