gore

Etymology 1

From Middle English gore, gor, gorre (“mud, muck”), from Old English gor (“dirt, dung, filth, muck”), from Proto-Germanic *gurą (“half-digested stomach contents; faeces; manure”), from Proto-Indo-European *gʷʰer- (“hot; warm”).

noun

1. Blood, especially that from a wound when thickened due to exposure to the air.
2. Murder, bloodshed, violence.
   The zombie scenes are reminiscent of what you might see on a show like The Walking Dead, short bursts of extreme violence and gore punctuating expository dialogue scenes where the survivors try to figure out how they’re going to get from point A to point B. February 23, 2017, Katie Rife, “The Girl With All The Gifts tries to put a fresh spin on overripe zombie clichés”, in The Onion AV Club
3. (obsolete except in dialects) Dirt; mud; filth.
   As a sowe waloweth in the stynkynge gore pytte, or in the puddell. 1508, John Fisher, Treatise concernynge […]the seven penytencyall Psalms

Etymology 2

From Middle English goren, from gore (“gore”), ultimately from Old English gār (“spear”), itself from Proto-Germanic *gaizaz, from Proto-Indo-European *ǵʰoysós. Related to gar and gore (“a projecting point”).

verb

1. (transitive, of an animal) To pierce with the horn.
   The bull gored the matador.
2. (transitive, obsolete) To pierce with anything pointed, such as a spear.

Etymology 3

From Middle English gore (“patch (of land, fabric), clothes”), from Old English gāra, from Proto-Germanic *gaizô.

noun

1. A triangular piece of land where roads meet.
   I have a number of these, but this gentleman up in the gore just below the arrow was traveling in the fast lane of 495. 1968, United States. Congress. House. Committee on Public Works. Special Subcommittee on the Federal-Aid Highway Program, Highway Safety, Design, and Operations, Freeway Signing and Related Geometrics, page 448
   With the addition of pavement marking arrows, erratic maneuvers such as lane changes through the gore and attempted lane changes decreased. 2010, John L. Campbell, Human Factors Guidelines for Road Systems, page 20-5
   Unfortunately, there will be situations where placement of a major obstruction in a gore is unavoidable. 2011, American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials, A Policy on Geometric Design of Highways and Streets, 2011, page 10-97
2. (surveying) A small piece of land left unincorporated due to competing surveys or a surveying error.
3. The curved surface that lies between two close lines of longitude on a globe
4. A triangular or rhomboid piece of fabric, especially one forming part of a three-dimensional surface such as a sail, skirt, hot-air balloon, etc.ᵂᵖ
5. An elastic gusset for providing a snug fit in a shoe.
6. A projecting point.
7. (heraldry) A charge, delineated by two inwardly curved lines, meeting in the fess point, considered an abatement.

verb

1. To cut in a triangular form.
2. To provide with a gore.
   to gore an apron
   If Miss McFlimsey has neat ankles, she can wear short dresses: if she has clumsy ones she can wear a trail; if she is inclined to be (pardon the word) “scrawny,” she can indulge in expensive skirts and protuberant “panniers;” if inclined to embonpoint, she can discard these and “gore” her robes; if her neck and arms are exquisitely moulded, she can undrape their dazzling charms; if bone predominates over plumpitude, she can cover them from the gaze of flying eyes; if she has a disease of the spine, she need not sport “the Grecian bend;” if she is unfortunately healthy, she can call in the aid of that modern deformity—and so on, ad infinitum and ad nauseum. 10 January 1869, “The Dress Question”, in Daily Missouri Republican, volume XLVII, number 9, St. Louis, Mo., [https://www.newspapers.com/newspage/666795749/ page [2]], column 3