sore

Etymology 1

From Middle English sor, from Old English sār (“ache, wound”, noun) and sār (“painful, grievous”, adjective), from Proto-West Germanic *sair, from Proto-Germanic *sairaz (adjective) from Proto-Indo-European *sh₂eyro-, enlargement of *sh₂ey- (“to be fierce, afflict”). See also Dutch zeer (“sore, ache”), Danish sår (“wound”), German sehr (“very”); also Hittite [script needed] (sāwar, “anger”), Welsh hoed (“pain”), Ancient Greek αἱμωδία (haimōdía, “sensation of having teeth on edge”).

adj

1. Causing pain or discomfort; painfully sensitive.
   Her feet were sore from walking so far.
2. Sensitive; tender; easily pained, grieved, or vexed; very susceptible of irritation.
3. Dire; distressing.
   The school was in sore need of textbooks, theirs having been ruined in the flood.
4. (informal) Feeling animosity towards someone; annoyed or angered.
   Joe was sore at Bob for beating him at checkers.
5. (obsolete) Criminal; wrong; evil.

adv

1. (archaic) Very, excessively, extremely (of something bad).
2. Sorely.
   And indeed I blamed myself and sore repented me of having taken compassion on him and continued in this condition, suffering fatigue not to be described, […] 1885, Richard F. Burton, The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night
   [… they] were often sore pressed to follow the trail at all, and at best were so delayed that in the afternoon of the second day, they still had not overhauled the fugitive. 1919, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Jungle Tales of Tarzan

noun

1. An injured, infected, inflamed or diseased patch of skin.
   They put ointment and a bandage on the sore.
2. Grief; affliction; trouble; difficulty.

verb

1. (transitive) To mutilate the legs or feet of (a horse) in order to induce a particular gait.

Etymology 2

From Middle English sor (“sorrel”), from Old French sor (“sorrel; reddish”). Compare French saur (“(archaic) reddish-brown; describing a young bird of prey”).

noun

1. A young hawk or falcon in its first year.
   Of the soare faulcon so I learn to fly 1596, Edmund Spenser, An Hymne of Heavenly Beautie
2. A young buck in its fourth year.