Also 4 bare, 7–9 boar, 8 boer. [In sense 1, app. a. ON. bára wave, billow: it is doubtful whether sense 2 is the same word, since no examples even of its local use in early times have been found.]
† 1. ? Wave, billow. Obs. rare.
c. 1320. Sir Tristr., 356. Hye seyden: ȝond is þe lond, and here schaltow to bare.
2. A tide-wave of extraordinary height, caused either by the meeting of two tides, or by the rushing of the tide up a narrowing estuary. Cf. EAGRE. Also in comb., as † bore-loden (= -laden), swollen by a tidal wave.
1601. Weever, Mirr. Mart., B iv b. No bridge vpon her bore-lod’n bosome bore.
1613. Voy. Guiana, in Harl. Misc. (Malh.), III. 197. A boar, as the seamen term it, and violent encounter of two tides coming in.
1668. Phil. Trans., III. 816. All Vessels that lye in the way of the … Boar, are commonly overset. Ibid. (1738), XL. 432. He … suspects, that Spouts and Boars may derive their Origin from the same Cause.
1796. Burke, Regic. Peace, Wks. 1842, II. 383. The victorious tenth wave shall ride, like the bore, over all the rest.
1830. Lyell, Princ. Geol., I. 292. The Bristol Channel is very subject to the Bore.
