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Make Your Point > Archived Issues > PORE

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pronounce PORE:

POOR
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connect this word to others:

If you pore over your textbooks, or pore through your notes, you're studying hard: to pore over something is to look at it or examine it very carefully or deeply.

That word pore is a handy one to know. I'll argue that it's much clearer than the synonym per___, which, troublingly, can mean either "to read slowly and carefully" or "to skim quickly and hastily." Can you recall it?

(To reveal any word with blanks, give it a click.)    

definition:

The verb "pore" dates way, way back to Old English, but beyond that, we're not sure where it came from. (It appears to be unrelated to the noun "pore," meaning "a tiny hole.")

To pore over or through things is to look at them, read them, or think about them extremely carefully, often for a long time.

grammatical bits:

Part of speech:

Verb, the intransitive kind: "We pored through the boxes of old photos, hoping to find the ones Dad was missing."

Other forms: 

Pored, poring.

how to use it:

Pick the verb "pore" when you want to strike a formal, serious, literary tone as you emphasize how earnestly someone is studying, or learning, or looking for information.

Say that someone is poring over or through some materials. It's an intense thing to do. That intensity might be the scholarly kind: "Hermione spends her weekends in the library, poring over old books." Or the romantic kind: "Every time I received a letter from him, I'd pore over it again and again." Or the desperate kind: "He pored through his business records, slowly realizing just how much had been stolen from him."

examples:

"For over a week I pored over electron micrographs of muscle and collagen fibers, looking for hints of helices."
— James D. Watson, The Double Helix, 1968

"Bobby pored over Buschke's [chess books] for hours, looking for that one book, that one magazine, that one luminous game that might lead him to enlightenment."
— Frank Brady, Endgame: The Spectacular Rise and Fall of Bobby Fischer, 2011

has this page helped you understand "pore"?

   

Awesome, I'm glad it helped!

Thanks for letting me know!
If you have any questions about this word, please message me at Liesl@HiloTutor.com.


study it:

Explain the meaning of "pore" without saying "study deeply" or "examine closely."

try it out:

Fill in the blanks: "(At a certain time), (someone) pored over (some kind of book or other material)."

Example 1: "After the book fair in second grade, I pored over my slender new paperback of poems by Edgar Allan Poe, which I could barely understand but loved furiously."

Example 2: "Barack sat up late at night, poring over briefings and drafts of speeches in the Treaty Room."
— Michelle Obama, Becoming, 2018




before you review, play:

Try to spend 20 seconds or more on the game below. Don’t skip straight to the review—first, let your working memory empty out.

Our game for April is "Interpret the Titles: Tim Curry Edition!"

Are you a fan of Tim Curry? (How could anyone not be?) Did you know his birthday is in April? I didn't until I looked it up, but it’s the perfect excuse to base this month's game on his filmography. 

I'll give you the title of some show, movie, or video game that Tim Curry has starred in, along with a summary, and I'll challenge you to interpret the title in three different ways.

To see some examples, and some tips if you get stuck, head here!

Try this one today: "Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3" is a 2008 video game, starring Tim Curry as Premier Anatoly Cherdenko. According to Steam.com, in the game, "The desperate leadership of a doomed Soviet Union travels back in time to change history and restore the glory of Mother Russia. The time travel mission goes awry... The Empire of the Rising Sun has risen in the East, making World War III a three-way struggle between the Soviets, the Allies, and the Empire with armies fielding wacky and wonderful weapons and technologies like Tesla coils, heavily armed War Blimps, teleportation, armored bears, intelligent dolphins, floating island fortresses, and transforming tanks."

1. It's titled "Red Alert 3" because... ?

2. It's titled "Red Alert 3" because... ?

3. It's titled "Red Alert 3" because... ? To see some possible answers, scroll all the way down!

review this word:

1. A near opposite of PORE, the verb, is

A. SKIM.
B. CREATE.
C. UPDATE.

2. In Lisa Klein's Ophelia, the title character refers to a certain book as "_____," one that she "pored over with ever growing _____."

A. a task more despicable than murder .. disgust
B. a treasure more valuable than gold .. fascination
C. a chore duller than churning butter .. indifference




Answers to the review questions:
1. A
2. B

Possible answers to the game question:

1. It's titled "Red Alert 3" because it's the third installment of the Red Alert series.

2. It's titled "Red Alert 3" because it involves three world superpowers.

3. It's titled "Red Alert 3" because you'll likely experience an enemy attack at any moment.

4. It's titled "Red Alert 3" because the whole world is in a constant state of crisis.



a final word:


I hope you're enjoying Make Your Point. It's made with love.

I'm Liesl Johnson, a reading and writing tutor on a mission to explore, illuminate, and celebrate words.


From my blog:
On vocabulary...
      36 ways to study words.
      Why we forget words, & how to remember them.
      How to use sophisticated words without being awkward.
On writing...
      How to improve any sentence.
      How to motivate our kids to write.
      How to stop procrastinating and start writing.
      How to bulk up your writing when you have to meet a word count.

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A disclaimer: When I write definitions, I use plain language and stick to the words' common, useful applications. If you're interested in authoritative and multiple definitions of words, I encourage you to check a dictionary. Also, because I'm American, I stick to American English when I share words' meanings, usage, and pronunciations; these elements sometimes vary across world Englishes.

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