hoar

noun

1. A white or greyish-white colour.
2. Hoariness; antiquity.

   “His grants are engrafted on the public law of Europe, covered with the awful hoar of innumerable ages.”

adj

1. (not-comparable)Of a white or greyish-white colour.

   “So forth they rowèd; and that ferryman / With his stiff oars did brush the sea so strong, / That the hoar waters from his frigate ran, / And the light bubbles danced all along. / Whiles the salt brine out of the billows sprong.”

   “old trees with trunks all hoar”

   “Bright fell the moonlight on pillar and court and shattered wall, hiding all their rents and imperfections in its silver garment, and clothing their hoar majesty with the peculiar glory of the night.”

2. (not-comparable, poetic)Hoarily bearded.

   “And lo, where rapt in beauty's heavenly dream Hoar Plato walks his olived Academe.”

   “This is the forest primeval. The murmuring pines and the hemlocks, Bearded with moss, and in garments green, indistinct in the twilight, Stand like Druids of eld, with voices sad and prophetic, Stand like harpers hoar, with beards that rest on their bosoms.”

3. (not-comparable, obsolete)Musty; mouldy; stale.

   “But a hare that is hoar / Is too much for a score / When it hoars ere it be spent.”

4. (archaic, not-comparable)Figuratively, grey-haired with age.

   “Be Thou with me until Old-age, and even to hoar hairs do Thou carrie me. P. Isa. 46.4.”

   “The great popularity of the Stuarts—certainly more allied to personal causes than we can at present calculate—is a curious fact. It was not one of those feelings drawn from hoar antiquity, when habit has become religion.”

verb

1. (intransitive, obsolete)To become mouldy or musty.

   “But a hare that is hoar / Is too much for a score / When it hoars ere it be spent.”

name

1. A surname.