- (used to connect words, phrases, or clauses representing alternatives): books or magazines; to be or not to be.
- (used to connect alternative terms for the same thing): the Hawaiian, or Sandwich, Islands.
- (used in correlation): either … or; or … or; whether … or.
- (used to correct or rephrase what was previously said): His autobiography, or rather memoirs, will soon be ready for publication.
- otherwise; or else: Be here on time, or we'll leave without you.
- the connective used in disjunction.
- the tincture, or metal, gold: represented either by gold or by yellow.
- of the tincture, or metal, gold: a lion or.
- a Boolean operator that returns a positive result when either or both operands are positive.
- on (one's own) recognizance.
- operating room.
- operations research.
- Oregon (approved especially for use with zip code).
- owner's risk.
- 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).
- 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.
- owner's risk.
- used to join alternatives
- used to join rephrasings of the same thing
- used to join two alternatives when the first is preceded by either or whether
- a few
- or else See else (def. 3)
- a poetic word for either or whether as the first element in correlatives, with or also preceding the second alternative
- before; when
- before
- of the metal gold
- operations research
- Oregon
- other ranks
- a person or thing that does what is expressed by the verb
- indicating state, condition, or activity
- the US spelling of -our