oar

Etymology

From Middle English ore (“oar”), from Old English ār, from Proto-West Germanic *airu, from Proto-Germanic *airō (“oar”). Cognate with Old Norse ár.

noun

1. A type of lever used to propel a boat, having a flat blade at one end and a handle at the other, and pivoted in a rowlock atop the gunwale, whereby a rower seated in the boat and pulling the handle can pass the blade through the water by repeated strokes against the water's resistance, thus moving the boat.
2. An oarsman; a rower.
   He is a good oar.
3. (zoology) An oar-like swimming organ of various invertebrates.

verb

1. (literary) To row; to travel with, or as if with, oars.
   The weather was fine, and whilst oaring along I would fain have landed on the islands between; but fearful of a change, and already half worn-out by my previous trail, I let them go by with the comforting resolve of turning them up on some future occasion. 1866, Thomas S. Muir, Barra Head, page 52
   In Nopsca's theory, flight evolved as a means of running more quickly over the ground: "Birds originated from bipedal, long-tailed cursorial reptiles which during running oared along in the air by flapping their free anterior extremities." 1996, Peter J. Bowler, Life's Splendid Drama