1. (used to connect words, phrases, or clauses representing alternatives): books or magazines; to be or not to be.
2. (used to connect alternative terms for the same thing): the Hawaiian, or Sandwich, Islands.
3. (used in correlation): either … or; or … or; whether … or.
4. (used to correct or rephrase what was previously said): His autobiography, or rather memoirs, will soon be ready for publication.
5. otherwise; or else: Be here on time, or we'll leave without you.
6. the connective used in disjunction.

1. before; ere.

1. the tincture, or metal, gold: represented either by gold or by yellow.

2. of the tincture, or metal, gold: a lion or.

1. a Boolean operator that returns a positive result when either or both operands are positive.

1. on (one's own) recognizance.
2. operating room.
3. operations research.
4. Oregon (approved especially for use with zip code).
5. owner's risk.

1. a suffix occurring in loanwords from Latin, directly or through Anglo-French, usually denoting a condition or property of things or persons (ardor; honor; horror; liquor; pallor; squalor; torpor; tremor), sometimes corresponding to qualitative adjectives ending in -id4 (horrid; pallid; squalid; torpid). A few other words that originally ended in different suffixes have been assimilated to this group (behavior; demeanor; glamour).

1. a suffix forming animate or inanimate agent nouns, occurring originally in loanwords from Anglo-French (debtor; lessor; tailor; traitor); it now functions in English as an orthographic variant of -er¹, usually joined to bases of Latin origin, in imitation of borrowed Latin words containing the suffix -tor (and its alternant -sor). The association with Latinate vocabulary may impart a learned look to the resultant formations, which often denote machines or other less tangible entities which behave in an agentlike way: descriptor; plexor; projector; repressor; sensor; tractor.

1. owner's risk.

1. used to join alternatives
2. used to join rephrasings of the same thing
3. used to join two alternatives when the first is preceded by either or whether
4. a few
5. or else See else (def. 3)
6. a poetic word for either or whether as the first element in correlatives, with or also preceding the second alternative

1. before; when

2. before

1. of the metal gold

1. operations research
2. Oregon
3. other ranks

1. a person or thing that does what is expressed by the verb

1. indicating state, condition, or activity
2. the US spelling of -our

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