bore

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. v. To make a hole in or through, with or as if with a drill.
2. v. To form (a tunnel, for example) by drilling, digging, or burrowing.
3. v. To make a hole in or through something with or as if with a drill: "three types of protein that enable the cells to bore in and out of blood vessels” ( Elisabeth Rosenthal).
4. v. To proceed or advance steadily or laboriously: a destroyer boring through heavy seas.
5. n. A hole or passage made by or as if by use of a drill.
6. n. A hollow, usually cylindrical chamber or barrel, as of a firearm.
7. n. The interior diameter of a hole, tube, or cylinder.
8. n. The caliber of a firearm.
9. n. A drilling tool.
10. v. To make weary by being dull, repetitive, or tedious: The movie bored us.
11. n. One that is wearingly dull, repetitive, or tedious.
12. n. A high, often dangerous wave caused by the surge of a flood tide upstream in a narrowing estuary or by colliding tidal currents. Also called eagre.
13. v. Past tense of bear¹.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. To pierce or perforate with a rotatory cutting instrument; make a circular hole in by turning an auger, gimlet, drill, or anything that will produce the same effect: as, to bore a plank or a cannon; to bore the ground for water, or with a stick.
2. To form or produce by rotatory perforation: as, to bore a hole or a well.
3. To penetrate, make, or gain as if by boring; push or drive through or into by any penetrating action: as, to bore a plank, or a hole in a plank, with a rifle-ball.
4. To befool; trick; overreach.
5. To pierce or penetrate, as a gimlet or similar instrument; make a hole or holes: as, the auger bores well.
6. To sink a bore-hole, as in searching for water, coal, etc.
7. To be suited for piercing with an auger or other boring-tool: as, wood that bores well or ill.
8. To push forward or through toward a certain point: as, “boring to the west,”
9. In the manège, to thrust the head forward as far as possible: said of a horse. Synonyms Perforate, etc. See penetrate.
10. n. Any instrument for making holes by boring or turning, as an auger or gimlet.
11. n. A hollow hand-tool used in nail-making to hold a nail while its head is being formed.
12. n. A hole made by boring, or as if by boring: as, “an auger's bore,” Specifically A deep vertical perforation made in the earth in search of water, or to ascertain the nature of the underlying strata, as in searching for coal or other minerals; a bore-hole.
13. n. Hence The caliber or internal diameter of a hole or perforation, whether made by boring or not, especially of the cavity of a gun or tube.
14. n. A wound or thrust.
15. n. An abrupt tidal wave which breaks in an estuary, the water then rushing up the channel with great violence and noise. The tidal wave being a wave of translation, the shoaling and narrowing of channels where the tide rises very rapidly produce a great increase in the height of the wave. The forward parts of the wave, too, in shoaling water advance less rapidly than the backward parts, and so cause a great accumulation in front. The most celebrated bores in the old world are those of the Ganges, Indus, and Brahmaputra. The last is said to rise to a height of 12 feet. In the Amazon and other rivers in Brazil the bore reaches a height of from 12 to 16 feet. In England the bore is observed more especially in the Severn, Trent, and Wye, and in the Solway Frith. The bores in some bays at the head of the Bay of Fundy are very remarkable. In some parts of England it is called eager (which see); on the Amazon, the prororoca; on the Seine, the barre; and on the Garonne and Dordogne in France, the mascaret.
16. To weary by tedious iteration or repetition; tire, especially in conversation, by insufferable dullness; tease; annoy; pester.
17. In racing, to annoy or impede by crowding against or out of the way.
18. n. Ennui; a fit of ennui or listless disgust or weariness.
19. n. One who suffers from ennui.
20. n. One who or that which bores one, or causes ennui or annoyance; anything which by dullness taxes the patience, or otherwise causes trouble or annoyance; specifically, a dull, tiresome, or uncongenial person who tires or annoys by forcing his company or conversation on others, or who persists in uninteresting talk or undesired attentions.
21. n. Preterit of bear.
22. n. An obsolete spelling of boar.
23. n. A kind of cabbage; borecole.

Wiktionary

1. v. transitive To make a hole through something.
2. v. transitive To inspire boredom in somebody; to disinterest.
3. n. A hole drilled or milled through something, as in the bore of a cannon
4. n. The tunnel inside of a gun's barrel through which the bullet travels when fired
5. n. A capped well drilled to tap artesian water. The place where the well exists.
6. n. One who inspires boredom or lack of interest.
7. n. A sudden and rapid flow of tide in certain rivers and estuaries which rolls up as a wave; an eagre.
8. v. Simple past of bear.

GNU Webster's 1913

1. v. 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.
2. v. To form or enlarge by means of a boring instrument or apparatus.
3. v. To make (a passage) by laborious effort, as in boring; ; to force a narrow and difficult passage through.
4. v. To weary by tedious iteration or by dullness; to tire; to trouble; to vex; to annoy; to pester.
5. v. obsolete To befool; to trick.
6. v. 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.
7. v. To be pierced or penetrated by an instrument that cuts as it turns.
8. v. To push forward in a certain direction with laborious effort.
9. v. (Man.) To shoot out the nose or toss it in the air; -- said of a horse.
10. n. A hole made by boring; a perforation.
11. n. The internal cylindrical cavity of a gun, cannon, pistol, or other firearm, or of a pipe or tube.
12. n. The size of a hole; the interior diameter of a tube or gun barrel; the caliber.
13. n. A tool for making a hole by boring, as an auger.
14. n. obsolete Caliber; importance.
15. n. A person or thing that wearies by prolixity or dullness; a tiresome person or affair; any person or thing which causes ennui.
16. 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.
17. 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.
18. imp. of 1st & 2d bear.

WordNet 3.0

1. v. make a hole, especially with a pointed power or hand tool
2. n. a high wave (often dangerous) caused by tidal flow (as by colliding tidal currents or in a narrow estuary)
3. n. diameter of a tube or gun barrel
4. n. a hole or passage made by a drill; usually made for exploratory purposes
5. n. a person who evokes boredom
6. v. cause to be bored