oar
/oɹ/noun, verb
oar is spelled O-A-R: 3 letters and one syllable. It appears about once in every 1 million words in written English, the 33,236th most frequent word form (wordfreq, 2021 data). People search “oar vs ore” about 70 times a month (Google, United States). As a noun, oar means “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…” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). The plural of oar is oars.
How many letters and syllables are in oar?
| Letters | 3: O-A-R |
|---|---|
| Syllables | 1 (from its American pronunciation) |
| In writing | about once in every 1 million words; the 33,236th most frequent word form |
| Wrong spellings searched | none measured in search |
| Pairs people search | |
| Sounds like | |
| Rhymes with | |
| Same letters |
Sources: letters and syllables from the English Wiktionary's hyphenation or pronunciation and the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary; written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media); Bing searches in the United States: the average month from September 2025 to August 2026 (Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, read September 30, 2026); rhymes and same-letter words are computed by PlainSpell from its own word list.
How common is oar?
Oar appears about once in every 1 million words in written English, the 33,236th most frequent word form in the list.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
How do you pronounce oar?
- UK /ɔː/
- US /oɹ/
- /oə/
Oar has one syllable (counted from its American pronunciation in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary).
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: En-us-oar.ogg, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
Words people confuse with oar
Word pairs people search, with the monthly searches for “a vs b” (G: Google, B: Bing, United States).
Sounds like: aw, awe, o'er, or, ore (Wiktionary's homophone list; some hold only in some accents).
Sources: Google and Bing searches (September 2025 to August 2026, through DataForSEO); English Wiktionary (homophones, alternative spellings).
What rhymes with oar?
The 12 most written words on PlainSpell end in the same sounds as oar from its last stressed vowel (/oɹ/):
Spelled with the same letters in another order: ora, aro.
Computed by PlainSpell from the pronunciations in the English Wiktionary (dump of September 2, 2026): a rhyme shares every sound from the last stressed vowel to the end; ordered by written frequency (wordfreq 3.1).
Forms of oar
- oars plural, present, singular, he/she/it
- oaring participle, present
- oared participle, past
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
What does oar mean?
The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).
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
An oar-like swimming organ of various invertebrates.
verb
- 1
To row; to travel with, or as if with, oars.
noun
- 1
Initialism of original aspect ratio.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Oar in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
In the sense implement used to row a boat:
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.
Where does oar come from?
From Middle English ore (“oar”), from Old English ār, from Proto-West Germanic *airu, from Proto-Germanic *airō (“oar”). Cognate with Old Norse ár.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).