shore up

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English

WOTD – 29 November 2021

Etymology

From shore (“to provide with support”) + up. Shore is derived from Late Middle English shoren (“to prop, to support”) ,[1][2] from shore (“a prop, a support”) ,[3] + -en (suffix forming the infinitive form of verbs);[4] while shore (noun) is from Middle Dutch schore, schare (“a prop, a stay”) (modern Dutch schoor), and Middle Low German schōre, schāre (“a prop, a stay; barrier; stockade”) (compare Old Norse skorða (“a prop, a stay”) (Norwegian skor, skorda)); further etymology unknown.[5]

Pronunciation

Verb

shore up (third-person singular simple present shores up, present participle shoring up, simple past and past participle shored up)

  1. (transitive, often figuratively) To reinforce or strengthen (something at risk of failure).
    Synonyms: (rare) embolster, prop up, underfoot, undergird, underpin, underprop, underset
    They hastened outside between storms to shore up the damaged fence.
    He needed something bold and dramatic to shore up his failing candidacy.
    I shored up a geranium with earth after it had flopped over.
    • 1892, Mark Twain [pseudonym; Samuel Langhorne Clemens], chapter XXII, in The American Claimant, New York, N.Y.: Charles L Webster & Co., →OCLC, pages 233–234:
      This answer fell just at the right time and just in the right place, to save the poor unstable young man from changing his political complexion once more. He had been on the point of beginning to totter again, but this prop shored him up and kept him from floundering back into democracy and re-renouncing aristocracy.
    • 2011 October 20, Jamie Lillywhite, “Tottenham 1 – 0 Rubin Kazan”, in BBC Sport‎, archived from the original on 30 August 2021:
      Redknapp was determined to secure victory and sent on Younes Kaboul and star playmaker Luka Modric to shore things up.
    • 2018, Marcus Chown, Infinity in the Palm of Your Hand ‎, Michael O'Mara Books, →ISBN:
      However, in 1998, the Argentinean-American physicist Juan Maldacena published a paper that shored up the idea that we live in a ‘holographic universe’ and set the world of physics alight.
    • 2022 October 19, “Suella Braverman forced to resign as UK home secretary”, in The Guardian‎:
      [Liz Truss] had cleared her diary and called off a planned visit amid desperate attempts to shore up her premiership, before speaking to Braverman at a meeting in the House of Commons, sources said.

Translations

References

  1. ^ “shōren, v.(1)”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007.
  2. ^ Compare “shore, v.1”, in OED Online Paid subscription required⁠, Oxford: Oxford University Press, March 2021; “shore2, v.”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.
  3. ^ “shōre, n.(3)”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007.
  4. ^ “-en, suf.(3)”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007.
  5. ^ “shore, n.3”, in OED Online Paid subscription required⁠, Oxford: Oxford University Press, March 2021; “shore2, n.”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.

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